Donation quilts handed over

I love making small quilts, especially if scraps are involved. I enjoy making Premature baby quilts to donate to my local hospital which is dear to my heart.

I have been a presenter with Hospital Radio there for 17 years, over 11of those years  as Duty Producer.  I recently stood down from this role as I have had health problems for almost 3 years now but I will continue to produce and present some programmes.

As a retired Primary teacher, children and babies are of the utmost importance to me, so I love making quilts for the Premature babies.  Since the latter part of 2013 I have been making some Premature baby quilts, completing two more this year.  Our hospital prefers a size of 20" x 15" so now that I have completed six and I had a hospital appointment there too this afternoon, I decided to take them into the Unit today.

This is the 6th quilt I finished a few days ago:

 

This quilt was made from bright scraps left over from a bundle of fat eigths which had been given to me as a gift.

 

All six quilts are bright and made mostly from scraps.  Two feature Crumb squares turned into HSTs paired with a lime Kona solid  and two more have a rabbit novelty fabric and small HSTs made into small blocks and made into rows.

 

Each quilt has a variety of binding fabrics: some have the same binding for the whole quilt, some have a scrap binding effect using leftover bits of binding from my stash.

 

Backings are a mixture too: 

The 2 Crumb/lime HST quilts have a recycled sheet for the backing.

One has a recycled blue gingham shirt which came from one of my husband's shirts as the collar was  worn.

 

The other two backings were suitably sized pieces from my stash.

 

All of the quilts are hand quilted, some with Perle cottons, some with regular quilting thread.

 

Here they are:

 

The two on the Top Row were made this year, the Bottom Row were completed in 2013.

My next photo shows the backings:

The nurses were delighted with the quilts and I was thrilled to hand them over.  I hope they bring joy and happiness to some families.

 

 

 

Exciting post today

I love receiving post and today's was especially good!
Two items I had recently ordered both arrived on the same day:

First, a great Quilt Book by Bonnie K Hunter (Quiltville blog) which is called String Fling. The book was published in 2012 and is Bonnie's 4th book.  She has recently published another one.
I follow Bonnie's blog and as she is constantly touring teaching classes you get to see some great photos of the places she visits as well as the students and the great blocks and quilts they are making.

In a couple of recent posts my eye was drawn to two of her quilt designs: Tulip Fields and Pfeffernusse. Both were in the same book String Fling so I ordered it from Amazon.  Postal charges from the States are so high now but this was a reasonable way of getting the book to me.

Then I saw a bundle of 4 fat Quarters on Ebay:  4 coordinating pale pink fabrics, the main one having a Parisian theme.  I am short of pink fabrics in my stash and as I may be going to make a pink baby girl quilt for a neighbour I thought they would be good to add to the stash.. Good price too!

So, although one parcel was coming from The USA and the other from here in the UK they both popped through the letterbox this morning.

I have just skimmed through the book and it looks great.  All the 13 quilts are made from string and scrap fabrics, so just up my street. Now I have to decide which blocks to try first.

The Fat Quarters are going into my diminished stash of pink fabrics, ready for the baby quilt when I get confirmation from my neighbour.

Here's a photo:

Never too old to learn

I have been Quilting since 1997 and made so many quilts that I cannot even remember them all.
However, I was never a sewer until I started making Patchwork quilts. 

I hated the year of sewing we had to do at Grammar School: the teacher didn't have the patience to explain to a girl like me who didn't have a clue about sewing machines!

After I qualified as a Primary School teacher I attended an evening class for Dressmaking but again it didn't really thrill me. 

When I was in my mid 20s my mother-in-law gifted me her old machine when she replaced it with a Bernina and when our daughter started ballet and tap dancing I was forced to use the dreaded machine to make costumes for the various Dance Shows Caroline was in.  Oh dear, the ups and downs of those costumes!  I once had to make a proper net tutu on a fitted satin strappy bodice.  Lots of downs with that one but I got there in the end.  I'll let you into a secret.................... that tutu is still hanging in the Guest room wardrobe as I just cannot part with it ( too many hours of sewing went into that dress).

