Bath Time

It is that time in my daughter's life when she and many of her friends have babies or small children. Such a magical time. And with those babies come baby showers. We thought of the hooded towels that I last made when my granddaughters were babies (they are now 9 and 6 years old).

So I tried to remember how I made them, and the first one was for my new little grandson.

 

Pretty unadorned, right? You are seeing the inside of the towel and the front of the hood.

Next up was the baby shower for this same little guy.




You are seeing the towel back this time. Conclusion: hood too big, letters a bit small.

Then I made one for my DD to take for her high school BFF who is expecting a boy.




I thought this one was successful, a better hood, better letters. It's really more teal than in the picture.

Then we went to a little boy's birthday, so I made one for him.

I'm sorry it's such a poor picture. It's a lovely royal blue with a cute print for the letters.
Conclusion: the hood is much too big. Wonder if I can ask for it back to fix it?

Lastly, another baby shower. This towel is microfibre, not cotton toweling.
Pros: beautiful colour, lovely soft feel, doesn't snag
Cons: I'm not sure how well it will dry the baby, we'll have to try one. My sewing machine didn't like it and the applique was more difficult to handle.





I've improved with the font for the letters, and I really like the look of the lower case letters.

As with all things, I improved with practice. If there are more babies, bring it on! I'm on a roll!

Till next time,

Sue

Perennial Pleasures

Hi everyone!

Today is a gorgeous day and I've been out for a walk in the sunshine. Spring may be here at last!

This brings me to the subject of my Whisper Quilt blocks. This was an activity put on by my quilt guild, and it lasts the whole year. Did you ever play that children's game where a message is whispered person to person round a circle, and the last message is so different from the first? Well, the whisper quilt is like that. You get a look at what the person before you has made, and you interpret it in your own way and then show it to the next person on the list.

March was my month. The image I saw was of a bird, a tree and a bird's nest.

It got me thinking of spring and summer days on the deck, and what I like to see and do there.

After a lot of searching I found the Garden Party Blog Hop  hosted last year by Jennifer Ofenstein of Sewhooked.   Jen is such a talented artist of paper pieced blocks, and my Harry Potter Bookshelf is her design.

I found three great blocks among the garden party images, including Jen's own post, Perennial Pleasures, a pot of tulips with a glass of wine. Since my enjoyment of a summer day includes a book, I combined two of Jen's patterns to make the fourth block.




I plan to border the four blocks to make a cushion cover of about 22-24 inches square.



Linking to



Till next time,

Sue

T-shirt Quilt

I can't believe it's a month since I posted. I've certainly been quilting, but there was less time to share about that with the adjustment of having a new baby in the house. Now we're settling down, so back on track.

I've got two main projects on the go right now.

First up is the Harry Potter Bookshelf. Here are a few favourite blocks:

                 

                                     

Actually, I love ALL the blocks! Paper pieced, and great experience. There are only 5 blocks to go, and then I start putting them together.

My other WIP is my son's concert T shirt quilt.

 I admit, I was nervous to cut into these. Some of them are 20 years old, and worn very thin.
 In preparation I read every tutorial I could find.

The center of the quilt is put together now. This was the hard, worrying part, constructing the different shapes and sizes into a large rectangle. Sigh of relief, it worked!  Now it's easier, all the rest of the logos are in 12 1/2 inch blocks surrounding the center. I'm going to sash them in different colours of Sketch. Hope I like the result!


                             

Linking to

Till next time,

Sue

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Erik the Red

That's the name of my new quilt. It's Viking themed, and several of these little guys have red beards. Authentic, right?

Why Viking?  you wonder.  Well, our family lived for some years in the very North of Scotland, just where the Vikings landed. We're big hearty people, and we identified strongly with those Vikings, whether we have any in our family tree or not!

As soon as I saw this fabric from Timeless Treasures I knew I had to have some. Unfortunately I went overboard and bought enough for several quilts! Now we're waiting for the birth of a little boy, it seemed a good time to get it out and make him a quilt.

I decided I wanted to showcase the print, but a little bit differently. The pattern I used is called
Baby Lattice Quilt and is in the Moda Bake Shop. I seriously underestimated the time it would take to fussy cut the Vikings in their longboats and the map in the correct orientation. Hours!

I can certainly recommend this pattern, specially for charm squares in a non-directional print!
It went together quickly, I only started it on Saturday. I'll be sandwiching and quilting over the weekend.

Here are two closeup pictures of some of the detail:

Linking to February NewFO at Cat Patches

Let's Make Baby Quilts

  Thank Goodness it's Finished Friday at Quokka Quilts

Till next time,

Sue

Blood, Sweat and Tears

I feel like there should be a drum roll in the background, as I reveal this finish. It's my Hunter Star quilt, now renamed "Northern Lights".

Although my fingers didn't actually bleed during the making of this quilt, there was a lot of unpicking of seams, rearranging of blocks, and changing of approach. Blood, Sweat and Tears, you might say, without the blood!

During the whole process I veered wildly between optimism for this quilt, and outright dislike. Now it's finished I feel like the mother of a difficult toddler who has finally grown up into a lovely person. It's almost a surprise!

The back took a whole day at a quilt retreat to piece. I had a lot of triangle units made that were rejected for the front because of the layout. So I made them into blocks and put them on the back.

Here is a shot of the back. Another row with two blocks is not visible.

It was longarmed with an all over swirly, scrolly type design and bound in a pale green batik.
I know, I talked about the importance of binding, but I had some green left over, and I was in a fever to give the quilt to my DD#1.

Linking to:

Till next time

Sue

Postage Stamp

I can cross another WIP off the list! My postage stamp quilt was started in Jan 2011. I joined a quiltalong hosted by Rachel Griffiths of ps I Quilt. She has such a creative and interesting blog, and her quiltalong was lots of fun. She showed us how to make a postage stamp quilt from strip sets of jelly roll strips. I used Blush by Basic Grey for Moda.

I remember sandwiching the quilt, and there it sat for almost 2 years, until I tripped over it one too many times!

The quilting is simple, straight line on the diagonal. I now think that this dogwood pattern from Elizabeth Hartman's blog, Oh Fransson, would have looked very nice. Lots more work, of course, but very nice. Next time. I did some FMQ on the border, ivy leaves that sometimes looked like maple, and sometimes oak, and sometimes nothing from a tree. One whole side had to come out because of tension problems on the bottom. I solved that with a new needle and re-threading my machine. These are the joys!

The border has a dark pattern, and was very hard to mark. What do you use? I tried everything, and the white mechanical pencil seemed the best choice.

And lastly the binding went on: Kona Aqua. I just love how this looks. I completely lightens up the edges of the quilt. I don't think any of my bindings have ever struck me as making such a difference. I will pay more attention to binding in future.

Here's the back:

The main fabric is a Kaffe Fassett shot cotton. I used up the rest of the jelly rolls, a total of three for the whole quilt. It measures 90" x 100".

And now on to the next WIP on the pile!

Linking to:



 Till next time,

 Sue