Final finishes

 I have just completed the last Premature baby quilt for my local hospital which I think my Patchwork Group will hand over just before Christmas.

I have made 5 and they are nice and bright and cheerful.

 

 

3 were made using 4" Crumb blocks & 4" squares from stash:

 

 

 

 

 

 

One used up my last remaining scrap from a piece of novelty fabric I was gifted several years ago.

I used the elephant/jungle scrap as the centre for a medallion-style quilt. The 2.5" squares and strips for borders were all from stash:

 

 

And this last quilt used my last frog squares:

 

I have enjoyed making these little quilts ( 15" x 20") and hope they will bring joy to the parents of premature babies.

 

 

 

 

 

Charming Charm squares

I have really been enjoying looking through my scraps,strips and squares to find inspiration to make more premature baby quilts. The quilts are fun to make and it's lovely to get the creative juices flowing , finding ways to use up scraps that have languished in my stash for far too long.

The 6 quirky 4" squares are a good example of what I mean!  They have been in my Squares stash for so long I can't even remember where they came from. There were actually 7 of these Charm squares so I still have one left over! Quite cute pictures which I framed with strips from my Strips stash.
A while ago I won a Giveaway and ordered a few metres of fabric that could be used for bindings ( my favourite spots and stripes). The turquoise one with white spots was the fabric I chose for the borders and also the backing of this little quilt. The binding is aqua Kona Cotton also from stash.

The finished quilt measures 16" x 20".

 

Linking up with Nicky's Mrs Sew & Sow's Scraptastic Tuesday - November Link Up

Finished baby quilt - Robots in Space

On Thursday I finished hand sewing the binding on my latest Baby boy quilt. As the weather was actually quite pleasant and sunny yesterday I took the opportunity to take some photos outside. 
The first one was held up by my 5 year old granddaughter who then decided her arms were tired so my daughter was asked to complete the job.

 

And then a couple of close ups:

 

 

 

 

I am SO pleased with this quilt.  It measures 42" x 34" and is really bright and cheerful, ideal for the baby boy who is due to be born in three weeks' time.

 

I started with 2 gifted strips of funky robots and airplanes.  I made the centre row first, adding Bondaweb to the back of the robots and planes, hand blanket stitching with embroidery floss. Then I just built the strippy quilt around them, finding suitable fabrics and scraps from my stash.  Two of the fabrics used were won in a Giveaway so this quilt hasn't cost me much to make.

 

The quilt came together very quickly and I love the hand quilting in a variegated Perle thread.  It looks great on the back too. Just realised I forgot to take a photo of the back ( using the yellow striped pieced backing I recently blogged about) so I must take some more photos tomorrow.

 

So, everything in this quilt was from stash.  I have 4 of the robot and plane motifs left so  hope to make another baby quilt, using the striped rows in this quilt.

 

It was such fun to design this quilt.  Definitely a unique gift!

 

Sorting out my sewing room

Well, suddenly we are halfway through January, so 2015 is already starting to slip away, and it's time to sort out my sewing room and have a good old tidy up.

I have a drawer with "Project Packs" which I did not touch today. I do more or less know what's in there.  Mostly packs of fabrics and scraps ready to make a quilt, not WIPs.

However, I did delve into the cupboard which has packs of blocks, including a couple of Sewing Bee groups I participated in a few years ago.  Time they saw the light of day!

 

Thirteen 12.5" blocks which really need to be made into a quilt - or donated. 

 

Another Bee Group, similar colours to the previous set but Stars this time. Perhaps I could combine both sets of blocks?  There does seem an awful lot of white in both sets ( although one block in this set definitely has  cream background).  Perhaps a bit of trimming and adding colourful strips? 

Then I have a few sets of blocks I make as "Leaders and Enders" - in the Bonnie Hunter style:

Top row are a set of 6" Crumb blocks and 2 sets of 4" Crumb blocks
Middle row: a set of Hour glass style blocks and rather anaemic pinwheels(should I undo them into HSTs?)
Bottom row: Wonky stars, Bonnie Hunter style. Boy colours.

And a quilt top made from 4" Crumb blocks made into 4 patch blocks, made into a Cornerstones top (Gwen Marston style).  Probably needs a border.  A good size as you can see from the photo - it is spread out on top of a single bed. Once this is finished I think I will donate it to Siblings Together.


I also sorted out my scraps.  Any reasonable sized pieces I put into a large zipped poly bag which originally  held sheets. I do find these bags so useful.  Smaller pieces I cut into 2.5"  or 3" squares, or strips. All tidily away in my stash.

Not quite finished sorting out as I ran out of time but hope to finish the job tomorrow.

Feeling pleased with my efforts so far.

 

Rainbow Strippy finished

I have finished my Rainbow Strippy Quilt this week and I love it.

It is based on the Beeline Quilt from Emily Cier's book Scrap Republic.
However, I have increased the size as the one in the book only finishes at 30" square.  That's a nice size for a playmat or pushchair/Moses basket quilt but this will be useful for a cot too.
I made the centre panel around 30" and the borders 5" or so and the bound quilt measures 38" wide by 42" long.

Every single part of this quilt was made from stash:  scrap strips (many of them given to me or ones I received in Swaps), the various colours of Perle Cottons, the batting, binding and also the quilt backing.  I bought this piece of fabric about three years ago and had never found it quite right for any quilt I was making.  Until this one and I decided it went really well. It was obviously meant for this quilt as the size was perfect!  I have just been left with the trimmings which have been added to my strips stash.  Nothing gets thrown away here!

It looks pretty and shows up the variously coloured rows of Perle quilting very nicely.

I added photos of the quilt yesterday onto my Flickr Photostream and added it to the Scrap Republic Group's photos.  As I have made several quilts from the book I now appear as No 1 on the list of most photos in this group.

During the week I have also made another little Preemie quilt top, similar to the one I showed in last week's blog post.  They are both sandwiched ready for quilting and I have started to hand quilt one of them.

I have also sandwiched the Freckles Quilt top I made a couple of months ago and this morning I started to hand quilt this one at my patchwork group. Again this is based on a Scrap Replublic pattern.

Hope you have all had a successful sewing week too.

Linking up with Maybush Studio's Thursday Brit Sewing Linky.