Fast forward to 1997 when I got bitten by the Patchwork and Quilting Bug.  I HAD to conquer my fear of sewing machines and I managed straight stitches OK..... nothing else, nothing fancy and certainly NO machine quilting!  I tried it once and nearly ruined a lovely baby quilt so it was back to hand quilting for ever as far as I was concerned.  I love hand quilting and like the effect it gives the quilts.

However last Sunday I decided to make an I Spy Playmat for a baby born a couple of days before.  Baby Caspian is part of our extended family and I know playmats are useful for babies to lie on and kick and have their "tummy time".  In addition it can double up as a Moses basket and crib quilt and even keep him warm and cosy in the car or when he is being cuddled.

In an afternoon I chose the patches and sewed them together into a top.  Next day on went the bright yellow spotty border and the following day I sandwiched it ready for quilting.  Then I heard a family member was going to visit the new baby on Saturday so, if I could finish the quilt in time he could deliver it by hand.  Much safer than trusting it to the postal system.  In order to meet this deadline I would have to machine quilt!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought a walking foot almost three years ago but had never been able to work out how to put it onto the machine - that sticky up pokey rod flummoxed me.  So I asked my good friend Ruth to show me how to out it on when our Patchwork Group met at my house on Thursday. She put it on (I hope I can remember how next time!) and after lunch I set to, sewing up and down either side of all the seam lines.  And I DID IT!  It's really good, I didn't stress about it and the finished grid is perfectly acceptable.  I am so thrilled with myself, you can't imagine!

So by Friday evening I had a completely finished, bound and labelled (my own hand embroidered label) quilt which was delivered to baby Caspian yesterday.

Which just goes to show YOU ARE NEVER TOO OLD TO LEARN!

And here it is!

 

 

 

Can you see my first-ever machine quilting on the back?

 

This quilt came together so easily.  I enjoyed rummaging through my stash to find 49 different fabrics to use.  Many of them were novelty prints but I also incorporated some African fabrics I bought a few years ago and never found a suitable project where I could use them.  However I like the animal skin prints mixed up with the more traditional boy fabrics.

 

Another friend had bought the remains of a bolt of fabric half price in a sale and offered friends the chance to buy a metre from her.  The pale yellow and pale cream checked fabric had been in my stash for perhaps a year.  Do you know it was the exact size for my Playmat? 

 

The trimmings have been trimmed to a 2.5" strip and three 1.75" strips for Alison to use in her Soy Amado Project.

I am busy making some more blocks for Alison and also adding some strips for her to use as sashings and bindings. Alison joins up the strips to make her scrappy bindings and uses a variety of strips for  joining the QAYG blocks to make her delightful colourful quilts for the Children's Home in Mexico. She has now completed 19 quilts ....... check them out in her Soy Amado Group on Flickr.

 

So, from a very happy bunny, I wish you a lovely Sunday!

Gifting a baby quilt and starting de-cluttering

So far there hasn't been too much sewing happening here for a variety of reasons.

At the end of March we returned from our 3 months in New Zealand and there was lots to do - house, garden, catching up with family and friends etc.  We also had a short trip to Holland to visit friends over Easter and in addition I had two unexpected trips to A & E, one in Amsterdam and one back home.

However I have managed to embroider and sew on a label for my Peter Rabbit Quilt and this was handed over to my next door neighbour this morning.  Her daughter had a baby girl a few days ago so this is for Eadie.

 

I made the quilt top a couple of years ago and then it was put away in the cupboard.

Last year, as part of my finishing UFOs campaign it was finished.  Definitely a quilt for a baby girl I think, with so much pink included. 

So, I hope baby Eadie enjoys it as a playmat and as a quilt for cuddling.

 

Eadie's baby cousin Freya was born only three weeks before so both of the baby quilts I have gifted so far this year have gone to the same family.

 

Our Dutch friends were so kind and looked after us so well whilst we were staying with them. We met again their elder daughter and her two little children, Nolan-Jay and Eden-Rose. Eden-Rose is a delightful 3 year old and typically "into pink".  She also loves her cuddly toys and dollies and her favourite pastime is tucking them up and taking them for a walk in her dolly pram.  So, as part of a "Thank you" to our hosts I am making a very pink Doll's Quilt for Eden-Rose.

 

Lots of hearts which have been attached with fusible webbing but I am now hand blanket stitching round them with matching embroidery floss.  I love blanket stitching so this is a very enjoyable part of the quilt making for me.  I will add two borders and perhaps even a little pink ric rac for extra embellishment.

