Baby Quilts

Me with Jude at 3 weeks.

The finished quilt!

It's been a LONG time since I've posted. Much has happened in my life since the time of that post in early August, including a home sale and purchase, a move, and a new baby. There wasn't much time for quilting in those months, and now that I'm back to work full-time, I'm so exhausted most evenings that I doubt there will be a whole lot of quilting getting done in the coming months either. I'm sure that things will change with time and I'll once again find myself being a more productive quilter.

Quilt hanging above changing station.

I did complete a number of projects in anticipation of Jude's arrival! Who doesn't love making quilts for babies? I started with a quilt to hang over his changing station. After thumbing through mountains of ideas, I settled on the Pink Lemonade pattern that appeared in American Patchwork and Quilting in April 2009. I opted to mix up the blues and greens throughout the quilt rather than isolating them by color along the diagonal lines. I also made the quilt about 50% larger than the pattern, as I hadn't realized that the blocks were rather small and the original only finished at about 34x42. Had I realized that before beginning my cutting, I might have sized the blocks larger, but instead I just made more of them.

I love the colors and the strong sense of line that the quilt exhibits. Jude seems to like it too. He spends a lot of time smiling at it when he is on the changing station and he stared at it from the floor when I had one of his activity mats in the room. Jonah had loved to look at the quilt I made him and I hope that Jude likes his too. It will be a learning tool of sorts in the future, as we will be able to talk about colors, shapes, and more.

Square quilt hanging above the crib.

I also wanted to have a quilt for Jude to play on. (After making all of those stars in the first quilt, I wasn't going to have him spitting up on it!) I stuck with something quite simple as an antidote to the more complicated first quilt. I had plenty of fabrics remaining, so I cut some of them into charms and then framed them with strips. I'd planned to frame the charms with 2.5" strips, but ended up feeling it was a bit too chunky, so cut down the first group and then cut the remaining strips at 2" or 2.25" wide (I can't remember and I'm not at home right now to measure). This quilt actually uses the Alexander Henry fabric called 2D zoo that inspired the color palette for both projects. While my initial plan had been to let Jude play on the quilt, I opted to hang it above his crib, at least for the time being. I do want my kids to snuggle up with and live with their quilts, but I also wanted to have something to brighten up that side of his room and to give him something to look at while he is awake in the crib (I don't think that really is all that much).

One corner of Jude's room, with giraffe prints, a book rack, and
his quilt above his crib.

We ended up settling on a giraffe theme for the room, but the "theme" is very loosely interpreted, as we weren't going to go out and purchase new bedding, blankets, and the like just to fit the theme. So we kept it mostly simple, with some giraffes showing in the quilt above, two giraffe-themed prints from Etsy (see photo at right, where they hang above the book rack), and a third, much smaller project that I designed with some able assistance from Ben.

Giraffe quilt, self-designed.

In our old house, Jonah had a small quilt on the door to his room and I had liked the idea of making one for Jude as well. So I aimed to make a simple quilt that would fit nicely on an interior door of a house. By this point, I knew I didn't have a lot of time for sewing and, as the project would need to be small for the door, I should keep it simple. So Ben helped me draw a giraffe, which I then appliqued (yes, I did actually applique!!!) and framed with small squares of the fabrics I used in the other projects. I LOVE the finished project, especially seeing all of the blue and greens dancing around the center. In the end, we aren't hanging this quilt on the door, as we couldn't bring ourselves to put a nail in the door at the new house. So it's hanging next to Jude's closet, where we can admire it just as much.

Finally, I have to give a shout-out to my dad, who made Jude a lovely wall plaque after his birth. Kudos to him for noticing the giraffes and making this precious art for Jude's wall. What a wonderful keepsake!

Rear Window

I was shopping at Patched Works earlier this year and saw Blue Underground Studios' Rear Window pattern made up with white as the frame around the alternating blocks. As I am on a white in quilts kick (particularly for babies) and there have been and will continue to be a number of births amongst our friends and family, I impulsively picked up the pattern (I'm sure I could have figured it out on my own, but I was feeling lazy). 

Not too long thereafter, I was poking around on the Fat Quarter Shop website and came across the Bella Butterfly fabric line by Patty Sloniger. I really liked the colors, which both screamed "spring" and "baby" to me, so impulsively purchased them as well.  From the fat quarter bundle, I was able to sew two baby-sized tops.

I pieced the tops a while back while watching Downton Abbey, but then they sat while I focused on some other projects. I promised Jonah's daycare that I would donate something for their Week of the Young Child silent auction this week, so finally forced myself to load it to my quilting frame last weekend and meandered over the entire quilt with white thread. I really like the final product! I hope it raises so good money for the center and that the final recipient cherishes it for years to come. I'm hoping to get the second one quilted and out to a sweet little girl in the near future.

