Cindy Said Sew

Back at the beginning of March, the lovely Cindy over at Fluffy Sheep Quilting asked for a little help from her friends to make some baby quilts for a quilt festival in Galway this June.  She aims to have lots of new charm packs for sale and needs some quilts to show off what can be made with them! With many of the lines not available until May, she was up against it timewise.

She gave us ideas as to lines we could use and I chose the existing Mama Said Sew as Cindy had it in stock and could get it over to me immediately.

A couple of weeks ago this little ready made quilt kit of loveliness arrived.

So yesterday with temperatures hitting 40° C (104°F),the sensible thing to do would have been not to start the quilt top. Sensibleschmensible. Using this super straightforward Moda Bake Shop pattern I soon had this baby sewn up.

Now anyone who reads this blog regularly will know this isn't my usual colour palette but it's been fun to play with fabrics which I wouldn't normally use and so many of the prints in this line are lovely!

Temperatures are due to drop again at the weekend and then I'm hoping to get this basted, quilted and back off to Cindy next week!

If you don't know Cindy's shop, where have you been? Gorgeous fabrics, solids, Aurifil, perle, amazing service...need I go on?

Hand Quilting Again??

This quilt is rapidly heading for the Guiness Book of Records as the quilt completed in the longest time.  I started it in October 2009 and now it`s March 2011 and Z is significantly longer yet the quilt is the same size. It seems I never learn.  I`m handquilting Z`s quilt because I want to fill it with love so that when Z is snuggling in it he can feel his mother`s love wherever he is. 

At least I got to do some quilting this week.  I did the beastly basting a couple of days ago and started the hand quilting yesterday using masking tape as a guide for my stitching - a tip I picked up from Jane Brocket`s The Gentle Art of Quilting - it`s re-usable and doesn`t leave any marks. Super easy! I think I may unpick the stitching so far as I`m unsure of stitching at right angles to the pieces.  I think it might look better stitched following the length of the piece instead.

The front is an Arcadia Moda layer cake and the backing is Cloud 9`s `Clearing`, which I thought had a retro `50s feel about it, which complemented the front.

There is a link to this post on Lilys Quilts Fresh Sewing Day  - a new project by Lynne to celebrate her blogaversary.  Each 1st day of the month, Lynne is having a fresh sewing day when she is encouraging everyone to share with others their favourite or latest project and to create on her blog a link showing it.  Lynne explains it much better so hop over to her blog and share something you are doing at the moment...oh, and visit each others blogs and share the love.

Happy Weekend!

The Project

So this is 'the project' (aka Zaki's quilt top) - the thing that got me started on this mild obsession.

Zaki's quilt top

Here it is, all (artistically - well trying to be) squidged up as quilt tops can look a little sad until they're actually grown-up quilts with their batting in.  The truth actually being that I find them difficult to photograph. You can't really tell but each 10" block is made up of three equal rectangles and each block is set at right angles to the next one...if that makes sense. It's Moda's Arcadia and I love it - it's all blues, browns, yellows and oranges with circles and dragon flies, flowers, leaves, birds and butterflies. My mum says it reminds her of patterns from the '50s.

I'm still in two minds as it whether to put a border around it or not.  I go back and forth depending on my mood.  If I do, it will fit a single bed and if I don't, it will be Zaki's quilt until he outgrows it and will then be used as a throw or a lap quilt.  Whichever way, it will be a much loved quilt.