Another baby quilt

Aren't I productive? Here's another baby quilt quilted. This time, just a meander. This one is the one I mentioned for Sarah's friend's sister (technically, she's a half sister - she's in her mid-20's) - they know they are having  a girl, so it was safe to pull out this top and quilt it up. I will have to attach and stitch down the binding, of course, but I've got lots of bits of the jelly roll left, which I will piece to use for binding.

Finished (again!)

Here's the other baby quilt, ready to go. I finished the binding on it tonight (which means, no cross-stitch was done - oh well), so it's sorted now. Now maybe one more for Sarah's best friend's (considerably older) sister, who is having a baby in the next couple of months.  I'll have to quilt another one for that, though...

More using up blocks

Here are two more tops, made from these Batik Roman stripes blocks which I had loads of. I still have quite a few (and no, I'm not really sure why, I just have them) and am trying to use them up in different layouts. I still have ones with dark blue corners, and 19 purple ones, but I am down to 5 of the light blue. The end is in sight. Sort of.

Cross-stitch update

If you are struggling to spot the progress this week, don't worry, there's not a lot to be seen. I only worked on this one evening, I think, so it's just a bit of filling in the path and doorway - I was out at least one night and had one night where I stitched down binding, so there just wasn't much cross-stitch progress. But that's ok.

Finished!

Finished sewing the binding down on this one at my little quilt group tonight - and I got about a third of the way through the other baby quilt, so that one will follow fairly shortly, I should think. Maybe.

Batik Framed Fours

These are two more tops I put together over the Easter holidays - from blocks from a swap ages ago. I have very few swap blocks left, if any - but it's taken a while to get to that point!  One of these tops will stay with me and the other go to a charity.  Not sure which is which, just yet!

Batik quilt, steps 2 & 3

The next thing I did to the batik commission quilt was to add a purpley red border, about an inch wide, then another border made of wonky four patch blocks. I'm very happy with it so far. Next step is to introduce some new colours - I want to get some brown into it - I have a very nice warm brown or two. So I'll do that by using a kind of dark neutral batik I have which has a purple tinge and some orangey brown streaks in it. Hard to describe, but I think it's going to work nicely. That will have to wait for next weekend, though.

Batik beginnings

This is the start of a new quilt top - this one is a commission, so I don't have to feel guilty about starting a new project. I'm going to work through using up some of my batik stash.  This will be the centre of the piece, and I will work out bit by bit. I'm kind of making it up as I go along, to be honest!  At this point, it's about 24" square, and it needs to get up to about 90" or so, so we've got a way to go.  But I wanted to do something a little different than just making a load of similar blocks and chucking them together.

Cross-stitch update

Definite progress - filled in both leaves on the left, which was fairly mindless - I did use a different colour to the one given as DMC equivalent in the bottom leaf, because the colour given - the peachy one on the spirally frond above - had very little contrast with the outline of the leaf. Also did quite a bit more on the letters. Next week, back to the houses.

Blue and Brown scraps

Another scrappy quilt to use up bits and pieces, this time starting with some brown squares, with which I did liberated four patches, and framed in various browns and blues. This one is staying in my pile, though, not going to project Linus. For a while anyway - not that I need more tops, but I kinda like it...

More actual quilting

Here's the second of the two baby quilts I quilted this weekend - for this one, I used a denser quilting pattern - essentially a medium meander with some suns thrown in. These fabrics are all hand-dyes, so some are a little thicker than commerical fabrics and there are quite a few seams, so it helps to have a little denser quilting than in yesterday's piece. 

Actually, I quilted them both yesterday, as it happens. Today's sewing time was spent partly in doing some mending (boring) and partly in seaming together some quilt backings (even more boring than mending).  After about 4 backings, I was losing the will to live, so I stopped, but I'm getting there - I'd like to have all the quilts I have backings for (which isn't all the tops I own, I admit), have their backs ready to be quilted up at the drop of a hat. So to speak.  Not that I will necessarily do so, but if you get in the mood to quilt, the last thing you want to do is have to be piecing backing!