This quilt went together very quickly and I like how it works well with some of the larger scale fabrics that are on the market right now. I could see this becoming a go-to pattern for a quick and easy baby quilt.

Dora

The finished top!

This baby quilt has been a while in the making as well, though not quite as long as my previous post.  I began it at quilt retreat in November, but was unable to finish it at the time as I needed to order backing, border, and binding fabric.  Have I mentioned that I really like to use white in baby quilts of late?  I do recognize that it is not necessarily the most practical color to use for babies, but at the same time, I do associate white with babies. Perhaps it is the idea of newness and a clean slate, etc.

This pattern, Dora (which I assume has nothing to do with the television show), is from the Leisure Arts book 3 Times the Charm! by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson of Me & My Sister Designs. This $10 book has a lot of great ideas and I have a feeling I will use it a fair amount for smallish baby quilts in the coming years.  I chose the Kate Spain line Terrain as I loved the bright colors and designs and hoped that they would be fun for both mom and baby, providing some visual interest to look at.

The pattern in the book used a setting of 5x5 blocks, but I chose to make the quilt a bit larger, with a 7x6 setting and a slightly wider border (6" versus 3 1/2") to show off the large-scale print. I hadn't realized how much of a line the border fabric had to it until I had cut the print and applied it!  My finished version of the quilt is approximately 42"x38" (book quilt finished at 30 1/2" square).

I quilted the center part of the quilt with white thread and chose a pink thread to meander with in the border.  This was the first time that I used two different threads and rolled the quilt through the frame more than once.  Needless to say, the pink thread required some tension adjustments and I had to rip out a good portion of a row of quilting after I discovered the tension issue. Note to self: check on the tension more frequently to avoid this in the future! Ripping quilting out while it is loaded on the frame is painful work (in more ways than one). In the end, I think I could have meandered the entire piece in white and it would have been fine, but I now have more confidence in my ability to do some thread changes on my frame.

This quilt is in the mail and I hope the recipients love it!  It sure feels good to be finishing up some of these projects that have been lingering on my sewing table.

Call Me Crazy!

Finished quilt with sashing between all blocks.

This quilt has been a little while in the making.  I began it in a workshop with Weeks Ringle offered through my quilt guild in May 2011.  I enjoyed being able to use some wonderful blues from my stash to crazy piece (improvisational sewing) fabric for the blocks, and working from my scraps allowed me to reflect upon and remember previous projects that used some of the same fabrics.

In the end, I didn't end up following instructions terribly closely, however.  Blocks were supposed to be trimmed to 6 1/2" square, but I made a error with my ruler, so they were all trimmed at 5 1/2" square. No big deal, right?  I further departed from the instructions provided in the workshop as the blocks were to be set side-by-side in rows and I decided I preferred to sash them all white.  Finally, I opted not to use the super-wide 7 1/2" border around the entire quilt, choosing instead a 3 1/2" border, which was closer in size to the 2 1/2" sashing strips I employed.

Quilt as pattern directed.

I quilted it on my frame in the basement, meandering over the entire piece with white thread.  Aside from running out of thread in the bobbin a couple of times, I didn't have any problems, thankfully.  I washed the quilt in Dreft after binding it and love how the cotton batting puffs up after a wash.

In the end, my quilt finished at approximately 47" x 57", a bit smaller than the napping size the pattern finished at 50" x 73"!  In my mind, it's just the right size for a baby boy and it's off on its way as of this morning.  I hope he enjoys it a lot (even if it is months late), and that his mama will let him love and play with it (yes, I do know it is white!).

Closer view of the quilting.

Confetti!

I'm beginning to figure out how to manage time for sewing in addition to caring for little Jonah, working, and doing all of the other things adults have to do.  I have a number of works in progress that I should be able to blog about soon, but I'm very excited to share this quilt because it is one that I pretty much began (and finished!) this year and it's also the first non-practice quilt that I quilted on my own quilting machine!  Granted, I just quilted it with a meander, but still, it's a learning curve to switch from the domestic sewing machine to the midarm (plus, I had to sew the darned leaders for the machine, which definitely did not motivate me)!

The full quilt.  I really love white quilts and bright colored bindings!

The quilt I just finished is called Confetti, from the book Four Patch Frolic by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson of Me and My Sister Designs.  The pattern was sized a bit larger than what I wanted for a baby quilt, so I just bought two charm packs and sized it to a more baby-ish size (44"x53"), using their fabric line, Dilly Dally.  I quilted it with white thread on top and bottom.

Close up showing some of the quilting.

This quilt is set to go out in tomorrow's mail to a new baby, born Jan. 3 (only 2 months late, but better late than never, right??).  Hopefully she enjoys it!!!

