Year: 2013

Appliqued baby name quilt

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When I heard I was going to be a grandmother for the third time in four years, well of course my first thought was what quilt I was going to make.

Okay, maybe that was my second thought.

After I made this baby quilt, I figured you would love to have this free baby quilt pattern. It was super fast and easy to make.

I had a yard or two of a lovely fabric with dancing bunnies in pretty pastel Easter gowns. It was perfect after we knew we would be expecting another girl. I pulled some somewhat matching tiny prints for the letters for the front of the quilt.

baby quilt letter placement

For the front piece of the baby quilt, I used about a yard of a tone on tone off-white print. It’s about 30-36″ by the 42″ width of the fabric. Then I cut the letters freehand from the fat quarters I had chosen to complement the print on the back.

The letters could also be done with a large thick font. My size was about as big as a regular sheet of printer paper, so you could draw them out on paper first and then cut them from the fabric.

It would be smarter as well, to fuse some fusible web to the back of the fabric before cutting out the letters. I didn’t, and it made my work a bit harder.

Also if you have a name with a lot more letters, you will need to make the letters smaller so they all fit. If you’re not sure, do a test with paper letters first.

baby quilt testing fabric placement

 

You can see here how I didn’t like the original fabric for the letter A and swapped it for a yellow instead.

fusing letters in place on baby quilt

 

Here’s the quilt on my design board with the letters pinned in place to test placement. You can go vertically in a straight line – mark a guide line if you like – or go all funky and wonky.

Fuse the letters in place. This is mostly to hold them down before appliquéing.  I used a blanket stitch that came on my Bernina Aurora 440 Quilter’s Edition. A zig zag will also work perfectly fine.

back of baby quilt

 

Baste the top and bottom together with your favourite batting and quilt away! I used an allover paisley design, and went around the letters entirely, adjusting the design to fit. This is great practise for any allover design you want to try. And a baby quilt is a great size to practise on.

I also used a pretty Sulky variegated thread in pink / green / yellow. It matched perfectly.

easy fast baby quilt

 

You can see here how puffy the letters look. The only thing I would do different now is to outline quilt the letters.

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I bound the quilt in a jade green dot that was actually from a line of Christmas fabric. It works though!

I always pre-wash my quilt, so after coming out of the washer and dryer, the cotton fabrics and cotton batting crinkled up so nicely. It looks like a family heirloom already.

This is a super easy and fast quilt to through together. Just make sure the parents don’t change the name before birth, if you are making one ahead of time. 😉

Catch up

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I have been a sad neglectful blogger, I know. I had a lull in quilting then I finished some times so quickly and had them out the door there wasn’t any time to actually write up the posts.

These are all pending posts to come:
– Bob’s quilt. Red white and blue.
– Jade’s name quilt
– Easy summer quilt
– Modern Cowboy finish
– Chevron finish
– Fast Forward quilt
– Amy’s tshirt quilt

– circle pincushion

And a pile of quilt tops that I finished a while ago, and even have posts here about, but just got around to basting. Still need to actually quilt them.

ALso – I have been doing a lot of garment sewing as well. This is supposed to be my quilt blog and if anyone is still left reading, I hope you don’t mind if I toss in some garment sewing as well. So far:

– Regency gown
– 18th century man’s shirt, hand stitched because I am crazy
– blouse for my daughter Sarah
– easy skirt for Sarah
– hand drafted yellow skirt for Sarah
– Shift dress for Sarah
– fitted red dress for me and the toile/muslin I made

Not counting the piles of fabrics and patterns sitting waiting for me to cut out.

I might have a problem of doing too many projects at once. 😀

p.s – I also bought the Hex-n-More ruler and wanted to post about that

Ooops

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I guess I took a bit of a break. I actually have done quite a bit of quilting and finishing up. I was really focused on getting some projects finished and my Etsy shop up and running. I did this while on vacation too.

Meanwhile, I have diverted from quilting a bit and have gone back to making garments. Blame the sewing classes that I took while on vacation. 😀 They inspired me quite a bit and reminded me how much I love sewing in general.

To get a little crazier, I decided to make my husband and 18th Century shirt. Then I decided (must have been the heat) to hand stitch the entire thing.

