Something I haven't done in what feels like ages is make a red & quilt.
It's a small version of my Picnic Quilt for the Christmas in July workshop at Avonleigh next month. Made last weekend, quilted during the week, with plans to snuggle under it and stitch the binding on this weekend. It is a beautiful sunny day here, but oh so cold!
I'm so glad it was a girl. With a baby due April and twins in June I figured the chances of one out of three being a little girl was fairly certain. This wish was purely self indulgent as I was looking for an excuse to use a sweet little daisy print.
With the main fabric chosen it was a matter of finding fabrics to go with it. Of all the colours, finding the right pink was the hardest - I know hard to believe as I have almost as much pink as red, which just goes to show you can never have too much fabric!
I'd planned to make pinwheels and some how or another ended up with a disappearing nine-patch. The print blocks were going to be in neat rows and columns with the spot as sashings and the daisy print squares as cornerstones, but it didn't work for me. Undeterred I played around with the blocks until I was happy.
Do you like the daisy print? It is for sale at $22.00 per metre. Please email me.
Bubbles was my Mum's much loved doll. Yes she has seen better days but that simply makes her more precious.
I don't remember her being dressed any differently and like to think Mum made her skirt and Nan knitted her cardigan. Rather than new clothes, I could make Bubbles her own quilt. This has taken a long time to do because it had to be 'just right'.
It was chance that Bronwyn mentioned she needed to make a doll quilt and had been looking at the Four-Patch with Chintz, in the book Childhood Treasures by Merikay Waldvogel. I realised this one would be perfect for Bubbles. It's one of my favourites but for some reason had never made the connection.
I do hope you all have a chance to do a little Easter sewing too.
Look what I found. There was another little quilt top in the cupboard, another one I'd forgotten all about. I guess your wondering how I could forget about these things and so am I.
Of all the the tops this one was the easiest to finish. I was happy to machine quilt it where as the tumbler and basket quilt will be hand quilted. Such a good feeling to have one finished.
A new baby arrived in April and what with the books and shows there has been no time to make a little quilt. This babies big sister was given 'Piper's quilt from Things I love to Make and I wanted to make something just as cute but different.
Ages ago I'd bought a charm pack to have on hand the next time I needed to make a girlie quilt. It was the first thing I played with. But how often do we go with the first choice? I pulled out more fabrics, folded, arranged, refolded and rearranged them before finally deciding the charm pack was the way to go. I'd gone full circle.
Selecting the fabrics had taken up a good part of the afternoon and not wishing to waste any more time, I started sewing with no clear plan. The border fabric was even more difficult to choose until I found the lattice print at Avonleigh, only Fat 1/4's remained. Isn't that the way - you find the perfect fabric, but can't buy the cut you need - I needed to buy off the bolt. With my heart set on this fabric I decided to see if I could make it work and I'm happy with the result. Now to piece a backing, using more fabrics from the charm pack, and it will be ready for quilting.
Somehow I ended up in my cupboard with the finished quilt tops and before I'd given it a second thought they were being shaken out and plans made to finish them. There were a couple I'd forgotten about - how bad is that!
I must have been keen to finish the basket and tumbler quilts as the bindings were already made, carefully rolled up and stored with the tops. I even had the backing fabric chosen for one of them.
The plan now is to machine baste and sew the bindings on all of them. However other things are already getting in the way and I may only get the basket and tumbler quilts done. Well that's better than nothing!
Remember the little red and white quilt I was working on here, I arranged and then rearranged the half square triangles, decided to cut a few squares, introduced another red fabric and settled on this.
If you're wondering about the rows of stitching you can see and are thinking they look a bit ordinary, you can relax. It's the way I baste small quilts. They will be removed once I finish hand quilting it.
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