Actual quilting

In addition to loads of piecing to use up scrap things, the next round of the Cotton Robin round robin, which I can't show you, and a huge pile of mending, I also managed to do some quilting over the Easter holidays. Here's the first of two baby quilts for colleagues at work - this one I kept fairly simple, with just a loop and star design. It's quite a plain quilt with lots of open space, but I didn't want to quilt it heavily as I like all the open space. If it wasn't a baby quilt, I might have put something in the big space, but for a baby quilt, something simple is fine. The other one, which I'll show tomorrow, is quilted a bit more heavily.  I also pinned together three other small projects waiting for quilting - then I ran out of batting. It would be great to really reduce that pile of waiting stuff. Some of it has to go to the longarmer, which depends on me piecing together backing and having some money to spare, but the rest, I really should be able to work through. Especially the small things, which don't even require that I move my sewing machine to the dining room table!

Pink and Blue Scrappy

Yet another of the small tops I've been making in the Easter holidays to use up scraps - this one is made from squares with logs on two sides; the blocks are then rotated part way to give the staggered look when joined up.  Looking at it now, I can see I've joined one or two rows backwards (they should alternate), but I'm not sure I'm going to change it - in fact, I know I've not, becaue I've already sent it away...

Hot-crossed Nine Patch

This is the block for the block lotto this month - a plaid and white nine-patch block, bordered and sliced with a narrow contrast strip inserted. A fun block, and probably not something I'd normally make, which is part of the fun of the block lotto...

Cross-stitch update

Quite a decent amount of progress this week, actually, though a lot of the new stitching is in a pale cream, which doesn't show well in a photo. The left hand bottom side is pretty much done now except a couple of stitches in the plant with yellow flowers. I've also done a fair amount of backstitching in the centre of the piece, which always helps things look more finished, I think. Of course, there's still the right hand side to work on!

Herby squares

Another in the collection of tops I've been making to destash. This one simply features squares of a feature fabric alternating with scrap squares. It was a way to use up 1/2 metre of the herb fabric, most of which I used some time ago for something else - can't remember what...

Brown & green

Another top which I put together from oddments. This started with the brown plaid, which is something I've had for a while but which was quite hard to use in anything - it only seemed to go with brown and green, so I've put it with other browns and greens, also in those awkward browny/olively colours - it's certainly not a quilt for a child, but it works.

Another scrappy top, or...mending is not sewing!

Atlhough I sewed today, it was all boring stuff - mending, putting badges on jumpers, and so forth. I did clear the entire pile of stuff, which had got quite tall, which is good, but boring. I refuse on principle to photograph any of the mending, so here's another scrappy strip top I made a little while back - it's pretty much like the other one, but the strips aren't all the same...

More scrapbusting

Another scrappy top put together from a handful of my stash of 4" crumb blocks, with some sashing and cornerstones - a bit busy perhaps, but maybe with a border it would calm down?  Or maybe the very busy nature of it would be attractive to some!

Field of Clover

This is a top I put together from a pile of blocks which have been sitting around since I won them in the block lotto almost a year ago.  Partly they have been sitting around due to indecision (not sure how I wanted to lay them out) and partly due to inertia.  I was fairly sure I wanted them set on point, like above, so they appear straight up and down, but that meant making a few extra blocks - so again, inertia.  However, I finally bit the bullet and am glad I did - of course, now it goes in the pile of things waiting to be quilted, and who knows how long it will languish there...

Criss-crosses

Another in the array of small, scrappy tops for project Linus - this was a quick one using up some odd background pieces I got somewhere and some larger scraps for the crosses. Someday, I may feel like I'm making a dent, but not yet!

Cross-stitch update

A little progress this week on the wildflower - I have stitched the outline of the second leaf and begun to fill in the first one. Maybe next time there will be more progress...

Irish Chain

There won't be much sewing today, as we are off up to town shortly to meet up with my brother in law, who is coming down from Leicester. But here's another Linus baby quilt top, this one made using a few (but only a few!) of the 2" squares I have been cutting from my scraps. The background fabric is actually pale blue, and is a leftover from a really wide piece I had for backing a blue and white quilt.  Of course, I have cut over 3000 squares and this little top used fewer than 100, so it's not a brilliant solution for using up those squares...

Funky Log Cabins

Another finished top for the pile today - this one was a mere matter of assemblage - the blocks came from a swap with my dyeing group. 12 x 12" blocks, makes a quick top.  I am now down to only a handful of block sets which are languishing about waiting to be put together - I do have the new scrappy log cabins I have been making as well, but that particular basket is getting emptier...

Fibre ATCs

Sorry guys - they are for a specific swap!