Robot Baby Quilt Done

I did get the quilt for my great-nephew finished today after all, and that is a good thing! I didn't have any thread issues with this quilt, on either the quilting or binding, so it must have been the fleece on the rubber duck quilt causing all of the problems.

I think this quilt is really cute and I'm kind of wishing I had more of the robot and rocket fabric. I have some scraps of the robot fabric since I had fussy cut that, and I have a 1/2 yard of it with a white background instead of the yellow. I don't have any more rocket fabric, this quilt took all I had. Suffice it to say, this quilt will stay a one-of-a-kind because I can't make another exactly like it.

I still have a few baby quilts pin-basted, and I will start on quilting those next week. I think I'm taking tomorrow off!

Receiving Blankets

I made some receiving blankets for grandbaby #5 today. I really don't understand commercial receiving blankets. Most of them are rectangular, which make little sense for swaddling, and most are way too small for a full term baby. I have a little bit of a skewed perspective on that, since my last baby weighed 10 1/2 pounds, but still, even the grandtwins that were premature outgrew the commercial receiving blankets quickly.

My normal way of making receiving blankets is to make as a large a square blanket as I can with the fabric. If you figure 44" width, you need 1 1/4 yards to make a one sided blanket, and 2 1/2 yards to make a double sided blanket. If I want contrasting sides, I use 1 1/4 yards from two different fabrics. One sided or two sided I first cut off the selvages and make sure the ends are straight and squared up. For a one-sided blanket I just put in a narrow hem, and add some trim if I feel like it. Those are good for summer babies.

For a two sided blanket, I either have two squares of fabric, or a 2 1/2 yard piece folded in half, either way they are right sides together. I sew around the square, leaving an opening for turning it right side out. Once it's turned right side out you can just edge stitch or use a decorative stitch around the edges, and you will close the opening with those stitches, no need to hand sew.

These three receiving blankets are double sided flannel, as South Africa in July/August is winter, and most houses there do not have central heating or cooling. I bought this flannel to make these blankets, 2 1/2 yards of each. The selvages and trimming from squaring them up are in the trash, and these will soon be on their way to SA, so no increase to the stash for these. This fabric never even met the stash!

I did start quilting my grand-nephew's quilt yesterday, but I didn't get very far. I had to babysit for a few hours today, and I didn't want to get into quilting and be interrupted for so long, so I made the receiving blankets instead. I trimmed the flannel up before my charges got here, and sewed them up after they left. The grandtwins left around the same time, to spend some time with their other grandmother, so the house was pretty quiet this afternoon and evening. Tomorrow I am hoping to finish grand-nephew's quilt, I'm hoping for quilting and binding, but I'll be happy if I just get the quilting done.

A Couple More Finishes

I finished a couple of baby quilts today, one for grandbaby #5, one for donation. The donation quilt Miss S has taken a liking to, but she already has two quilts from Nana, with another one in the works for when she moves into a big girl bed. I don't know if Miss S will be a quilter someday or not, but she certainly likes quilts :-)

This is grandbaby #5's quilt. I tried quilting a watery design on it, and although I would do it differently next time, I don't know that it is bad for a first try.

 

I pieced the backing from some leftover fleece from another project. I had just enough, and the small trimmings leftover I actually threw away.

 

Here is the donation quilt. It is flannel from my flannel-busting spree of 2011. The funny thing about that is, I was busting all my flannel, because I didn't like quilting with it, but after making over a dozen quilts with it, I don't mind quilting with it anymore. Flannel is now my friend. I never minded making garments with it, it was only using it for patchwork that I originally didn't like. Now that I've racked up so much experience working with it in patchwork, I really don't remember what it was I didn't like about it.

 

Here is the backing for the donation quilt. Most of the backing is flannel, but it wasn't quite wide enough, so I added some orphan blocks to make it a bit wider.

Tomorrow the plan is to quilt my great-nephew-on-the-way's quilt.

It's Done, It's Done, It's Done!!!!!

Until I get Perkiomen Daydream finished, this quilt holds the record for the most pieces in a quilt I've made. I was so excited to get this back from the LAQ and see it finished! This is DS the Elder and DDIL's wedding quilt, just a bit late, they were married in March. The pattern is Shoreline Log Cabin from Judy Martin's Log Cabin Quilt Book. If you like log cabin quilts, I suggest you look into that book, there are some stunning quilts in it. This quilt is large, about 110" square. The pattern did not call for the outermost border, it was my decision to add it. The backing fabric is the same as that outer border.

This quilt has about 8,000 pieces, 102 different fabrics, and a lot of hours of work in it. I just love the way it came out, and I can't wait for them to see it in person. I mailed it today, and they should get it Thursday.

