All-occasion baby-quilt No 4

I had another chance to make one of my 'All-occasion-baby-quilts' the other day and this time for a colleague of mine who had her first baby.

I used the panel fabric I bought a while a go at Fabric Inspirations and that I featured in this stash Note. I added a bright red solid around it with a few dashes of Laurie Wiesbrun fabric.

The back features a Kokka linen/mix with some denim added. The denim is from the lovely Jude who kindly sent me a yard a while ago.

I absolutely love the denim/linen combination.

And here all folded up and ready to go.

All-occasion baby-quilt No 3 and other news

I finally bought my 'Fat Quarterly retreat' ticket and am literally counting the days until the 2nd of June. It will no doubt be fabulous as it is organized by the fabulous Fat Quarterly crew. This will also be the first time all of the Brit Bee members will meet which I am looking forward to after having only conversed with most of them via our flickr group for almost a year now. . Are any of you coming ?

Whilst I am happily quilting away on 'Tuscan Hills' at a two-bobbin-per-evening speed  (which should give you an idea about the amount of quilting this one is treated to) I thought I share with you another one of my all-occasion-baby quilts that my sister commissioned me to make as she wanted a present for friends of hers
who just had their first baby.

Of course I obliged as it is so much fun making these. Technically they are mini quilts and quite possibly are the only mini-quilts I enjoy making simply because they have a purpose and will be used. Mostly these are actually used as changing mats from what I hear of the recipients I gifted them to in the past.

And that is exactly what I hoped would be their purpose. My friend Leigh carries her all-occasion baby-quilt with here everywhere and that makes me rather happy. 

I really should be making some in advance and perhaps also for the shop....well one day....

 

Monty's Urban Circus

...quilt is done. Have a look !

It turned out wonderfully I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome.

Fabric used:  Urban Circus by Laurie Wisbrun and Kona Cotton.
Wadding: Quilter's Dream
Quilting: Combination of machine and hand quilting
Quilting thread: Gueterman Sulky 30 in grey and No 16 Perle in orange (833) and Petrol (902)
Size: 33 x 43 inches

This is the first finished quilt for which I used my new machine. I machine quilted around the sashing hand quilted within the blocks. The machine quilting is fantastic and I would have never thought I enjoy it so much and it really does save a lot of time. But more about that when I report back on the finished Cranberry Crush quilt that is almost done.

The back of the quilt is a combination of leftovers from cutting the front fabric and large stripes of the Kona in Caribbean and School bus. Both colours are wonderful and I can't get enough of the Caribbean green. The other colours are Chocolate, Baby Pink or Dusty Peach and Ash for the sashing.

I love the binding. I used the stripy fabric for it and it looks like little teeth holding onto the quilt.

All what's to be hoped for now is the my neighbours like it.

I already blogged about this quilt here

Urban Circus quilt

 Remember a  while ago I bought this stash of Urban Circus fabric from Laurie Wisburn. I adore the colours and freshness of the collection and aren't the elephants cute !

I had these earmarked for a quilt for my neighbours who just had their first child. I didn't know if it was going to be a boy or a girl so I chose something fairly gender neutral. Monty has finally arrived on boxing day (what a great name !) and it is time to make the quilt. I was set to make something with pinwheels as I hadn't tried these before.

So I made this block first:

But I quickly realised that this wasn't going to work as the lovely pattern of elephants and giraffes disappeared. I mean who wants to look at horribly mutilated giraffes !
So I went back to the drawing board. The best way to showcase this fabric would be squares but just squares are a bit boring and I have already two quilts that are done just with squares. Still set on the use of half square triangles I  looked through books and magazines and found in the 2nd edition of last years Fat Quarterly a design by Jennifer Davis that uses both ! Please have a look at her Circus Monkey quilt here. And Katy Jones from I am a ginger monkey also used a similar design, see here. The later I think appeared in the holiday edition of Fat Quarterly however I don't have this so can't really say much about it.

So the top looks like this and I am very very happy with it. I has a colourful yet contemporary look about it whilst showcasing the animal pattern well. I used the entire Urban Circus collection but added four different colourful solids to it as a frame. In addition I added sahing around the blocks. In the connecting sections I used little elephants I fussy cut out for them in order to stand out.

The solids are all from Kona. Isn't the Caribbean colour wonderful ?

The colours of the Kona solids are:

Caribbean
Chocolate
Schoolbus
Baby Pink or Dusty Peach (can't see the diffrence to be honest).
The sashing is done with Ash.


Hopefully Monty's quilt will be done by the weekend. Tomorrow there will be a further update on the Cranberry Crush quilt that is indeed coming on very nicely.