Sometimes I just make more work for myself. 😀 But, I also do these things sort of on purpose, to either keep my skill level up or improve my sloppy stitches. At least it helps things from getting boring?

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Starting the facing on the neck opening.

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Neck gusset.

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Neck gussets and facing in place.

 

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Collar pinned to neck and gathering stitches in place. I used red thread to gather, because I can see it better and I will remove it later.

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Here’s how I wrap the ends of the gathering threads around a pin, in a figure 8. This will hold better than a knot.

I’m trying to get back into a blogging habit, since I have more than one blog that needs regular updates. I will be posting the various quilting shenanigans I’ve been up to since last time.

 

 

Panels are good practise for free motion quilting

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My mom hits up yard sales and thrift stores for.. all kinds of things actually, but she goes often enough to get some great finds. One of them is quilt panels. Then she sends them to me to quilt.

This works out great, as I love the quilting part and I get to practise. She’s not picky and loves to hang up different panels for different seasons. And we use up the stash on backing and those weird small bits of batting.

Recently I worked on this one for her.
More panel quilted

More panel quilted

I also did this runner.

Christmas runner

Still need to bind them, but that’s another post. 😉

So don’t discount panels or “cheater” quilts! They are great practise, usually don’t cost much – especially when you pick them up at thrift stores or in clearance bins – and you can always give them away.

Colorblock quilt, all done!

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For finish it up Friday, I got the bonding all done on this quilt. It’s now taking a spin in the wash. I always wash and dry the baby quilts then check them over for loose threads and any place where I did a lousy job seaming.

Binding all done, time for a wash!

I’m really happy with how this one turned out. I’ve been working on piecing accuracy and undoing some bad habits I picked up over the years, like pulling the fabric taut while I sew. This causes it to ripple on the edges when relaxed.

Here’s a shot of the back, upside down.
Bach

I went and bought all new fabrics for this one, from the same line. I don’t usually do that.

Colorblock quilt progress

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I forgot to post this sooner, sorry. With the Colorblock quilt, I had a hard time deciding what to quilt. I defaulted to what the pattern samples show and what most people did, at least according to all the pics I found.

Straight lines.

Straight line quilting

It’s boring but it works. Up and down on the tall strip and back and forth on the horizontal blocks.

Funnily enough, when I did mark these, the width of my chalk was just enough to make the lines slightly over 1″ apart and a little off by the time I get to the other side of the block. But the recipient won’t care. 😉

And yes I did mark these and not use a guide or eyeball it.

Sunday Stash: out of control edition

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This weekend I moved my sewing room to a spare beedroom in the basement. It was at the end of one of the L in the main room of the basement, but for various reason, we decided to move it to the back bedroom.

Ta da!
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It’s much more efficient use of the space, a great work area, and even better – we moved my desk in from storage. That desk is big, heavy and most importantly does not bounce when I sew fast.

For the stash part, I give you this:

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Yeah. That’s all fabric.

And this is not all my fabric.

*gulp*

A new way to baste quilts

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Over the weekend – actually, on Friday, my usual day off – I set about basting as many quilts as I had ready to go that also had batting available. In one of the Craftsy classes I signed up for the awesome Leah Day showed us how to baste quilts on a table and use elastics at the corner to secure the fabric and pull it taut.

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Well I tried this and it worked so well I am in love with it! Of course I modified it slighty for my table and the quilts I was basting, but LOOK at the stack of quilts I got basted!

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I even ran out of safety pins. And when I started I realized my mom had my Quick Klip tool, but I managed.

Even though my table is a nice sturdy wood table, I didn’t worry about scratching it with pins as it is already dinged and painted and stained and watermarked and just generally lived on.

I can also report that my back did not feel like I was eighty years old when I was done either. I did two baby quilts, two Christmas panels and a Christmas runner for my mom AND I did the markings on another larger quilt. I also watched three episodes of season three of Dr Who. So I accomplished quite a bit.

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This quilt I am quilting a large Mariner’s Compass / Compass Rose on it. Can’t wait to see how it turns out, as long as I keep my eye on the right lines.

p.s – am I the only one who never has enough batting? Or the piece I have leftover is never quite big enough for the tops I have that need batting?