Tag Archives: baby quilt

Dots of Colour

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The baby quilt I was working on back in August and early September will finally be basted, hopefully this weekend.  I was lucky enough to win a gift certificate, so used it to buy the fabric above for the backing.  I couldn’t find an appropriate flannel but when I saw this fabric I couldn’t resist it.  Perfect for a baby quilt, I think.

These 3 fabrics were also purchased with the gift certificate — what a treat!  Initially I had thought the stripe on the far left would be perfect for the binding, but it’s too pink.  I love using stripes to get different effects in pieced blocks and for bias binding, so this is a welcome addition to the stash even if it’s not used for this particular quilt.  Lately I find I want to use a bit of black in almost every quilt I make, which explains the middle choice.  The one on the far right intrigues me.  I think I’ll have fun with it and already have an idea.

Thursday night I got out the completed blocks for the Harpsichord Quilt.  I have a long way to go, but was pleasantly surprised when I realized I already had 2 of the vertical rows complete.  The centres of the last three pink and cream big stars are done.  If the weekend weather is as rainy and cold as they’re predicting, I think I may have at least 2 of the stars completed by Monday.  Now I’m seeing the benefit of a large block as I may well have this top together by month end.

Smudge was chasing leaves on the windowsill for a while on Thursday morning and then peeked out from under the lace.  We couldn’t resist this photo, even though it is a bit blurry.

Later on, Lester was on the windowsill.

Possible Fabric Combinations

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After reading the comments on yesterday’s post, I pulled out 4 fabrics to pair with the fabric I showed yesterday.  While I like all of them with it, I think the purple/pink batik is the one I’m going to work with.   I may do a block using the purple/pink and then another using the white.

The baby quilt piecing is tantalizingly close to being finished.  Tomorrow I’m going to see if I have a large enough piece of flannel for the backing and, if I do, I’ll hopefully get it basted this weekend and ready to quilt.

It was a rather cool day on Thursday and by the time the sun went down, it was a rather chilly 55F.  Once the temperature gets below 60, I start thinking about the day we’ll have to turn the heat on.  Hopefully, that won’t be for a few weeks yet.

Both cats were showing signs of getting ready for the cooler weather.  Lester curled up in a kitty bed.

And Smudge was on the couch.

Fabric Combinations

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Now that I’ve got those two pieces of gold fabric out on my sewing table, I couldn’t resist choosing some other fabrics to see how well they went together.  I’m not sure just what yet, but I think this grouping or at least part of it will find its way into a design.

Then I had to try those same fabrics with the other gold fabric.  Now that I have some combinations to play with, I can let my mind wander a bit and see if I come up with the perfect design to use these in.

The second row of the baby quilt is now joined to the first.  It’s going together easily, so I feel pretty confident I can have the little quilt that will be 40 x 48 inches finished by no later than mid-September.  I’d love to use the silk batting in the baby quilt but, as that will undoubtedly be a quilt that gets a lot of washing, I guess I’d better stick with a cotton batt.  I got spoiled with the silk batt as it makes fabric wrestling aka machine quilting so much easier.   We have nothing in particular planned for this weekend, so I’m hoping to get a lot accomplished on the baby quilt.  I’d love to get it to the point of being half put together by the end of the weekend, but that may be too optimistic.

Lester makes it easy to take good pictures — he will stay still and look right at the camera.

Smudge has always posed for the camera.

Another One-Flower Wednesday

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The missing container of hexagons was finally found.   The photo only shows about half the hexagons that are actually contained in there, all .50″ hexagons.  So after what seems like weeks, I was able to make one little flower to add to my garden for One Flower Wednesday.

The back:

This time I tried a different stitching sequence than my normal and found that it’s much faster.  Linda Franz posted this video on stitching hexagons on her blog last week and after watching it, I figured I’d try that stitching sequence.  It definitely makes a difference.

The pieced blocks for the baby quilt are finished.  As soon as I finish some work today, I’m going to lay them all out with the sashing elements and get started putting the top together.  It’s pretty clear now I won’t finish it by the end of August, but I’m still going to try for by the middle of September.

Was something going on with Blogger blogs on Tuesday?  I was able to leave comments on a few blogs early in the day but then had difficulties later in the day leaving comments.

The following two photos are of Queen’s Park — a park near our provincial legislature which is also called Queen’s Park.  It’s a beautiful park with lots and lots of lovely trees and just a short walk from here.