I did a little sewing today, on grandbaby #5's quilt. I am just over halfway finished quilting that baby quilt. I ended up buying some flannel to make a couple warmer receiving blankets, and once the quilt and receiving blankets are done, I can get those in the mail to South Africa. Hopefully they will all arrive before grandbaby #5 makes his/her appearance in the world. That baby is due the beginning of August, but I am thinking end of July more likely. Our family really likes July birthdays.

Tomorrow, I will hopefully get a chance to finish grandbaby's quilt, if the grandtwins aren't too fussy. The twins are not thinking teething molars and canines much fun. They get upset if they can hear me sewing, and know I'm there, but they can't see me, even if their Mama is right there with them. Once the baby quilt is done, I should be able to get the receiving blankets done quickly, the fabric is in the dryer now. I'm hoping to get those packages mailed next week, and with the quilt I got mailed today, I will be able to cross a couple things off my to do list!

My Orca Bay quilt is due back from the LAQ any day, and that one I get to keep! I am anxious to see that one too.

Bonnie K Hunter, who designed the Orca Bay quilt, is taking pre-orders for her next book, String Fling, and the Orca Bay pattern will be in that book. I already pre-ordered my book, and if you'd like to pre-order yours go to www.quiltville.com and pre-order yours too :-)

Quilting Basics

In my last post I mentioned winning four lots of fabric on ebay, and now the fabrics are here. I am out of corrugated plastic forms, so my new fabric is piled up next to my batting roll.

I divided it up by color, and I am thrilled I got the most greens! I always say I don't have a favorite color, just a least favorite (blue). I like different colors for different things. I probably wear pink, purples, and red the most, but my favorite flowers are yellow, I tend to decorate with greens and browns and I think orange is the happiest color. Yup, I like everything but blue.

At any rate, the lots I won were one lot of solids, one of blenders, and two tone-on-tone lots. Perfect for quilting basics, the plainer stuff you need to make the other stuff work. Now that the scrub stash is integrated with my quilting stash since I am no longer making scrubs to order, I have so many novelty fabrics to use up, and you have to add some basics to use up the novelties. I was almost completely out of blenders, I had only a few solids, and I never did have many tone-on-tones. Now my stash is larger, yes, but much more workable.

I checked ebay for corrugated plastic to make the mini bolts forms out of, and I didn't see the size boards I ordered last time, which were really ideal. I think we will check will a local sign place, and see if they will sell us some blank boards, or maybe something with a misprint on it to use. DH has done quite a bit of business with one of the sign businesses, so I'm hoping I can get some corrugated plastic locally and not have to pay shipping.

Once we get some more mini bolt forms cut, I think half of this will fit on the fabric shelves, and the other half will have to wait until there is room. Since I have all of the backings to piece for the next quilts to be quilted, there should be room pretty quickly.

I got almost all of the shirt fabric put away. The only parts not put away are the sections I want to cut into strips right away and put into my shirt strips stash to add to the variety. I have one tote for shirt parts, and it is now full, so no more buying shirts until I get some room in that tote. I hadn't bought shirts in a long while, and this time I had planned on buying some, so I haven't been regularly going wild ;-)

I quilted a baby quilt yesterday, so now it just needs binding. I started quilting grandbaby #5's quilt today, but I am having a hard time concentrating on it, my headache is bad today. I am trying to quilt a watery kind of design on it, and I'm hoping when it's done it will look cool. The quilt has rubber ducks on it so I thought a water pattern would be good. I am having thread breakage issues, which is driving me a little nuts. The thread is variegated, but it is Aurifil, a brand I rarely have problems with. I changed my needle, and adjusted the tension, and of course I've rethreaded over and over again. only the top thread is breaking. Yesterday I was quilting with some really cheap thread and I didn't have any problems at all. Hmmm. You know, I backed this quilt with fleece, maybe that is the problem. I have only used fleece one other time, but I wasn't free motion quilting on that quilt, I was using a walking foot. Does anyone else have problems with fleece backings?

I have a chair in my bedroom now that the crib is not in there. I brought up a tv table, and the things I need to trim up the bonus HST's. I figure if I spend a little time each evening trimming HST's I will eventually have them all the same size. I really have no idea how many HST's I have. I am using Eleanor Burns Quilt in a Day Triangle Trimmer ruler, so I can trim them up before they are pressed open. I think I will count them as I press them, then put them into a plastic shoebox. One of the ideas I have to use them requires over 5,000 HST's and I know I don't have that many yet. If I put a post-it note on top of the shoe box, and note every 100, I should be able to keep track as I add to the trimmed, pressed collection. I'm sure I'll be needing to make more HST's to have enough for that project. Maybe I should just start a couple projects that will result in lots of bonus HST's!