WIp turned into a finished Quilt top

Continuing with my New Year's Resolution to use up fabric in my stash and complete WIPs that were languishing in my sewing cupboard, I had a very profitable afternoon yesterday.

About a year ago I started to make a Plumb Quilt from Emily Cier's book Scrap Republic.
I made four of the six rainbow bands, sorted out the fabric for the other two bands and also some neutral fabrics that I thought would be suitable for the scrappy borders.  And then, for a reason I can no longer remember, it was put into a plastic bag and popped into my sewing cupboard.

And there it stayed until yesterday.  It only took me 3 hours to turn my WIP into a lovely little quilt.  I increased the width of the borders and the completed top measures 41" x 33", so a nice Baby Quilt size.

Here are some photos:

And two close ups of part of the rainbow bands and scrappy borders.

 

 

Many of the rainbow strips are fabrics I have received in recent Swapbot Swaps, the rest oddments from my scrap bags.

So I can honestly say that this quilt top has cost nothing to make ( apart from the cost of thread).

I was extremely pleased with the top; the neutral scrappy borders really show the rainbow bands off well.  My husband made my day when he told me he thought it was the best quilt top I had ever made.  He said it reminded him of an abstract work of art!  I love it even more knowing that!

Tomorrow I am going to a new Patchwork Group where there are tables to use for sandwiching your quilts. So I am taking my Rainbow Bands top with me so I can get it ready for quilting.  It will be lovely not to have to crawl around on my sewing room floor to do this job!

In a moment I am going to cut the binding for my current quilt, the Crumb quilt Cornerstones one.

I hope to machine the binding on so that I can take that with me as well tomorrow.  Who knows, I might even have time to start to hand sew the binding on the back of the quilt as the group meets for about 3 hours.

A productive weekend.  I hope you have been equally happy with your sewing output this weekend.

 

Two finishes

I have finished two small  projects today.  Firstly, the second of my very similar HST Crumb block Preemie Quilts.

The one I finished today is the quilt on the left, with the yellow binding.   Here it is with a similar one I finished recently.

I had a great Swapbot partner in the last Swap I did and I wanted to make her something extra.  So today I finished a little needlecase, based on a design created by nanacompany.  This time, instead of a button closure I have used two lengths of thin ribbon as a tie.  I think I prefer this idea as it doesn't detract from the appliqued strawberry on the front of the needlecase.

Here it is, opened out to show the front and back.

 

And here it is, fastened with its ribbon tie, ready for use.

 

Quilt finishes and Can it be Spring?

The last few days have been busy on the sewing front as I sewed the binding on another little Crumb blocks Preemie quilt, finished quilting and binding the Busy Traffic Baby quilt and turned 49 of my finished 4" Crumb blocks into another Baby quilt top.

Here's the Preemie Crumb Quilt:

 

I paired the Crumb blocks with 4" Kona Cotton Solid ( I think the colour is Chartreuse) to make the HSTs. Only had to finish handsewing the binding to finish this little quilt.  I have another very similar waiting to be hand quilted when I need a little hand project to keep me busy at a Patchwork Group meeting.

 

Then, as the twin boys had been born in New Zealand I needed to finish the second Baby quilt. 

I completed the hand quilting and then decided to use the same Regatta colour of Kona Cotton Solid for the binding that I had used for the border. That is now finished and I'm very happy with it.

 

Busy Traffic Quilt

 

Earlier this year I took part in a Scraps Swap on Swapbot and the pale vehicles were one of the scraps I received.  I used fusible webbing and cut out around the different vehicle shapes to create the blocks. I had the dark blue background vehicle fabric in my stash so made more blocks with that fabric.  Then I jiggled the wonky sized blocks into strips by adding various depths of extra borders.  I love the bright I Spy effect of the quilt.  I have decided this quilt is for baby James and the Little Owls Quilt is for baby Edward.

Here are the two quilts, side by side just waiting for me to embroider labels to sew on the back of the quilts.  Then they can be posted to NZ.

 

 For Edward and James

As always when I am sewing I create more and more little Crumb blocks and my tin was overflowing.  So I have used 49 of the blocks to make another Baby quilt top.  All finished, ready to sandwich ready for quilting.

Here's a Sneak Peak:

The pretty Cornerstones fabric was also one of pieces I received in the same Scraps Swap parcel.
The pale green sashing is the Green Tea Kona Cotton solid I recently bought from Fabric Shack.  Only a 3" strip left!

But I have also been out and about making the most of a couple of days of lovely sunny weather.  Still not too hot, haven't reached double figures for the temperature yet, but it is pleasant to walk around without a woolly hat which has been a permanent fixture on my head for months and months and months! It has been great not to battle icy winds that practically cut you in half!  Let's hope this is really the start of Spring and not just another flash in the pan.