Sawtooth Stars baby quilt

 As there is a lot of yellow in the Sawtooth Stars quilt I finished this week I am adding to my yellow RSC 2021 total for February. And the other RSC connection is that the inspiration for the sawtooth blocks came from Cathy’s Sawtooth Stars quilt in 2019 ( Sane, Crazy Crumby Quilter).

I made 5 of them in April 2019 to see if I liked them, using a novelty fabric for the centre square and star points with a strong contrasting background. And later I made some using Crumb centres like Cathy had done. Then they got put away! And forgotten.

Last month I discovered my cousin’s son and wife were expecting a second baby in February . As I had given a quilt to their first child Margot I obviously needed to make one for Baby2. They weren’t finding our whether they were expecting a girl or boy so I decided to go with strong colours- reds, greens, oranges, yellows - and then remembered my Sawtooth Stars. I think I had about 10 but chose the novelty fabric ones, leaving the crumb centred ones for another quilt. I then set about making extra stars. Interestingly I had packed away some of the original novelty fabrics with the Sawtooth Stars so that gave me a good start. I finished the quilt just in time as Polly Maeve was born on 17th February.

As you can see there is a lot of yellow in the quilt, including the 2 borders. It measures 46” square. I machined down the columns and along the rows in the ditch and then hand stitched around the squares with a variety of Perle threads which match the star fabric.

Close ups of some of the stars:

Coincidentally shamrocks feature in some blocks. My cousin and I had a Irish grandmother and Polly’s middle name is Irish ( just because her parents liked the name I think) so I thought those stars had been included “for a reason”.

The backing  was pieced from two pieces of fabric leftover from a baby quilt I made last October. The paler green fabric is paw prints. Again very suitable because Mummy is a vet.

For the last few years when I’m making a baby quilt for a family with an older sister I make a Doll Quilt for her. This is the one I made for Big Sister Margot.

It measures 18” x 21” and was quickly made from 3.5” squares from my stash.

The backing was from a piece a quilting friend gifted me several years ago.

My cousin Jayne phoned yesterday to thank me for the quilts. I had posted them to her and she had just handed them over. Mummy and Daddy were thrilled and Margot loved opening her parcel and immediately  wrapped her toy monkey in it! That made my day.

Joining up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog.

 

Yellow blocks for February RSC

 I normally don’t have many yellow scraps ( I probably write the same comment every year!) because when I buy yellow fabrics for a project  I’m never left with many leftovers. However I stocked up on yellow a while ago and have been using them in projects and also for my February blocks which I’ve been making all month, dovetailing them with quilt making.

So my total for February:

 13 Ticky Tacky houses

11 Wonky Stars

5 Twinkler Blocks and 2 Roman Stripes 

Love all these blocks and all, except the Wonky Stars, are ongoing RSC 21 blocks, carried on from previous years. And all were ideas I gleaned from Cathy’s blog, Sane, Crazy Crumby Quilting. I wonder what colour will be chosen for March - Green?

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog

A Trio of Quilts

 I finished the last of the Trio of Quilts that I intend to donate to a Gift Shop in town. Its profits go to 

The Samaritans, an excellent organisation which helps so many desperate people.

 

The First quilt measures 38” square

And its pieced backing

The Second quilt measure 36” square 

And its pieced backing 

And the Third Quilt which measures 40” square

And its pieced backing 

All three used Crumb blocks that were already in my stash and fabrics and scraps I had to hand. Some scraps had been gifted to me, others were leftovers from previous projects.

I had to be inventive with the backing as I don’t have too many large pieces of fabric  in my stash.

The turquoise quilt used up a piece of fabric I had acquired several years ago when one of my quilting friends, Helen, was downsizing. It’s actually a Christmas fabric and until this quilt I had never found just the right place to use it. The fabric was not big enough for a whole backing so I added the turquoise solid strip to make it fit which I think ties it in nicely with the front of the quilt.

I had a piece of pretty pink with tiny white spots fabric that I thought would be suitable for the backing of the quilt with the mauve spotted border. Again it wasn’t large enough so I added strips either end of a bright Starry fabric which has been in my stash for years and years! (I still have some left!)

And finally the Quilt with the bright pink spotted border required even more juggling to create a backing. I didn’t have enough of the pink of the inner border but by piecing some of the bright outer border fabric I managed to create a large enough backing. 

I always cut binding fabrics at 2.5” but I already had quite a lot of the outer border fabric cut at 2.25” (leftovers from a previous quilt) so I decided to cut a few more strips at that width and use those leftover strips. I was delighted with this binding and from now on I’ll always use this 2.25” width. It makes a really neat edge to the quilt.

So, three baby quilts, all machine quilted, and ready to take to the shop owner.

Sending a parcel to Australia

 Tomorrow I’ll be posting a parcel off to Jan Mac in Australia. She recently said she was making Library Book bags to give to children so they had a bag to bring home library books. No bag, no book borrowing. Several of her blog followers have already made and sent bags and this past few days I made 4. In order to make the most of the weight allowed I made 5 QAYG String blocks to add to the parcel.

 

 All fully lined so they should last well.

                                                     And the QAYG blocks:

                                          

Donation finish

 I agreed to my daughter’s request to make some baby quilts that a local Charity Shop could sell.

I make Crumb blocks as Leaders and Enders so I had a tin full ready to use. I have made several baby quilts using these blocks and I’m always happy with the result - bright quilts with lots of I Spy opportunities.

I finished hand sewing the binding on this today and I love it!

When I recently sorted out my leftover pieces of batting I pinned a label onto the larger pieces, stating the size. When I came to layer up my flimsy yesterday I checked the bag of pieces and lo and behold there was a piece exactly the right size. 

Then I checked a piece of backing fabric I had acquired when a friend was downsizing her stash several years ago. I’ve never found the right quilt for this piece but I think it’s great for this one. A little too small in the width so I added a piece of the border and binding fabric and I’m so pleased with it. Two more oddments out of my cupboard!

I always liked this piece of fabric, it’s actually a Christmas fabric according to the selvedge but I would never have guessed that. Wish I had more of it - I could use it for more backings for these I Spy quilts.

See what I mean about the fabric not being an obviously Christmas one?

Happy day for me today as I had my 1st Covid 19 vaccine this morning.