Make Life!

Hooray!  I have finished my first quilt of 2012.  It's made from a charm pack of Sweetwater's Make Life, some Moda Bella Snow for the background, and polka dots from Make Life for the border and binding.  It's a lovely size for a baby quilt, so good thing that it has a new home with a sweet baby.

I made it for the daughter of a teacher that I work with.  I picked out the fabrics before I knew what the gender of the baby would be, but I knew that it would be perfect.  I used a pattern that I got from Carla at Moda Club last year.  It's super easy and quick to put together.  I really love the graphic quality of it too.  I may just have to make another one day!  It would also be fun to do with a layer cake.

For the backing I used a sweet Japanese print that I got on sale that has little soldiers and cats and dogs and trees marching in rows.  The colours are a fabulous match with the charm pack.  I had thought that I had enough to do the whole back, but it turned out that I was short a bit.  Luckily I had just the perfect amount of red dots left over from the border and binding.  I can't believe how perfectly that it worked out.

I quilted it 1/4" away from the seams; a kind of echo quilt, I guess.  It took quite awhile to get it all quilted.  I used my walking foot and did have some problems with the stitch tension.  Most of the quilting looks okay after I washed it.  I really love how crinkly and soft this quilt got after it came out of the dryer.

My new favourite way to do binding on baby quilts is by machine.  It is so much faster and it will hopefully hold up better to frequent washings.  I am becoming better at it with each quilt I make.

It feels good to get something done.  I can take delight in that!  I have been feeling a little overwhelmed by all my projects that are piling up.  Hopefully I can finish some other things up in the next little while.  I'll try to make up a blog post soon featuring some things I am working on.  Then you can keep me accountable to finishing them!

xo Nicole

Addison's Quilt

Last October/November I sewed up a little quilt for a baby shower for my friend.  I used blocks from my month from The Maple Leaf Bee 2 quilting bee.  I was originally planning to add an off white border around each block and then some scrappy sashing, but in the end it was a perfect quick project for a baby.

I had each of my bee mates sew up some scrappy log cabin blocks a la Denise Schmidt drunk love in a log cabin style.  I sent them out a lovely selection of green, pink, orange and brown prints and solids and I am so pleased with the results.  The hardest thing is capturing the colours accurately on camera.  I tried my best to doctor up the pictures a bit to get you a better idea of what they look like.  However, it just doesn't measure up to seeing it in person.

I quilted it with an all over stipple loop and machine sewed the binding.  I love the bright pink of the binding.  It adds just a little more girly-ness without being over the top.

I pieced the back together with some left over bits of fabric and sewed on a label in an oval shape from a piece of Anna Maria Horner's Garden Party line.  I think it may be my favourite part of the quilt!  I hope my friend and her baby girl will enjoy this quilt for many years.

xo Nicole

Placemats

 I made up a set of four placemats for my cousin for a wedding gift.  She just got married on the September long weekend.  I had some fun fruit fabric (alliteration anyone?) and combined it with some other fabrics in my stash.  I enjoyed putting in some colours that didn't match exactly, but I thought they spiced it up a bit.  When I tried adding colours that were a little closer match to the fruit fabrics, it looked really dull.

I added a fun striped fabric to the back so they can be reversible.   I quilted straight lines about 3/8" apart and a solid green binding was machine stitched on.  Once washed up they still look great.  The only thing that I am not so happy about is the way that the fabric looks like it has chevrons from the quilting.  Oh well, next time will be better.

xo Nicole