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 :)

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.