Flying Geese

I'd been wanting to make a flying geese quilt for a while after having seen one of Rita's (I think she's made a few!), and then Jeni's pink monochrome mini quilt gave me the idea to make it black and white.

For the back I tried my hand at paper piecing and made a large circle of flying geese for the centre. Typically these blocks measure about 12.5" square when complete, I enlarged the template to finish with a 16.5" square.

I quilted some diagonal lines inspired by this flying geese quilt I stumbled across, and added the old infallible black and white striped binding.

It's become a favourite and now lives on our couch. I'm actually snuggled under it right now... :3

Layouts

This long weekend I'm making a cow-themed quilt for my cow-obsessed husband, after last winter he confessed to being jealous of my lap quilt. :3

So far I've finished the cutting and layout, which is inspired by this brick quilt from Tallgrass Prairie Studio. I spent ages umming and ahhing over the layout, making sure there was a good distribution of colour and pattern. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this!

Quilt Zero

Big apology to my follower bros (yes, both of you!) for neglecting my blog. In the past year I've holidayed in Japan, bought and moved into a house, and continued to work stupid hours at my day job.

I know all that is terribly interesting, but I thought I might show you what else I managed to produce last year. The quilt I'm blogging about today is kind of the quilt that started this downward spiral -- quilt zero, if you will.

I found Heather Ross' Far Far Away II collection for sale, depicting various princesses and fairy tale characters. The Sleeping Beauty was especially laden with childhood nostalgia and musical heartache for me, and so my stash began. Over time I collected pieces from her other collections to make a quilt for myself.

Most people who know me would say my colour is black, but I must confess, I do love girly pink, peach, and cream colours too. So although the modern quilting modus operandi is typically white or cream sashing, I had to go with black. It works for me. :3

The Princess and the Pea, and the unicorns are from Far Far Away. I used a bit of the selvaging from the unicorns in peach from Far Far Away, just in case you were in doubt of the theme.

For the back I went with a "piano key" pieced strip of Heather Ross scraps. (It was pretty impossible to get a good picture of it with my appalling photography skills.)

Although I only finished up (I'm going to guess) about June last year, the fabrics featured in this quilt were the first I bought online in early 2011. So the elapsed time from inception to completion is a bit silly, but that's what happens when you code by day and craft by night...

Offbeat Baby Knits

I have another quilt or two currently in progress, and until they're done I thought I would post some knits I did a few years ago. I made them for my friends Tiff & Nick's first baby Samara, who is now of course a toddler. (Shame I wasn't quilting back then -- a missed opportunity for another offbeat baby quilt!)

I'm not sure if they ever got worn, although I totally appreciate how babies often outgrow "special" garments before they ever get an occasion to wear them. Regardless, I derived great joy in the making, and maybe now they will make suitable teddy/doll clothing. :)

I also made a little cow print set of a bib, booties, and nappy cover. I definitely saw Samara getting some wear out of this cow print bib -- Tiff's advice to me was that you can't have too many bibs. :)

Hmm seeing these old pics gives me the itch to pick up the knitting needles again. Maybe once my quilting bug subsides...

Joseph's Quilt

A few months ago we went to the first birthday/baptism for our friends Mark and Michele's little boy Joseph. I rashly decided with less than a week before the party that this would be a really great excuse to make another quilt. With the time restriction in mind, I decided to use some of my favourite large scale prints (Castle Peeps, by Lizzy House) and simply sashing some 8" squares together.

I had a go at diagonal grid quilting, using masking tape to mark my quilt lines as I went. (The other conventional technique is to use a fabric pen/marker with disappearing ink, but I haven't added one of those to my arsenal, yet.)

As usual (three out of three, hah!), I pieced the back as well. For some reason this gives me a 50s bowling shirt vibe, which was completely unintentional, but I dig it.

I've only met Joseph a couple of times, but he is a pretty laid back baby (the word "lazy" has been bandied about by his mum and dad, hehe), so I'm hoping the calm blue, black and white palette is going to be a good match to his personality. :)

Play Date with Olivia

Yesterday we had Matt, Ying & Olivia over for baby cuddles and movies, etc. I opportunistically asked them to bring the quilt along so I could add the label. I made a bunny rabbit applique in baby pink; I think it turned out ok, and I like that it's something a bit different.

Olivia is nearly three months old already, and I think she may have doubled in size since the last time I saw her. I took a snap of her on the quilt, because action shots are the best. Incidentally I made the bib (with some of my favourite Heather Ross fabrics), and the skully onesie, too. I'm thinking since it's black on white, and the skulls are kinda cutesy and piratical, it won't be too out there for all those people who think babies shouldn't wear dark colours.

Matt and Ying told me that Olivia is already getting fussy about who can and can't hold her, so I was really pleased that she was happy to be cuddled by/sleep on/drool on/fart on her aunty Kim. :P

Olivia's Quilt

Having had reasonable success with my first quilting endeavor, I decided to make a quilt for my friends Matt & Ying, who were also expecting their first baby. Unfortunately I wasn't going to get away with another black & skully baby quilt (dad would have approved, mum not-so-much), so I decided to go with a red, pink & aqua colour theme. I also wanted to include some fabric with bunnies on them, as Olivia was born in the year of the rabbit.

The quilt top was constructed using a Disappearing Nine Patch block.

I pieced the quilt back with some strips, giving me the opportunity to use a fairly gratuitous amount of that bunny print from Spoonflower. :3

G (an-object-that-tells.tumblr.com) kindly took some beautiful sun-dappled detail shots of this quilt.

This is a great shot of Girl in a Tree Swing (I can't tell if this is the Vanilla Ice Cream or Pink Lemonade colourway... XD), my favourite print from the Sherbet Pips collection.

Oh yes, these prints are so ridiculously sweet. Never fear, I balanced it out with a nice frosty glass of Paulaner during its construction, hehe...

I gifted the quilt at the baby shower before Olivia was born, so I still need to add a label to the quilt with her full name and birthday. Any clever ideas?

Cheers,
Kim