A view north towards Queen’s Park, the legislature building, from University Avenue:

Another view, as one goes further north on University Avenue:

I noticed that some of the leaves on the trees on the roof garden are turning yellow and falling already.  It’s still quite warm, but the light is definitely changing.

Smudge is getting into cooler weather mode, I think, wanting lots of lap time.

A rather soft focus shot of Lester:

Blues on Monday

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I exchange fabric gifts with a friend whose husband makes regular trips to Toronto on business.  This time when we went to his hotel to drop off the bag to be taken back home to my friend, this is the bag the concierge gave me.  With the pink bow, we had to take the picture of the bag with the tiny white bear who also has a pink/red bow!

Look at these gorgeous blue fabrics that were in that bag!!  Something tells me there’s another blue and white or blue and cream quilt in my future — and not too far off!  I have a lot of ideas that are swirling around in my mind already!

The red and white, blue and white, green and white, pink and white, yellow and white, purple and white blocks for the baby quilt are done and there are only a few of the peach and white blocks left.  I didn’t get as much stitching done Monday night as I had anticipated, but will definitely finish them off tonight.  Then the fun will begin — laying them out and figuring out which colours/fabrics of the other element surrounds each block.  That’s the part of making this baby quilt that I’m most looking forward to.  Once I get the placement all figured out, then it will be lots and lots of lovely continuous stitching that should go quite quickly.

On the way to the hotel Monday afternoon, more photos were taken.  We travelled down University Avenue, a wide street in the downtown core that has beautiful tress and flowers in the boulevard separating the northbound and southbound lanes.

Back at home later Monday, Smudge was busy with the Cappy toy again.

While Lester was on the windowsill.

Baby Quilt Block 1

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So far 20 of the 49 of these blocks I need for the baby quilt are done.  All the pieces for these blocks are cut out and the others printed, so now it’s solely a matter of stitching them.

Monday was a monster migraine day.  I basically got nothing done and didn’t even look at EQ.  I did start to leaf through the manual but quickly put it down.  I am determined to learn it, although I have a feeling it may be the weekend before I look at it again.  This week is going to be a bit busier than I had anticipated and I know that when I do sit down to start learning the program, I want to be able to dedicate blocks of time to it rather than a hit-and-miss half hour here or there.

Smudge was curled up most of Monday.

As was Lester, but we had this photo from the weekend of him in his usual spot on the windowsill.

Fabrics for Baby Quilt

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All the pieces for the baby quilt are printed.  About a third are cut out and ready to stitch.  While I’m making this scrappy, it’s going to be controlled scrappy with shades of 7 colours — red, blue, pink, green, yellow, purple and peach with a white as the background fabric.  Printing all the shapes needed for the quilt took less than an hour.  What took time this weekend was planning it.  I spent hours on Saturday with coloured markers and a printed-out layout, colouring in where each piece will go to meet my goal of ensuring no two pieces of the same colour are beside each other.

That convinced me — I have to make the effort to learn EQ.  I’ve tried before with limited success mostly because sitting in front of the computer trying to learn it feels like work.  But after spending hours and hours on Saturday and countless printed-out layouts later, I realize how much quicker and easier it would have been had I been able to do that part of the planning in EQ.

So my goal for this week?  As it looks like work has hit the August slow-down, I’m going to spend at least an hour or two each day learning EQ.  Between Inklingo and EQ, I would have the best possible combination for planning quilts.  Along with that, I’m going to try to work solely on the baby quilt for the next week or so and see if I can get the top put together quickly.

It was a rather overcast weekend with light rain on and off so it worked out perfectly for planning the quilt and getting the shapes printed.

Sunday afternoon the cats were curled up.  Smudge with a teddy bear.

Lester on the pink chair.

Bloggers’ Spring 2010 Quilt Festival

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Nothing like waiting till the very last minute but I finally chose a quilt to show in Amy’s fabulous online Quilt Festival.  I’ve shown this baby quilt on my blog before, but decided to show it again for the Festival.  It was hand pieced and machine quilted and is made of stars along with embroidered hexagons for a baby who was born in April 2009.   I used 1″ diamonds and 2″ hexagons from the Inklingo #1 collection.

I learned that quilting right over embroidered blocks does not distort or take away from the embroidery at all.  Quilting over the blocks with embroidery helps the quilt hold up to repeated washings, I think.  We saw the baby quilt after it had been in use for 8 months and it looked just as good as new.

The above picture isn’t great, but is the only one I have of it quilted.  This picture was taken before it was quilted.


Make yourself a coffee or a cup of tea and go over to the list of Festival participants here and enjoy!  There are some lovely quilts to be seen.