Freebird - flown the nest at last

This Freebird flew the nest so to say last night to a friend of mine who had her first baby a couple of months ago.



I finished it over the weekend and am rather pleased with it now. I agonised over how to quilt it and in the end decided to echo quilt once around the appliquéd flowers and then quilt-in-the-ditch along the white sashing. It would have been best to echo quilt the entire quilt but that would have meant to hand quilt it and I don't have the time for that at the moment. Incidentally has any of you done echo quilting on a normal (i.e non longarm) machine before ? I suppose one can do it using a free motion food but it would involve an awful lot of quilt turning and wiggling. I think this is best done on a longarm, is that right ?

The Binding is kept scrappy using some left overs of past quilts which made it quick and easy and most importantly effective for both sides.



Doesn't it look lovely all folded up...yumm.

And here the usual stats:

• The quilt is about 50 x 55 inches but I can't be sure as I forgot to measure the finished piece.
• Entirely made from one charm pack plus Kona cotton in caramel and one of the lighter greens (can't remember that either) plus Kona Snow for the white sashing
• Gueterman Sulky No 1071 was used for the in-the-ditch machine quilting and a variety of Perle cottons No. 16 for the echo hand-quilting around the flowers. 

Previous posts about the quilt can be found here and here

And now at last I am free for new adventures. On the to-do list for July are:
- Starting and at least getting to the basting stage of the commissioned 'Very Berry' quilt for Michael   
  and Claire
- Sew two bags from Ruby Star Rising that were commissioned
- Join in the Summer Sampler quilt along
- make 2 blocks for a secret project
- make 3-4 stockings for the Adventcalender to make up for no stockings made in June
- give into an HST urge that has been lingering for a while again..........
of yes and my sister called last night and requested I make for my nephew some food items from fabric for his toy pots and pans...............anybody know anything about that ?  She wants roast potatoes, eggs and Schnitzel...now there's a challenge

Happy sewing friends !!

Freebird - Part II

Before the progress report on the Freebird quilt some much needed housekeeping.

Caroline from "Contented Caroline" asked me where I got my labels from. They are from this shop. I contacted Anna directly as she didn't have them in her shop at the time and she was so kind to make me some on cotton tape. I got this tip from some other blog but can't really remember from where to be honest.

I was last weekend in Germany and gave my mother the 'Laugh and Happiness' quilt with a lot of trepidation in my stomach. But she absolutely loved it. Exactly as all of you knew who so kindly commented with encouragement. So, thank you very much ! Also a lot of people said the quilt reminded them of "Kaffee and Kuchen" (cake and coffee) or cappuccino which my sister echoed too. I never thought about this but now I obviously see cappuccino and cake everywhere when I look at the quilt. I really should have thought about it right away as my Dad is a baker and we have a cafe and bakery.

Lastly some of you got very close regarding the Brit Bee blocks I am planning for July. All will be revealed tomorrow.

And here is an update on the Freebird progress. Reading your comments to my first post I was rather surprised at how popular the range is. I obviously bought it because I was drawn to the colours but mainly because I wanted to see what I could do with a charm pack. A jelly role of Freebird is still available at Puddleducks and it is on sale if anybody is keen.

As you can see I moved forward rather quickly and created a reversible quilt. The front is on the right side for which I alternated a full square with one with a piece of Kona white in the middle. Then I added white sashing around them to make the squares stand out against the Caramel background.

For the back I used the remainder of the squares for the centre piece and again added white sashing for effect before I added a lovely fresh light green border. I sort of think of the quilt as a two-season quilt. One side represents Spring and the other Autumn.

But I still wasn't quite happy with the front and I had a few squares left (I had no idea how long one charm pack lasts) so I added some appliqued flowers to the front to liven it up a bit.

Now I'm happy !!! But have no idea how to quilt it with the flowers sticking out ????