Time Flies...

Just over 3 years ago, I tried my hand for the first time at curved piecing and made a Drunkards Path panel using a charm pack of Kate Spain's Central Park. It was a success but it was small.

Over the years....don't ask me when....I added some white sashing and a scrappy border of some of my favourite fabrics.

Back in to the WiP wilderness it went before I rescued it and added some more sashing and a last scrappy border of Central Park and some of Anna Maria Horner's True Colors.

I did a pieced back using some Amy Butler and Anna Maria Horner fabrics which I picked up at bargain prices over the holidays....

....quilted it with some organic straight lines about 1" apart and bound it with some more True Colors.

Et voila! A baby/girl quilt for this little sweetie - my niece, Amina. She is my youngest sister-in-law's baby who I first met when she was just nine year's old and here she is all grown up 16 years later with her own baby.

I hope she'll enjoy kicking her legs while lying in the centre and later sitting and playing with her toys on it. I hope she'll drag it around and it will be a quilt she can grow in to. For me, well it's a first finish in a long time and a first finish for 2015.

Number 8

Many of my quilts have a gestation period of a walrus (15 months)...very occasionally they have less than that of an opossum (12 - 13 days). Ta-dah, the uneven coins quilt is done - the 24 hour quilt!

Yesterday morning at about 10 AM, I thought I really should get on with making a quilt for my new nephew. He was born a couple of weeks ago. However, there hadn't been a rush as my husband's brother and his wife live right on the other side of the country.  Still, my husband would be going to see them later in the month and I wanted to send something with him.

The colours I chose for the quilt top were inspired by the backing I was going to use - this lovely blue Valori Wells' flannel owl fabric, which was part of my SMS winnings from sweet Rebecca. It gets really cold in Morocco during the winter nights and this has the perfect snuggle factor.

So I pulled some  yellowy green and blue FQs and added in the Chicopee plaid to balance out the black/grey of the Silent Cinema print.  Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know that this is not a palette I use often (despite blue and green being my favourite colours). As to the pattern I was going to use, a coins quilt has been on 'the list' for ever and so I set to. By lunchtime I had a quilt top..a small one, but a quilt top nonetheless.

I had some leftover Orient Dream batting from my Field Study triangles quilt, which also adds to the softness and drape of this baby quilt. I quilted it 'lite' by doing some horizontal straight lines either side of the seams.

For the binding I used some blue Caravan fabric from Jenean Morrison's new line Beechwood Park (which I have and miserably failed to show you in my recent happy mail post). I wanted to bring out the blues in the quilt and I think it is perfect.

I am still a little hesitant about the Chicopee plaid but I think I tilt towards it working - it looks modern and adds a touch of manliness. This is probably the smallest quilt I have made - it measures 34" x 34" so will be perfect for kicking about on over the next few months and will make a nice blanket for the next couple of years.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

Getting My Last Fix

There were a gagillion things I should have been doing today but instead I made a quilt...well almost, I still have to bind it.  I'm no superwoman - this is a baby quilt for my new nephew and it's fairly teensy. I shall reveal all tomorrow...hopefully :)

Done Baby!

A week or so ago I finished the baby quilt for Cindy and her shop.

A few weeks ago, she sent me a charm pack of Mama Said Sew, some Kona Snow and I used this tutorial.

I quilted it in  horizontal and vertical lines and bound it using the grey chevrons, which I think look great! Good choice Cindy.

The back is simply pieced. Now it's off to Ireland!

This is my 6th finish of the year. Linking up with TGIFF.

Well Love It or Hate It..

...it's finished.

So I left you a couple of days ago with the completed quilt top. On Thursday, I knocked up a pieced back using bright and colourful pieces of fabric which continued the nature theme.  Cabbages and roses on the front and  flowers, squirrels, bees, swallows and butterflies on the back.

This quilt definitely has a split personality. Looks like this baby will be getting a little bit of her mad English aunt (the one with threads permanently hanging off her clothes) in the quilt after all.

After Frankenstitching some Quilters Dream cotton batting (thanks Hadley and Trudi for introducing me to this concept of joining leftover batting together with a wide zigzag stitch), I started quilting. I followed the diagonal lines first, crisscrossing the quilt an inch either side of the seams.  Then I did the same thing either side of the horizontal and vertical seams.

I love the pattern it creates when the lines meet.

When it came to the binding, I encountered a few problems finding a fabric that worked on the front and the back and that I had enough of.  In the end I went with this Riley Blake fabric and I'm super pleased with it.

So it all turned out fine in the end. This quilt was made without buying anything new for it.  It measures 40" x 44". Perfect for some kicking...

So that's it.  All we need now is a baby to lie in the centre and look cute. For now, you'll just have to make do with this oversized cutie who is still thankfully a baby at heart.

I Will Not be Defeated

Thank you so much again for all your comments about that baby quilt...you know, the one for my sister in law whose baby girl is due next month? Whether it was to change it up a little, abandon ship or persevere, they were all appreciated.

In the end I decided to persevere.  I can't explain it but I didn't want this baby quilt to beat me which is weird as I'm the least competetive person you will find...or so I like to think.

So I went more scrappy, added in more of the green (not grey as I previously thought) fabrics and made it much more random. I passed it by Susan and she suggested I have the red HSTs meeting up as pinwheels so that the eye had somewhere to 'rest'.  I liked that idea and that got me playing and thinking and using more of the solids to meet up but not as pinwheels but as squares - kind of stepping stones through the cabbages and roses if you like.

So that's where I'm at.  It's a beautiful warm and bright sunny day here. I'm so much happier with the quilt top, which is good considering my husband was on the 'phone to his sister last night and told her I was making something for the baby.  No pressure there then.

Linking up for the first time in ages with Lee at WIP Wednesday.

Sewing Out of My Comfort Zone

No no, not this! Anyone who is a regular reader will know this is very much in my comfort zone.  Yesterday, determined to ressurect the abandoned grannies before Helen reported me to Age Concern, I began chopping up 2.5" squares of scraps and today I began making blocks.  After a couple, I got out the old dears grannies and noticed that the new ones were looking much shinier - the white that is.  I thought at first that it was because the old grannies had been lying on the spare bed and perhaps the white had faded or they were just a bit grubby.

I decided to compare the white with some Kona Snow and yep, it was a perfect match. The block in the foreground is Kona Snow.

So why the sewing out of my comfort zone I hear you asking. Well disheartened by the fact that I only had a little Kona Snow and after reading Di's post about her Siblings Together quilt and a quick way to make HSTs from a layer cake, I dug out my Cabbages and Roses layer cake I purchased just over a year ago. I bought this fabric to try and use something different and of course it sat unused...well until today that is.

My sister in law who got married this time last year is expecting a baby girl next month. I wondered whether the Cabbages and Roses might make a nice baby quilt?

I chopped up some of the layer cake majoring on the blues and pinks and not so much the grey and assembled the pinwheels. This is so not me and I can't really tell whether I'm on the right tracks I'm unconvinced about the cabbage print and think that perhaps it ages the quilt...so what do you think?  Keep going, take out the red, dark blue, add more grey, take out the cabbages or go back to the drawing board? All suggestions welcome.