Here's some video Ben captured when I first tried the quilting machine on a test quilt sandwich. Looking forward to doing more soon!

Sailboat Panel Quilt

When Mom and Dad were out a couple of weeks back, Mom pieced a quilt for the nursery to go with the sailboat theme.  We found the pattern and panel at the Fat Quarter Shop. It's the Nautical and Nice line by Sandy Gervais, which matches the Anchors Away hanging I made a few months back. Unfortuantely, due to all of the activity of the weekend, we ran out of time for layering, basting, and quilting the quilt before Mom headed back to Ohio, but I was able to finish it up this weekend so it's all set for the baby's arrival.

Here are a couple of photos.

The full quilt, hanging on the wall:

 Just the center portion of the quilt:

Thanks so much, Mom! He's going to love it!

Baby Quilt Finished

I finally finished sewing down the binding and hanging sleeve (not really needed right now, but it will if I want to enter it in the quilt show next time around!) on the baby's quilt. Here's the finished product:

Patched Works quilted it for me and the quilting design features little sailboats, which fits in with the nursery theme:

 The pattern, in case you missed earlier posts, is Atkinson Designs' Pearls 'n Pinwheels.  Images of the quilt in the room before the binding was sewn, as well as nursery decorating progress are available here.

Pearls 'n Pinwheels

So a week after my half-square triangle catastrophe, I've completely started over and finished this quilt top.  I LOVE IT!  Gotta get backing soon and get this off to the shop to get it quilted before the baby arrives.

Baby Quilt Summer is Over!

I just sewed the label to the back of this quilt and it will head to Madison Faith on Cape Cod tomorrow! Ben makes fabulous labels for me - hand drawn, usually. I'd share, but it probably contains more personal information than I should place online (full name, DOB, etc.). No need to start the poor girl off with identity theft at two months!

Here's the finished quilt:


And a close-up:


Hopefully the quilt will be well-loved and I don't find myself again with another three babies born in the same month, all deserving of quilts!

Dizzy (Baby Quilt #3)

I managed to get all of the blocks for this baby quilt sewn together during a Brewers extra-inning game last week (unfortunately, a loss to the Reds), and had two of the borders on prior to the busy weekend. However, after sewing the border strips on, I was rather bothered by the way the floral pattern was interrupted by the 45 degree seam line. Ben said not to worry about it, and I thought about it for a few days. Here's what I'm talking about:


See how the flowers were noticeably cut in half on the bottom left corner? Ultimately, I decided it was going to bother me too much, so I ripped that part of the seam and sewed strips back together at 90 degree angles, being careful to select an area where the seaming would be less noticeable. While it doesn't totally fix the problem (I didn't have the fabric to try to cut an identical strip and seam it together for a perfect match), it does mask it and make it much less noticeable, at least until I sewed on the third and fourth sides, which don't match to the ends of the other strips and I don't think ever could.


The moral of this story: sometimes fabric that doesn't seem to have a "stripe" to it does. I wish I'd have picked a more all-over type of pattern, but what are you going to do? It's still cute and I managed to get it layered, pin basted, and approximately half way quilted last night!

Roman Stripez

I just got back from putting baby quilt #2 in the mail and thought I would share some photos as it makes its way to its intended recipient. Here’s the finished quilt (sorry, the light was not good last night):

I showed the quilt a couple of weeks ago sans outer borders. If you’re a very careful observer, you might notice that the blocks that make up the border do not continue the same directional alternation as the blocks within the quilt. In the pattern, those exterior blocks were all cut and designed to continue the alternation, but the book did not instruct you to lay the interior part of the quilt out beginning with a certain orientation so that the pattern would continue into the border. Of course I started it out with the wrong orientation, and at the point I realized there was a problem (after I had pieced all of the exterior blocks and sewn them together in rows), I really didn’t see the point of going back to change it or cutting and sewing new blocks for the borders. I don’t honestly think it distracts that much, but had I known in advance, I would certainly have laid it out so that the pattern could continue.

I quilted the quilt with large swirls and the occasional star using a red-orange-yellow variegated thread which I think worked really well. However, I do wish that the variegation had been irregular rather than at regular lengths throughout the spool. It just would have been a nicer overall effect, in my opinion. Something to think about the next time I purchase threads!

Baby Quilt #3

Here's a preview of baby quilt #3, a current work in progress. I've got all of the alternating blocks sewn and started laying it out on the floor. Should go together quickly; I've just got to stay motivated!! Nice to work on something with more "girly" colors and fun florals.

The pattern's from the Me & My Sister Designs booklet Crazy for Baby for Leisure Arts, and fabrics are from their Clementine line. Hopefully I can pick up some thread on Saturday and have this quilted by the end of the weekend!

