Dolly Quilt finsh

 My best friend’s granddaughter Grace will be 4 years old on Monday. I managed to finish a Dolly Quilt for her and put in in the post along with a book called Drama Llama. 

The little quilt measures 24” square. The appliqué motifs are hand blanket stitched and the quilt is machine quilted. I did hand quilt around each motif using off white Perle thread which makes the figures pop out from the background.

I understand from Grace’s Grandma that she loves wrapping up her dolls and soft toys so I hope she approves of this quilt.

I’m now busy making the blocks for two more Dolly quilts, both little girls’ birthdays coming up in the next two weeks!

And a photo of the backing:

17 years old Quilt back for repair

 

One of the first large quilts I made back in 2001 was this single bed sized quilt called "In the Pink" for my cousin's daughter's 30th birthday.

I was so pleased to learn recently that the quilt is still on Catherine's bed at her parents' house  and she still enjoys it.

Unfortunately her room gets a lot of strong sunlight so the colours have faded badly, especially in the bottom half of the quilt. The hot sun has actually rotted two of the fabric strips in the log cabin blocks as you can see in the second photo. One of the appliqued elephants is coming adrift and the black stitches which represent his ear have disappeared!

 

So it's back with me  for repair - something I haven't done before so tomorrow I'm taking it to my Patchwork Group meeting to ask for advice.

 

Interestingly, 17 years later I still enjoy making Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Bill blocks ( I have some on the go as handwork at present) and I also applique names on the front of quilts, Baby quilts these days.

 

Happy memories.

First Quilt finish for 2015

I have just finished hand sewing the binding on a baby quilt.
My first Quilt finish for 2015.

My daughter asked me to make a quilt for a friend who is expecting a baby in about a month's time.  The parents know it is a boy and my daughter loves Overall Bills so they had to be part of the design. DD hand blanket stitched a few of the blocks but the design, fabric choices etc were my ideas.  The parents lived in Australia for some years so as I had a small piece of Koala bear fabric I included that as the centre block.  My intention was to have Overall Bills walking in different directions throughout the quilt as if they were seeking the koalas.

Finding Koalas

 

The quilt is vibrant, much brighter colours than in my photograph.

I pieced the backing, using some of the fabrics used in the quilt front.

The pieced backing:

  

 

The Overall Bills were hand blanket stitched and I echo quilted with Perle cotton around each appliqued figure.  Otherwise the quilt was machine quilted.

I used two of the Pearl bracelet fabrics I won last year in a Giveaway - almost nothing of those two pieces are left!  Lots of small scraps were used to make the Overall Bills.  Everything in this quilt came from my stash......... nothing extra was bought at all.  Just how I like it!

Passing it on to my DD this weekend, so she has it ready for when baby puts in an appearance.