Single color baby quilts

 I've spent lots of time this year and some of last year, making single color baby quilts in this pattern. It uses two-and-a-half inch squares and can be laid out really quickly.  In addition to various babies, I've also made eight quilts for the refugee center in High Point.  This is the most recent one.

 The fabric surrounding the patchwork is usually a pale version of the chosen color.  This particular fabric depicts fairy tales in silhouette.

Quilting is simple--just forty-five degree angles cutting through the squares and the extended to the background and borders.

I use a chalk roller to mark the lines and then machine wash and dry the quilt when it's finished.  I like to make baby quilts that can actually be used.

Here's a little peak at the backing fabric.

And this is the lovely little miss who received the quilt.  She's the first grandchild of some dear friends of ours here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am making a determined effort to finish those UFOs in my basket beginning with the Japanese lantern quilt.  Yesterday, I managed to finish another one that is composed of embroidered animals my mother made set with pinwheel blocks that I made.

There were enough blocks to make two little quilts and now the second one is done. The bias binding for both of them was made from strips of scrap fabrics that are in the quilts. And now it's back to the Brownies quilt!

Baby quilt for Nomi, a new little woman child

I am not a big fan of pale, "pretty princess" pink as a color selection for items for babies and little girls.  I find it much too limiting.  After the new year, we will be welcoming a new grand niece to our family and, naturally, I wanted to make her a quilt.  When I found the flannel above, it spoke to me as a inspiration fabric and I began compiling a fabric palette of lavender and dark rose.  Since I am using the Bento box pattern, I also included tints and tones of these fabrics.

I alternated the colors as I constructed the blocks.  Above is a detail.

Borders follow the dark rose and lavender inspiration colors.

These great pink polka dots seemed like a natural choice for the bias binding.

Without my big design wall, photographing the entire quilt is really difficult.

Quilting is in progress using pin basting for the most part.

What I did during my four-day weekend

What a lovely long weekend it's been.  Friday was spent pin basting the new baby quilt and starting a new project for a toddler who loves dolls.

This is an old pattern that I used years ago to make a doll for my dear mother-in-law, Mae, who loved dolls and cats.  I love rag dolls.  My Mama made be a Raggedy Ann and Andy that I love and kept on my bed for many years.  The girl kitty has pantalettes, and a dress that looks like a blouse with an apron over it.

Here's the face all embroidered and bewhiskered.

On Saturday, I finished the body and got started on the clothes.

Here she is all finished on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday has been spent hand quilting the new baby quilt in the hoop.  This has been my idea of a great weekend.  

Climbing out from under

I have had a bad case of the OCD blues.  My house was a mess.  My studio was worse and I was feeling overwhelmed by the piles of undone things at school and at home.  This weekend, I feel like I climbed out from under the clutter both physically and mentally.  My house is clean (Thanks to Jim for driving the vacuum and the dust cloth in several rooms!) and things are put away.  The furniture is off the porch in preparation for our new driveway and new porch construction.  My studio is clean and I have laid out a new baby quilt for the newest addition to the UNC-G theatre family.  The photo above shows the backing fabric and the borders and bias binding.

This is the body ready to be sewn up.

The refrigerator is cleaned out and I have plans to reorganize the pantry after reading an article Anna suggested to me.  Last night I made chicken cacciatore that we will dine on tonight along with some pasta and our favorite romaine lettuce and mandarin orange salad.

Now if I could only finish the reading and writing the questions for the Battle of the Books and find the time to do all the cataloging at school, I would really feel good about myself!

Portrait of Baby and Quilt

You may remember several baby quilts ago when I made an African striped quilt for this little darling.  When I got these wonderful photos of baby and quilt (and even a matching onesie!), I had to share.

On the edges of quilting

The center of the green baby bento box is quilted so I have moved to the half hoop to work on the edges.  I am on the screened porch quilting because it is one of those glorious May days--sunny but no humidity and a lovely breeze.  Fingers crossed, the binding will go on tomorrow night.

Another new baby

Here I go again! There's more of the Robert Kaufman circle fabric for the back and I have a multicolored stripe for the binding.

Baby quilt update: Top with borders and a peek at the back

The top of the new baby quilt is finished.  That large polka dot fabric is  a Denyse Schmidt design.

This is the backing fabric.  I just love the trucks and construction vehicles.  I grabbed the black on white fabric for binding because it looked like tires to me.  Hopefully, this will be a quilt that will go beyond babyhood.

First New Baby Quilt of 2012

One of the babies I made a quilt for in the past has a new baby brother, so I got busy yesterday.  This is the top chain pieced in rows across.  Next I will sew all the rows together.  Follow this link to some older posts about this Kaffe Fassett African Stripe Baby Quilt pattern. I'll update through the day to report my progress.

Update: 15 January 11:43am

Only five rows to go and the blocks will be all pieced together.

A new sofa cushion cover

The sofa on the screened porch finally has a proper foam cushion and that cushion now has a cover.  Using a combination of a sale and a great coupon, I was able to get the foam for about half price--a huge help.  I found some decorator fabric at Hancock's that was a very close match to the pillows I'd already made, so I was ready to go.

With the fabric doubled and wrong sides out, I drew around the foam for the top and bottom pieces.

The side piece was cut and seamed so that it is like a ring.  I needed continuous bias binding and cording for top and bottom edges.  The Quilter's Strip Ticket provided the correct large square size.  Above, the square is now resewn and ready to be cut into a strip.

Cording goes into the bias binding and is then pinned to the edges of both the top and bottom pieces.

Using a zipper foot on the machine, piping is sewn to the edges of both the top and bottom pieces. All corners are rounded making application of the continuous piping easier.

Next, the side piece is pinned to the top piece over the piping.

Here's the top piece with the side piece attached to it all the way around.

Then the bottom piece and the side are sewn together, leaving the back open to insert the foam.

The foam is inserted into the cover and pinned closed.

Back seam is hand stitched closed.  All finished.

Dan was lucky enough to get to meet little Demos last week and took an iPhone picture of him and his lovely mommy with his new quilt.

Flora's quilt: Hand quilting progress

Thanks to lovely weather this weekend, I was able to spend large chunks of time on the screened porch hand quilting Flora's quilt.  The center area is finished as are all four corners.

The large half hoop makes it possible to finish one of the short sides all at once.  A quick wash at the end will take out the yellow marking chalk.

Cat-approved quilting

Henry's mother sent me this wonderful picture of their cat, Benno, very much approving the first version of Henry's quilt that got ruined by the bleeding fabric. ( See this post.)
Update 6/28/2011
Still more cat-approved quilting: this is Rockette, my niece's cat on the quilt I made her for Christmas last year.

Flora's quilt: borders going on

      Since I was chained to the house yesterday because of the plumber being with us for hours (We now have a new water heater among other things!), I got a lot of sewing done.  The borders are on Flora's quilt and I'm going to sandwich it and pin baste today.  The colors please me tremendously.

Kaffe Fassett's African Baby Stripe quilt: A new version of an old favorite

The fabrics for tiny baby Flora's quilt are pre-washed and ready to be cut out.  There's a lovely, soft flannel for the back with pink, blue, and leaf green flowers, two kinds of polka dots for the borders, and nine striped fabrics for the body.  I'll also bind it with a striped fabric.  By this time, I have made more than twenty of these African Striped Baby Quilts using Kaffe Fassett's pattern (with a little tweaking on my part) and it's the random nature of the pattern that most appeals to me.  I never get tired of making them because each one is so unique.

The body is laid out on my work table and ready to be chain pieced.  You can see this old post for more detailed information.