(In case you're wondering, baby quilt #2 just needs a label; hopefully I can post about it tomorrow.)

Roman Stripez

Seeing as I won't be working on any quilts for around a week (Austin, here I come for the SAA Annual Meeting!), I thought I'd post pictures of progress I made on another baby quilt. Most of this was sewn several weeks ago and then set aside in the race to finish Grant's quilt and in all of the overtime I had to put in at work.

I made the mistake of putting away all of my bright fabrics thinking I'd cut the entire quilt, but I need to go back to cut pieces for a pieced border to go all around. I'm sure it'll go together quickly once I get a bit of time to work on it.






The pattern is Roman Stripez from Jan Mullen's book Cut-Loose Quilts. It's an older book (2001) and my copy is autographed because I had the pleasure of taking a class with Jan at IQF Houston about 5 years ago, I think. While I love Jan's patterns (and her accent!), I find the book a bit frustrating in that finished block sizes weren't provided so that I could check my work as I went along. But making the blocks all wonky - simply stacking, slicing, stitching and sewing - is quite freeing.

Time to go see if there are any quilt shops in Austin that I should check out.

Grant Matthew

We took a long weekend trip to Ohio to meet our new nephew, Grant Matthew, who was born on July 26. Isn't he a cutie?



I finished tacking down the binding on Grant's baby quilt on the drive out (the truth comes out). Big brother Alex clearly ached to open the package and was the helpful big brother in showing it to Grant, laying it out on the floor, and identifying all of the animals for us.



I really liked how the quilt came together in the end. I won't be rushing out to add loads of machine applique patterns to my to-do list, but I did improve with this quilt, for certain! I meandered around all of the animals with a light blue thread and then went back and meandered over each of the animals with a clear thread. I'd considered using the blue thread over everything, but am happy that I chose not to do so at Ben's urging (he'd actually suggested not quilting them at all, but it became obvious that was necessary, which was what I suspected to begin with).





Compared to the baby quilt I made Alex, this one is ginormous; hopefully Alex doesn't develop a complex over it. I'm certain it's going to get lots of love. Here's Tina, Alex and Grant with the quilt shortly after opening it.



And just two more photos (taken on Route 15 between Bryan and Defiance), because only in Ohio...

The Pressure's On!!!

I'd planned on today being a mega sewing day anyways, but the stakes have been raised as the intended recipient came into the world earlier today! I hope to meet him later in the week, so must complete the quilt by then!

After a long day of work yesterday (9.5 hours), I managed to muster the energy to machine applique the last of the animals (the zebra), sew the blocks with the alternating 9-patches, and machine applique the elephant's trunk.

Here's where the quilt stands as of this moment.


I'm hoping I can put on the narrow solid border, then the pieced border, and get this baby quilted today! It helps that there's a Brewer's game this afternoon to help keep me entertained (after that, it might be some podcasts or audio books, as I'm tired of the crummy TV options). And if all goes according to plan (does it ever?), I'm hoping to be able to sew down binding at the Stitch 'n Pitch game on Wednesday night. I'm taking Kristin for her birthday (last month); we've never gone before so aren't quite sure what to expect... While the top is somewhat on the large side, I think I can keep it folded so I can work on it manageably in my lap without having it drag on the potentially nasty floor.

At some point, I'll need to add on the eyes too... I figure that since Alex didn't get to play with his baby quilt, this one will likely be hung too, so buttons shouldn't be an issue. And I trust buttons will look better than my attempts to hand or machine stitch something approximating the correct proportions for the eyes.

As I want the finished quilt to be somewhat of a surprise, I probably won't post any photos until after the quilt is presented. While it might be safe to post photos as I don't know how much Tina and Mark read my blog (or how much they would likely read it this week with the new baby!), I'm going to err on the side of caution. I'll definitely share pictures when I can!

Appliqueing a Menagerie

Some relatives' and friends' babies are due in the near future and I figured it best to actually get some of quilts started as gifts. Yesterday I had fun pulling fabrics from my stash to applique the following small zoo of animals:

Giraffe

Zebra

Elephant

Bear

Monkey

Lion

Tiger

In addition to the ever-nearing due dates, I was also motivated to get the blocks to this point as Jo-Ann's had a thread sale ending today and I knew I'd need to pick up at least a few spools to match these little animals (no, I don't have a lot of orange and yellow in my thread stash). Hopefully I can get the machine applique done over the course of this week, as well as the alternating nine-patch blocks. Can't wait to see how the animals come alive as the thread and eyes are applied.

Oh, and the the pattern is called 300 Parade Crib Quilt, from Kim Schaefer's book, quilts, bibs, and blankies ... oh my!