++Quilt

The quilt pile increments with my latest finish; a crib sized blue and orange plus quilt! The quilt has been gifted to my friends Jane and Matt, who are expecting their first baby at the end of September.

To be truthful, I started this quilt long before Jane fell pregnant, around two and a half years ago with no specific recipient in mind. I guess I just trusted that the right parents/baby would present themselves in time.

After receiving a package of fabric I'd recently bought from the US, I couldn't wait to cut into this cute foxy fabric, and I'd been wanting to make a plus quilt for a while. I picked out some blues and oranges that matched nicely. The result was foxes and robots, which is conceptually incongruous but... still very cute!

I used some scraps to piece the back, folded my finished quilt top and back, and away they went into a drawer for two spins around the sun.

Earlier this year I found out Jane was pregnant and my immediate (and incredibly selfish) thought was, "Sweet! I get to make another baby quilt!" But when I remembered the foxes and robots waiting for an owner, I resumed the project and got quilting.

Jane studied pure maths at uni, and Matt is a software developer like me, so the pluses felt especially right. Incidentally they are also expecting a boy, although I thought the colours were right because Jane would like them, not because they are "boy" colours. Like me, they're not the kind of people who think colours are gendered.

Since I made the quilt a while ago, most of the fabrics I used are out of print. Nevertheless they are:

• Monaluna Anika by Jennifer Moore (Foxy, Polka)
• Robot Factory by Caleb Gray (Mini Robots Blue, Mini Robots Orange, Gears Earth, Circuits in Navy for the binding)
• 1001 Peeps by Lizzy House (Scheherazade in Orange, Jewels in Basra Blue, Jewels in Jinnee Orange)

Cow Quilt

Back in March I posted about a cow quilt I was piecing for my husband. I actually finished it by May (I think that's some kind of record for me) so he had it in time for Winter, but I never got around to getting photos of it. Since we actually had a holiday this week, I thought I'd get a few shots while I had the free time and the nice back drop.

Trent holding his quilt up for me. :) This was take from our balcony, which overlooked the pool bar and the ocean. Sadly we didn't spot any whales (apparently a common sight for this location).

This was the first quilting I did using my new sewing machine, it made such a difference! Nice even stitches...

For the back I made some little cow "paddocks" based on Elizabeth Hartman's Picture Day pattern. I think it's maybe a bit too bright but it's the back of the quilt so meh...

And finally here's Trent back in May enjoying his new quilt while we watch BSG. :3 (You might also notice a bunch of other cow patterned things in the background... Hehe)

A quick update on the garden, first sugar snap pea spotted before going on holidays on Monday, and some jalapeños that have been happily growing in our absence.

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...

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. :)