two quilts and a moral

The first of these two quilts, the log cabin, was a top that I had started to piece over twenty years ago, Some of the scraps came from a friend who was then working at a couture house in London, (the queens dressmaker!) and some were just bits and pieces that have been added over the years. In the end I started to really dislike the top, the fabrics were just too scrappy, there was no over all theme, it wasn't well made. But as a result of a craftster challenge I decided to get it finished...Now that it is finished, I don't hate it, but would never part with it as it represents a huge chunk of my life, marriage, divorce, daughter, living in 3 countries, countless house moves etc etc...

the next quilt was much more recent and has a moral. it started life as a coin stack quilt and was intended for a colleauge that had a baby boy, but I realised that they wouldn't really appreciate it and so bought them something instead. So I added to the top intending to make it into a full size one, Not huge, just enough to sit on the top of a double bed...Which I did, but at that stage I was seeing a guy...who loved it, so I gave it to him as part of his christmas present....we broke up about a month later...

the moral is, never give quilts to new boyfriends!...it can be such a waste... lol

Baby quilt..about 45'' square...for a friend's baby, who's arrival is imminent

My friend has about a week to go in her pregnancy, she doesn't yet know the gender of the child and I wanted to make a quilt as a gift for the new baby.

I am a member of the yahoo group stashbusters and got a great gift of fabric from a wonderful new friend in the US..it had 5'' charm squares in the package so they were perfect for this...precut is wonderful!

getting the colour balance right for this quilt was a PITA...I had the cute ducks for the centre, added the next section and then the random charm square border..these started as squares, but I simply couldn't match up anything from my stash to go as the next piece..I really needed a dark yellow or green. I finally solved it by cutting down those pieces significantly, as they were totally dominating the quilt at this point

..once they were cut down, the played with the rest of the quilt a lot better...and so a pale striped fabric worked for the next section... Then the dark squares at the corners and a blue border to pull it together..

I am not 100% happy with it..the colour balance is a long way from perfect... but I learned a lot from getting the colours sorted on this one. I Learned how useful it is to look at the layout and the fabrics on a camera phone..both in colour and black and white..it really helped me to 'read' the fabrics..

I also experimented with some free motion quilting. Much easier on a small quilt like this. And some quilt in the ditch to emphasise the different areas.

the back is a really nice print from IKEA, I like the childish nature of the print.

Faux log cabin quilt, for a friends birthday

I like this pattern, its not made in the usual log cabin way, but ends up looking like it. This is done in a barn raising arrangement....its from this pattern

http://www.angelfire.com/va3/jclane/FauxLogCabin/FauxLogCabin.html

This was made using all fabrics from my stash..I wanted a big bold all prints and no blenders type quilt and I actually really like how it turned out..

This is it folded up in my little reading nook, but it is destined for my BFF for her birthday. its a large lap quilt size, mostly quilted in the ditch as my little machine doesn't like large quilts!

I even used up a couple of the left over blocks for the back.

A quilt in a day, from 9 fat quarters

It was time to make a quilt..

 I decided that I wanted to start something new and found these great instructions online, to make a quilt from 9 Fat quarters. I have some nice FQ that I had been saving for a special occasion. It is my new resolution to stop saving fabric....I plan to use it instead. I also had a very cute (Very expensive) FQ that I got in Galway last weekend)

I had just decided to piece the top that night, it was Sunday afternoon,  but the cutting and piecing of the top went so fast..it would have been about an hour and a half. If I didn't have to rethread my machine about 10 times, not sure why..crappy thread perhaps...and if I hadn't got impatient about one mistake and instead of using a seam ripper...ripped it by hand..and yes, ripped the block, so had to resew the whole thing....

so it took about an 1 3/4 hours. Having more time in hand..and only sunday night, -back-to-work-tomorrow- blues to look forward to. I thought I would work on a bit of overachieverness and see if I could finish it..

and I did!! I used an old foxford wollen blanket for batting, and even pieced a strip for the back and put a label on it- using the embroidery function on my machine-

The whole thing took about 4-5 hours I'd say, allowing for mistakes, it is far from perfect, I did mostly quilt-in-the ditch on my regular machine, so there are some puckers, and the corners are awful..but it is a finished quilt, rather than adding to my many unfinished objects...and I love it to bits!

raggy quilt

I have been promising my daughter a quilt for ages. This quilt became therapy for me when I got dumped by my love. The recovery from the dumping segued into recovery from flu, so a speedy piece of craft therapy took weeks and weeks! but it is now finally finished. The fabrics used in the quilt date over about 10 years and were bought in south africa, australia, ireland and sent to me from the US, so it is a truly international quilt.
This method is very simple, you cut squares of backing and top (plus interlining, I used an old wollen blanket) all of the seams are sewn with wrong sides of the fabric together, and the excess folded to the front. Once the whole quilt has been sewn together seam allowances are clipped to give a raggy finish.

This quilt is made of (mostly) polar fleece fabric and so its toasty warm and very very cosy. This was a stash busting quilt and so I have tried to balance out the colours as best I could, given the ones that I have. I think it worked ok. She loves it!