Honey Baby

Another baby quilt! This'll be short, because this is another one I just snapped a few quick pics before it was sent off.

Maybe you can tell, this baby quilt is a little "above and beyond" what I usually sew for babies. I had originally intended it to be MY baby's quilt. I loved the Honey Honey collection by Kate Spain as soon as I saw it, and since I was preggo with my baby girl at the time, I thought it would make the perfect baby girl quilt. And it does, really, just not for my baby girl.

By the time my girl arrived, I had only finished the top. I figured I had plenty of time to quilt it before she could use it. But after a few months of knowing her, I was pretty sure that, while the quilt is beautiful, it just did not fit her personality. Maybe that's weird, but it's true. Luckily, my friend April had just told me she was pregnant with a girl, so I finished it up and sent it off.

 


I have picked and cut new fabrics for Nola's quilt, and even started to sew it up, but spent a long day seam ripping when I realized that I really didn't want navy in her quilt. Sigh. She really doesn't need one until she switches to her toddler bed, so I think I have a little time yet. I hope.

Drift Wedding Quilt

Two family friends decided to get married this Spring within a week of each other. We were able to attend one wedding, since it was in Maryland and more accessible, but the other was held in New orleans. While I would have loved to go to that one too, it just wasn't going to happen. The couple getting married lived in Florida and really loved the beach; I've also spent a lot of time on the beaches of North Carolina with the hubby half of the couple. A beachy-type quilt would be perfect! I wanted something that reminded me of waves, so I decided to try a tumbler quilt. While I was trying to decide what fabric to use, I came across Angela Walters' line for Art Gallery - Drift. The colors were exactly what I was looking for and I thought they would be perfect to get across that sunset over the water feeling.

I did a little better with the pictures of this one. I really wanted to take some down at the beach - we're at my parents' beach house in NC here - but I was giving this to my friend that night and the weather wasn't cooperating. So the colors are a little muddy since these were taken under the house.

I wish I had gotten a picture of the back! I was actually really happy with the back on this one. I used the left over fabric to piece 3 horizontal lines placed at a diminishing space apart - does that make sense? Anyway, it kind of reminded me of a horizon.

Here's my hand-lettered and hand-stitched label. I thought the linen would look like sand, but I have to admit the color looked a little out of place on this quilt of soft pastels.

I quilted with long, wavy lines across the center of each row, just to really make it seem more wave-like. It must have come across, because my male friend said, "It looks like waves." I love it when the recipient "gets" it!

Summer of a Thousand (or 4) Quilts

Considering how quiet this blog has been, I've actually finished quite a few quilts this year already. I'm pretty proud of myself for finishing them all (somewhat) on time! Unfortunately, I was not so good about taking pictures. I mean, I did TAKE pictures of all of the quilts, they just weren't the best. For the most part, they have been hastily snapped immediately before they were gifted, handed off or mailed. That is one of my resolutions, to take better pictures of my makes. (Can you have a resolution in the middle of the year? I think so.) I put so much effort in, I really should have a beautiful record of them!

Anyway, here is one of the two baby quilts I completed this summer. This first one was for a baby boy. I have been trying to use up some of my fabric stash, so luckily I had a charm pack of Max and Whiskers by Basicgrey that had been sitting around awhile. I used a broken nine patch pattern with a big border of black essex yarn dyed linen (also from the stash). I gave the linen 1/2" seams and reinforced them with zigzags, as I've heard linen in a quilt can really fall apart with time.

I backed the quilt with white minky for the softness factor. I had originally planned on using some cute paw print minky I found at Jo-Ann's for the back, but then I found out one of the parents is actually afraid of dogs. Hmm. Since I had already pieced the top with fabric containing dogs (and cats and bunnies and fish), I just nixed the paw print backing. I couldn't find minky that matched the colors on the top close enough for my satisfaction, so white it was. That plus the 3-colored binding (woo hoo, more stash fabric!) really brightened the whole quilt up, so overall I'm really happy with how it turned out. I also used basting spray, which made a HUGE difference in the whole process of quilting with minky. No shifting at all! This quilt definitely put minky back in my repertoire.

And here's one last totally awful shot. At least you can see the (blurry) animals. I quilted in the ditch for the center, and you can juuuust see the zigzag quilting on the border seam. Just to add one more layer of stability for shifty ol' linen.