De-cluttering is uppermost in my mind at present.  As I was unpacking from New Zealand I decided it was time to go through every cupboard and drawer in the house and throw out as much as I could.

Last week I started on my wardrobe and so far have taken three bags of clothes to the Charity Shop, a paperback I finished reading since I came home and returned lots of unused medicines and dressings to the chemist's for disposal.

I have really got the bug now and am determined to be ruthless and give away anything I have not worn/used for a long time.  This morning I made another visit to the Charity Shop, taking 5 T shirts and a pretty skirt that I have not worn for probably ten years.  I doubt I would now fit into it and it is definitely too young a style for me.  However, each time I had sorted through the wardrobe, back the skirt went because I thought the fabric was so lovely I should make some cushions from it.  Well, that has never happened, so out it went this morning.

My aim is to sort through a cupboard or a few drawers each week until the job is DONE!

Has the Spring cleaning and de-cluttering bug got you too?

 

Gift for a new baby

At the end of last year I completed a few baby quilts to stash away ready for a few babies I knew were going to be born this year.

Our next door neighbour's son and his wife had their third daughter on 29th March.
From my stash of quilts I chose this cheerful Rainbow Strips Quilt:

 

This quilt for Freya joins the two others I gave to her older sisters, Isla and Neve.

 

I have been searching my quilt photos for a picture of Isla's quilt but frustratingly I cannot find it!

 

A few years ago I made a series of baby quilts featuring appliqued cats and teddy bears which you can see on my Flickr page, koshka2 photostream. They can be found in the Teddy bear quilts and Cat quilts sets.

Isla's quilt was the same design featuring cats and Sunbonnet Sues and Overall Bills.

 

However, sister Neve's quilt is this one:

 

 

 

It's nice to be able to welcome a new baby into the world with a quilt for snuggling.  Isla and Neve have loved their quilts so I hope little Freya does too.

 

 

 

More Soy Amado blocks

I had great fun making 5 more Soy Amado blocks for Alison ( Little Island Quilting ).

This time I went with Scrappy Stars, combining Crumb Blocks ( Bonnie Hunter style ) with the Wonky Stars of Gwen Marston.  Really please with the result. 
This time I added a bigger border so that after quilting I could trim them to exactly 12.5" square.

I did a little machine quilting and then hand quilted around the star shape with a mauve/purple variegated Perle Cotton.

Here they are:

 

And here is my favourite one:

 

 

Can you see the funky cats peering out of the centre?

 

I love making Crumb Blocks, using really tiny bits of fabric.  I have a whole tin full of them back in the UK, probably 80 or so, and now have a little stash here in New Zealand too.  I couldn't get a 4" square ruler at our nearest NZ Quilt Shop so bought a 4.5" instead which has worked very well.

 

Do take a look at littleislandquilting.blogspot and perhaps make a block or two for Alison's excellent project.

 

I was thrilled to find some of my first blocks in two quilts:  Soy Amado 6 ( littleislandquilting.blogspot/2014/03/soy-amado-no-6 )

 

and in Soy Amado 7 ( littleislandquilting.blogspot/2014/03/soy-amado-no-7 )

 

Little People Premature baby quilt

 

 

First finish of 2014! Ta da!

 

This is my first finished quilt of 2014.

As I have been in New Zealand since the beginning of the year I have done very little sewing.  I belong to two Patchwork groups here and I needed some sewing to take to meetings so  I had some hand quilting to do.
I made two simple Premature baby quilts and a few days ago I finished the first one.

All the fabrics were in the small stash I keep here.  I can't even remember where I got the feature fabric but think it was some fabric scraps someone in the group was clearing out.  It is very quirky and I wonder if it is from the 1940s or 1950s. I think it was originally used to make a child's dress and the scraps were odd shapes, like you would have left over from dressmaking.
If anyone has an idea about the age of the fabric please leave me a Comment on this post.

Today I went to my last Patchwork meeting before we go back to the UK and I worked on the second small quilt.  Same design, different fabrics.  I will donate both to my local hospital in the UK.

I have also been making some Soy Amado blocks for Alison of little island quilting and will blog tomorrow about those.