Finished Quilt

My sister and I joined forces to make a baby quilt for our nephew's baby who will be born in February.  My sister sewed the quilt top from a kit from Cherished Pieces and did a great job. When I did the pin basting it laid completely flat which doesn't often happen with my quilt tops!

I free motion quilted vertical strings of hearts in the centre panel. The stitch length was an issue since I was quilting too fast (as usual) because it was fun!

I quilted simple straight line Xs through the border squares. The fabric was so adorable and I had warm fuzzy feelings the whole time I worked on this quilt.

We were pretty excited that the quilt was actually finished in time for the baby shower! We also put the book that inspired this fabric line into the gift bag with the quilt.  We are all so excited for this baby to come and I am predicting it will be born on my brother's birthday in February. We shall see!

This is my first finish of 2023! Woohoo! 

Finished size: 40" x 50"

Linking up to Alycia's Finished (or not) Friday

New Project

At quilt retreat in February a quilting friend gave me a bag that contained some selvages and two long alphabet themed strips. I pinned the strips on the design wall and found some Lori Holt fabrics in the stash that matched... and I thought about what I might like to sew.

There was not much space between the letter blocks to accommodate seam allowances, but I went ahead and cut them apart anyway and sewed alternating gingham squares from the Lori Holt Bee Basics fabric. This is how it looked with the blocks sewn into rows.

Some extra ginghams were added in on the edges and then the rows were joined together.
I wish there was more of the red around each letter block.
Oh well.. it's still a cute little doll quilt.
Now what for borders?
I added gingham squares on the right and bottom since there were not enough to go all around the quilt.

Here is the finished quilt top and this photo shows the accurate daytime  colours.

I love the multi colour striped hearts and dots sashing fabric which is a Me and My Sister Moda fabric. 

Finished quilt top 
measures 26" x 36". 

Here's the adorable selvage edge with these sweet bunnies!
Can't wait to sew that into something! 

Linking up to the Design Wall Monday post at Small Quilts.

Baby Quilt Top

It's always a good thing to have baby quilts on hand because you just never know when you will need a baby gift.
It seems that most of the babies born in my social circle recently have been baby boys, and still I needed one more boy quilt.
I bought 2 charm packs on sale and found 2 grey fabrics (light star yardage and 2 dark fat quarters) with no actual plan in mind. It's a challenging way to make a quilt which I don't do very often, but eventually a plan came together in my mind while I was at quilt retreat.

This is how the growing quilt top looked when we went for lunch. It was looking like a hot mess! You can see the little tiny blocks on the sewing machine bed that I was piecing in between the major projects. They are so darn cute and distracting to me... must focus on baby quilt!

I decided just to frame the charm squares and made a layout of 5 blocks across and 6 blocks down, using the 3 frame fabric colours (dark grey, light grey and white) to make a diagonal block layout.

And then we went outside to find a "design wall" to photograph it on. You can see that the daffodils are up and the buds are just starting to come out on the trees.


I have been debating about adding a border or not. I think it's big enough for a baby quilt, but does it need a border? I have some white and light grey fabric left.

To see more design wall postings, hop over to Small Quilts.

Finished Baby Quilt

It's finally done! The baby arrived in February and I really wanted to get this quilt to him before he got too big for it!

This quilt was made with fabrics that I received from the estate of the baby's great grandmother when she died. I used the bonus HST blocks cut off from the star points to make the flying geese border. I really like the effect of the border and am happy with how the quilt turned out. 
You can read more about the machine quilting here.
The pattern is called Shadow Stars and I highly recommend it.

This is the label I made for the quilt. I found a brand new baby robin's egg when I was out for a walk on the day I gave the baby quilt to it's new owner!


Here is a photo of me at  guild meeting showing my March UFO finish and the baby quilt. Thanks MaryAnne for taking the photo and sending it to me!

Ugly Baby Quilt

I have been working on a baby quilt made from a pattern called Shadow Stars by Tied With a Ribbon. 

sawtooth star blocks being sewn on white featherweight

My daughter made it clear that she does not like this quilt, and I have to admit that her expressed dislike of the result of my efforts did take a bit of the "wind out of my sails" when I was working on it. 

I made this quilt using fabrics given to me from my friend Helen's stash after she died. Helen would have been this new baby boy's Great Grandmother had she lived to see the day, so I do hope that it means something special to the family that this quilt is NOT made with the newest, most beautiful, colour coordinated modern fabrics. 

Not all quilts can be showstoppers, right?!? 
This will be a drag around, take to the beach, "use it up until it's thread bare" kind of quilt. 

