Mayelle and Owen's Baby quilts

I went to a baby shower last night to welcome twins into our Church family.  Of course, they both needed a quilt.  This sums up the activity here yesterday:

 

I did get both quilts done, labeled, packaged up and card written with half an hour to spare :-).  I decided to make an I spy quilt in a bit different layout for Owen:

There are lots of fun prints in this quilt and I used a solid Kona Cotton called 'kiwi' :-):

I quilted lots of straight lines into this quilt and also added a border with some of the half square triangles cut from the blocks:

 

  

For Mayelle, I decided to quilt up a Square Dance (Bits n Pieces pattern) top that I had finished a long time ago.  The colours were perfect for this little girl (sorry for the light in this photo...the colours were brighter):

I have been studying books by Angela Walters on some modern quilting techniques and figured this was a great quilt to try some different designs:

I was pleased with the way this quilt turned out and hope both these bright quilts will help entertain these little twins :-).

Emily and John's Quilt

My sister, Eva and I finally had a chance to deliver my niece's wedding quilt and have a lovely coffee visit with her in her new home.  This is the first quilt I tried using all solids.  The pattern is "City Circle"  from the book, "City Quilts" by Cherri House.  Eva picked out the pattern for her daughter's quilt and thought the colours in the top left corner of the Pumpkins Gone Wild fabric would be a perfect palette.  I sent the photo off to Pam at Mad About Patchwork and asked her to put together a kit for "City Circle" in those colours.  She did a great job and the colours worked well.  It was a fun quilt to put together.  The sewing is very simple and I also have a whole bunch of triangle squares left over which will have to be made into something someday :-).

The finished quilt...I could not get a really good photo of the whole thing in my sewing room:

I found a perfect backing at a local quilt shop and, of course, it wasn't quite big enough!!  Pieced some leftover strips together for a modernish back too :-).

Wishing you both a long and happy marriage keeping warm with the quilt Emily and John!!

Kaffe Fasset Happy Houses

The Happy Village quilt is finished!  It was so much fun to make.  One of our local quilt shops posted a picture on her face book page of this quilt which appeared many years ago in a book by Flavin Glover.  I had seen that quilt in that book years ago and it didn't call to me then.  But, with the colours that were posted on face book, I fell in love with it and thought it would be perfect to do with some of my leftover Kaffe Fasset fabrics.  I did not make a dent in them!!  I'll have to think of more projects to make with my leftovers LOL.  Here is the finished Happy Houses wallhanging: 

 I quilted wavy lines from left to right as suggested in Jacquie Gering's book, Quilting Modern. 

I used a purple and blue batik for the sky:

A bit of a closeup of the wavy lines.  I think they look like the wind blowing through my village :-)

The houses on the bottom row have doors:

I found the perfect fabric for the back at the Marsh Store.

A few people asked about the size of the strips and the pattern.  Here is the book that has the original pattern...mine is a couple rows narrower than the original.  The quilt is about 37" square in the book and uses 1" strips.  The windows are pieced into the block and are the centers of the blocks.  Here is the webpage of the author, Flavin Glover.  There are pictures of some of the other quilts in the book here as well and you can order the book via the webpage.

This is a picture of the original quilt in the book:

Some tablerunners

January and February have been busy months with trying to catch up on some UFO's (unfinished objects :-).  Table runners have been a great way to try out some fun new quilting techniques.  I purchased Jacquie Gering's book, Modern Quilts, and have been having fun experimenting with some of the ideas in the book and from her blog.  Here is the snowman table runner I made probably two years ago and finally got it on my table 10 days before Spring LOL.  At least it will be ready for next year for the whole winter season.  It goes well with the knitted snowmen my daughter in law made me for Christmas:

 

Aren't these snowmen cute?




 the quilting

 These tablerunners are very quick with a border print and a 60 degree ruler:

I made a narrow table runner with the matching snowman fabric for the china cabinet in our kitchen.  The snowmen look great there as well :-)

I did some straight line quilting along the sides of this runner:

The cabinet was made by my friend's father and we stained it and applied the varathane and handles to match the kitchen cabinets.

My collection of Dutch and English coffee/tea and related tins are displayed on the top

I inherited my Mom's dishes after she passed away last year and they look very nice in this cabinet

The teapot and cream and sugar are my favourite:

Don't the snowmen look happy?  The left snowman lost her hat on the way to the photo session :-)

I also finished a table runner for fall, so I'm ahead.  This was done with Cheryl Phillips ruler and a Kaffe Fasset fabric.  

 It's a little hard to see on the photo, but I quilted lines about 1/4" apart in the floral areas echoing the curved insets.  On the brown part, I quilted lines back and forth which was a lot of quilting, but gave it a really neat texture (if you click on the photo, it will enlarge to see the quilting better):

I took a class awhile ago on the folded log cabin.  this was a fun project as well and will be the fall runner for the cabinet above.  I feel so organized :-) to be ready for fall LOL

Closeups of the blocks:

 

I guess I'd better get moving and make some Spring table runners!

Doll bed and quilt

The elementary school where my grandkids go, has a fundraising auction each year.  Quite a few of the girls have American Girl dolls.  My two oldest granddaughters both have a doll and my son, Tim made beds for each of the girls for Christmas.  He decided to make one for the auction as well.  My daughter in law, Jannyne, made the sheets and pillows and asked me to make a little quilt for it.  What fun!

The sheets and little pillowcase :-)

The little pinwheels are made from the cut-off triangles from my Bonnie Hunter Easy Street Mystery Quilt.

Jannyne made some cute throw pillows for the bed as well

My AG doll, Kit is trying the bed out and she says it's very comfortable :-)

I am making a matching girl's pillow case yet. I will add photos when it is done. 

Doll quilts

Two of my granddaughters received a doll bed last year for Christmas.  I ran out of time to make the little quilts for the beds so this year I made up for that and they both got a quilt for their baby dolls.  Here is the doll bed and diaper bag made last year for Charity:

Here is the quilt I made this year to match the doll bed.  I can't seem to find a picture of the completed quilt!  It's hard to see from the photo, but a friend made Glenda Spencer's mystery quilt last year and she was going to throw all the triangle cut offs away from her snowball blocks. I sewed them together as leader/enders (Bonnie Hunter style) and had almost enough for 9 little star blocks. I just had to add four corners to one block. Great for a doll quilt :-).

 This is Katie's doll bed and diaper bag made last year

 

 I had ordered Jacquie Gering's Book on Modern Quilts and this idea was in there for quilting...worked perfectly for this little quilt :-)

 Again, no photo of the finished quilt but this is the fabric I used for the binding:

Another granddaughter, Leah got an American Girl doll for her birthday in May and her Dad made her a bed for Christmas.  I was asked to contribute the quilt for the bed.  Of course!  Every AG doll needs her own quilt eh?  I did a mini hexagon quilt and quilted it with organic quilting inspired also by Jacquie Gering.

 The backing fabric was purchased by my daughter in law, who made the sheets and pillows for the bed.

For now, all the granddaughters' dolls have quilts :-).  Grandma can take a wee break.