A knitted baby blanket

Over the past couple of months I engaged in a bit of knitting because I will be made a aunt again in June. Needless to say the entire family is thoroughly overexcited. And the best thing of all is that my brother and his grilfriend also live in London which means I hopefully will get to see my little niece often.

I love knitting but find little time these days. My mother knitts even more and  loves knitting for my nephew and all the small children in the extended family. Oddly enough I don't like knitting jumpers for children and I think that is because it seems such a waste given that they grow out of in six months time.

But baby blankets is something totally different. I love making these knowing that they will be treasured and used a long time. I didn't use much of a pattern but it is knit very much like the wonderful baby blankets that pop up on the Purl Bee every so often.

Like the first one I knitted, this one also uses Madelinetosh yarn which is hand dyed and divinely soft. I bought this combo at the delightful Loop Yarn in North London.

Snowy days - a finished quilt

Yes  you read correctly. This is the quilt that I started just before Christmas and which was meant to keep me warm in the Winter but sadly was only finished a few weeks back.

But there will always be another Winter and to be frank it has been a bit cold in the nights lately which meant it actually has been residing on my bed for a while.

This is a very large quilt with 70in x 80in and is perfect for my king size bed. I am sure you will remember that I have been collecting and playing with these low volume prints for a while now, starting with my one-year long hexagon project.

I then went on to make a cushion in the same prints only to right away decide that I needed a much larger quilt in the same prints. So I went back to the Cloth House in Soho where I know I can get lovely linens and in addition I dug out every piece of low volume I could find in the house.

Piecing this quilt was difficult because many of the fabrics used were very soft linens and others very course and thick, some new French delicate linens and some very old ones from my grandmother. I would have had an easier time piecing if I had used interfacing to stabilise the softer linens.

When I had to decide on the quilt back I procrastinated for ever but finally decided on Essex Yarn dyed linen in Flax. This is a beautiful fabric but heavy and heavy I wanted but it meant that quilting in a one inch crosshatch pattern was very hard work and not at all enjoyable. So I took my sweet time with it.

I bound it with one of the best text prints ever from Sweetwater's collection 'Mama Said Sew' called 'Words Dictionary'.

Although I haven't had the best time making this quilt, I do love it and am always happy when I look at it. It is stunning and works very well with my white/grey/beige bedroom.

Older blog posts regarding this quilt can be found here, here and here.

Liberty changing mat and blanket

You know I love making my foldable changing mats and when LP&Q asked me to make a Liberties inspired series of makes I couldn't wait to suggest a changing mat with matching blanket.

So in issue 7 that came out last week you can find out how to make both of them !

I wanted to make a duo that could be used for both girls and boys and you know how much I dislike gender polarisation by way of colour. Yes the quilt has a lot of blue but also a lot of girly flowers which I think is a creat combo.

I used a very soft denim as background colour and made a sweet heart from Liberty scraps.

And this is of course how it looks folded and ready to slip in the handbag, buggy, car ..... always ready for that emergency nappy change. 

 The baby blanket is simply made fromLiberty squares backed with a gorgeous navy super soft flannel.

 And here again folded and ready for a snuggle.

Matchsticks

I am still enamoured with the colour yellow and am itching to make a second quilt that features this happy colour.

And another technique I am keen to check out is the "slice and dice" technique championed by Jacquie Gering and Katie Perdersen in "Quilting Modern".

So how about that ?

It was enourmous fun making this block and I can see a whole lot of them being created...if only I had a bit more time on my hands.