Next I am trimming the 160 bonus HST blocks from the sawtooth star points and plan to use them in a border to make the quilt a little larger.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts.

It's a Finish!

Baby quilt #2 for my friend is finished! 
The pattern is called "Through the Looking Glass" by "It's Sew Emma" and it measures 38.5" x 42.5".
I used up some of the smaller scraps in the backing of the quilt but I forgot to take a picture of that.
What is cuter than a baby quilt?
A baby on a quilt!
And what is cuter than a baby on a quilt?
TWO babies on quilts! 
Here are the babies on their quilts. It's been a long time since I've seen such tiny humans and they are total sweetness! I can't wait until their Mommy recovers more and I can have a longer visit to cuddle them in their quilts.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends who are spending time with family and friends today!

Whipping up a baby quilt

A friend of mine just had twins... baby #3 and #4. 
Of course they needed their very own quilts.
Baby boy is getting the Berenstain Bears quilt that I finished last month and Baby girl is getting this quilt that I have been working on this week. I've had everything since the spring quilt retreat but of course I procrastinated it until the babies arrived and the quilts weren't ready!

The pattern I used is called "Through the Looking Glass" from Sew Emma. The main fabric is an adorable owl print from Robert Kaufman.

Here is the quilt top. It was quick and easy to put together and before I knew it,
I was already pin basting the backing, batting and quilt top sandwich and it was ready to quilt.
Baby quilts are so fun to make!
Linking up to the Baby Quilt Party

Finished Baby Quilt

The Berenstain Bears baby quilt is finally finished! The finishing of this quilt was upstaged by the other UFO finish last week, but now it's finally done.
The pattern is called "Arrows Up" and is by Jackie Seyer at FRJ designs. I pieced the quilt in 2014 and when it had marinated in the UFO closet long enough, I started the quilting!
Even though I am trying to be okay with "random layout", the places where there are clumps of colour bug me when I look at it. I remind myself again that "random" does not mean "evenly placed"! And I also tell myself that the baby won't care about exact colour placement.

Does this darkened photo show the quilting lines better?
I did stop machine quilting before the quilt became as stiff as cardboard (as advised by my blog readers!) 
It's now ready for another baby to be born! 
And I'm ready to finish up another quilt!

Baby Quilt

A friend of mine is having twins soon and so of course baby quilts will be needed! I looked through the UFO closet and pulled out this older Berenstain Bears quilt top. The pattern is called "Arrows Up" and is by Jackie Seyer. This project hasn't been seen on the blog for almost 3 years. It fell into the UFO closet because at the time I thought it was very busy and frenetic looking, and I was going to add some borders to try to calm it down a bit.

But now I have decided it's the perfect size and wildness for a new baby quilt. I pieced a backing from that yellow fabric and some odd leftover pieces. Isn't that a great selvage edge on that fabric? 
I have the Aurifil thread all ready to go... white on top and variegated yellow in the bobbin. It's pin basted and ready for "quilt as desired"!

Finished Quilt Top

Top secret Santa projects are being worked on in the studio, so I can't show you pictures of what this little quilty elf is up to. Sewing, sewing, and more sewing, with only one more week until Christmas!
I am also doing some finishing up of projects here and there.
Can you guess which quilt these blocks are for?
They are the corner blocks for the borders of the little letter quilt by Temecula. 



The pattern is still on their website if you want to make it now, or print out the patterns to sew another time. It is a really fun child's quilt to sew. It's going on the pile to "to-be-quilted" in 2015. 
It's a big pile!
Did you notice I put up the design wall lights for decoration?!?!

Quilty Love

My neighbours recently had a baby girl. 
I was delighted that the baby was a girl because I just happened to have a (prize winning) baby girl quilt all ready for her! 



Both Mom and baby had a very difficult time with the delivery, and Mom is still recovering. So of course I offered my free babysitting services and have had the pleasure of many hours of cuddling this sweetness.
How could you resist?
She is the most beautiful, tiniest, perfect little human!


She is over 6 pounds now and swims in her newborn sleeper. The baby quilt seems enormous, but she will grow into it! 
I love how she sleeps with her arms up!
This photo shows the starry flannel backing and the striped binding on her quilt.
Deep sigh... I love babies (especially this one) and love making baby quilts!!

Design Wall Monday - Baby Quilt

On my design wall today is a baby quilt made from Robert Kaufman flannels from the Daisy Love collection. These are such lovely flannels, so plush and soft, and washed up amazingly well. They are a joy to work with.
However, these are sooooooo not my colours! I think the quilt looks ugly, and just want to be done with it as soon as possible!
My plan is to finish 3 baby quilts (the first one is here) for my neighbour to pick from when her baby arrives. I am betting on a boy, but the Grandma-to-be is sure it's a girl (because she already has 3 grandsons!) I am anxious to move on to quilt #3 which will be made from fabrics that I really like!
To see more design walls, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday - Finished Quilt!

