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

oh and I made a bag for my craft partner too.

she likes bright colours and creepy stuff...I am not sure I like this, but i think she will

and I made her a pair of earrings too..yes I over crafted again.

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.