Sailor's Delight

Felt like doing a quick little quilt and decided on simple rail fence pattern. For some reason, I was stuck on the white-blue combination I had picked out for the aborted wedding quilt, so I picked this dark -- medium -- light combination of blues:

As planned, the quilt came together in no time. I cut 2.5" strips, sewed them into triplets of, and cut those into 6.5" long pieces. I then sewed those together in a 5 x 6 block layout as shown here:

I've gotten as far as the first border, a thin strip (1" wide) to contain the pattern:

Then summer, travels and visitors "happened", so this is one of my many WIPs.

As soon as I saw the quilt top center, I was thinking of marine things, so the name came to me in a flash: "Sailor's Delight"!

Dinner Is Served!

The cutlery baby quilt is finally finished. I really did drag the final border quilting on and on, but I'm happy with the final result:


I did an impromptu corner stone quilting after ripping out some very wonky free-hand flowers.

QUESTION FOR YOU:

Unfortunately, the ripped out stitches left little holes behind, so the flower-motif is still there - any tips on how to get those out????


I used this cute jungle/safari flanelette for the backing - I just love flanelette on baby quilt backs. I found this one in a fabric store in Montreal, Quebec.

Here are some of the animals close up, as well as the quilting look of the back:


And, I have one more question for you!

I spent seemingly forever knotting and sewing away the loose thread ends, sigh.


It was a flash back to the wedding bento box quilt - those threads almost made me late for the wedding! I actually started doing the back stitching at the start end end of each quilting line and just snipping the threads. Gasp! And that from me, the thread snob - I used to be so proud that you couldn't see where a seam started on my quilts. But I guess below it all, I'm plain lazy.

So, I'm wondering whether you are a snipper or a knotter/sewer - I guess this is a question for machine quilters only, as the patient hand-quilters among you don't have much of a choice, or do you?

Busy Girl!

So, as I said, inspiration struck, not just today but over the last week. I felt quilts just pouring out of me, so I got started.

First, I cut into the polar bear fabric I bought in BC. Time for framed theme quilts!
I've been planning these for a while and bought lots of fabric for them, just never got around to them...

I have a dark blue background planned for this quilt right now, I'll lay it out to see if I like it, choosing fabrics was difficult for this one - it never really popped until I added the beige borders.



Next, I decided to use the cool cutlery fabric I bought recently. I matched a blue fabric and at first a pale yellow, which also shows up in the cutlery print. However, that combination looked totally blah.


I wasn't entirely happy with the green either, but everything else made the quilt either too bright or too boring. This way at least I have a dark, a bright and a pale/mute print.

I decided on a very simple rail fence pattern in a zigzag layout.


This quilt top came together so quickly, I could barely blink, and I do like the strange colour combination in the end.

Let's see what I'll come up with for borders!


The next project really deserves its own post, so I'll put that up tomorrow! Stay tuned, but let's just say that with all the 9-patching going on in blogland, I couldn't resist any longer...

Cole's Jungle (Sampler Baby Quilt) Part 2

Here are the final steps of the sampler baby quilt I made for baby Cole:

The four sampler blocks we did in class:


The whole quilt before quilting...


... and after. (It really is rectangular, but it's warped here from lying on the back of a chair)

Here are the individual blocks and close-ups of the hand-quilting.
Handquilting was an interesting experience for me, though not my finger tips. I can't get the hang of the thimbel, it doesn't feel right, so I had some pretty pricked finger tips... :)

(Four Patch)

I quilted these diagonal lines without guidelines - then I discovered fabric pencils, what a difference!

(Rail Fence)

(The Jungle Panel)

(Bow Tie)

(Friendship Star)

(Log Cabin)