On my wall today is a finished baby quilt... woohoo!

I finished binding it late last night, so the colours are not right in the photo, but I am very happy with this finish and wanted to share it today. I will get better photos when the sun is up.

Now I am ready for the neighbour's baby to arrive ... and I am hoping it will be a girl. But just in case, I will now get started on a baby boy quilt! 
To see more design wall posts, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday- Baby Quilt

On my design wall today is a baby quilt in development. My neighbours are having a baby soon and have decided to wait to find out the gender when it arrives.  So this quilt will be for their daughter, or if they have a son, I will need to figure out something else!

I just cut up some fat quarters in 2.5" strips and sewed them around 4.5" squares. I ran out of the center squares and had to piece a few of the center blocks, but I am relieved that I had enough fabric to finish 30 blocks. 
To see more design walls, hop over to Patchwork Times.

A Baby Quilt Finish

I forgot how rewarding it is to make a quick baby quilt from a panel, because it's been a really long time since I made one. This panel was purchased by a friend who asked me to quilt it for her niece's baby. It was fun selecting some Aurifil threads to match various areas of the panel. I like quilting with different colours, so I don't mind changing the thread many times.  How many times do you change threads when you're quilting?!? 
Then I had a blast machine quilting different designs...
one star to wish on, 
and lots of hearts in the center and in the surrounding border, 
and the letter 'A' for 'Abbott' in a few of the bubbles printed on the panel.

I was complaining in last Sunday's post about hand appliqueing the baby's name on the bottom of the panel, but it turned out OK. I don't love it, but I can live with it!
I bought the loveliest mint green flannel for the backing from Ye Olde Fabric Shoppe in Stratford (where the panel was purchased). It washed up beautifully and soft, and was a dream to quilt! 
I forced encouraged my friend to learn how to stitch the binding down so she could be part of making the quilt. We had a lovely visit while we stitched at the park. I was secretly hoping she would enjoy the sewing and want to become a quilter, but that didn't happen...at all!



Here's the finished quilt...

all ready to take to the baby shower. So cute!

Rainbow Scrap Challenge

It's the last week for the white scrap challenge and I am very happy with my stashbusting efforts this month! First I started a new project - a 36 patch quilt along and used up a lot of white scraps in my first 8 blocks. Then I focused on finishing up the 2 baby quilts I started this month.

Being the colour co-ordinated quilter that I am,  I had to put on some pink nail polish to stitch down the pink bindings!

Two finished baby quilts hanging on the clothesline!

The quilt on the left is machine quilted with loops, and the quilt on the right is stitched in the ditch.

Here is a photo of the backs of the quilts.I ran a row of leftover blocks across the middle of the backings... it looks like a zipper don't you think!?!?
Thanks again to Ruthie for the inspiration for these quilts!

I have a few scraps left from these baby quilts that I am cutting up to sew into more of these 36 patch blocks. 

Colour Co-ordination

My paying job has been exhausting the last couple of weeks as I am attending court for a local domestic violence turned attempted homicide case. (My local blog readers will know which one since it has been on the front page of the local paper most days.) It's not just the sitting there listening to the gory details of the violence and seeing the photos, since I'm used to that, but it's very draining to be so emotionally invested in a guilty verdict that may or may not be coming next week. And being in court during the day means doing my work in the evenings.
It's also exhausting because I can't quilt in the courtroom and am seriously deprived! As with all addicts, when I don't get my "fix", I get shakey and agitated and I NEED to quilt!
I was able to get the quilting finished and the binding sewn down on the baby quilt I worked on during the Masters golf tournament last Sunday. I didn't even realize until Thelma mentioned it in her comments on my blog that I unconsciously chose to be colour co-ordinated and worked on a project having the same colours as the Masters logo - green and yellow!

Last night I travelled to Barrie to do a trunk show at the Kempenfelt Quilters' Guild in Barrie, and we all know that the next best thing to actually quilting, is hanging around quilters! When I arrived I didn't know a single person there and by the time I left, I had met many interesting and wonderful people who are as addicted to quilting as I am!  Here is a photo of myself and 2 of their guild members, Muriel on the left and Vi on the right. And look at me being colour co-ordinated again...wearing matching outfits with 2 of the winners of the quiltaholic contest! What a great evening I had!