baby quilt

a friend of mine is having a baby any day now. i have been busy making her this baby quilt since last year. i can post this now because i finally sent it off to her last week.  i started with this tutorial found here. 

 

i had my fabric cut into squares and matched up right sides together

i drew a diagonal line and sewed on either side of it

 

i wasnt sure about this way of doing but it it was actually pretty quick and easy

 

then you cut along the line

 

voila, 2 pieces

open and press into place

 

i did that for all of them

 

i used dots and zig zags for the coloured pieces and a subtle white on white pattern for the other.

 

its important to trim extras, this makes it much easier later.

 

it looks like i could be done, but not yet

 

if you want to go the next level of pattern you cut the new 2 colour sqaures in half diagonally!

and then swap them around to make the 4 part new squares to be sewn together.

 

then the tricky part, figuring out the best layout to find the right balance of colour and repetition. in the end i went all sudoku and made sure only one of each colour was in each vertical and horizontal row. i know very OCD of me. 

i used some fabric i had already for the wadding and backing. and pinned it all in place to be quilted.

you can see on the back here the chevron quilting pattern. i used multi colour thread for that. its a bit tricky doing the quilting on my little domestic machine but the results are good enough for something that is to be used and loved.

here is the front of the finished quilt. i bound it in a light green and white stripe. although we know the sex of the baby, i wanted to make a quilt that was neither too girly or boyish and not the primary red blue yellow you see in all the kids toys. i think it is a pretty good quilt. i had fun making it and i know the new family will enjoy using it.

cute otto photos and random photos

i have had a few cute photos of otto on my computer, here are the best ones

otto with rawhide as cigar

otto wondering what is going on, and when are we going for a walk?

 

otto posing for the camera

oh and here are 2 other random photos i have wanted to share, but have not been worth a full post on their own.

2 new bathing suits i bought on a whim the other day.

 

swimsuit shopping on a whim is the best idea, no pressure and you feel good when you leave the shops with one or two!

 

also here is the quilt on the bed in my place. it looks really good, i am happy with it.

time off

my exhibition opens on october 27th. but the real deadline that i was working hard to meet was my photography deadline. i needed to get all my work documented before i glued on the wall hanging mechanisms. the photos look great, but i feel funny posting them before the exhibition opens, so you will all have to wait until after the 27th to see the work.

in the meantime, since i have glued on the hanging mechanisms, all i can do is wait for the glue to cure. so i have had some time off. its been great, cleaning the house, gardening and sewing.

this is otto last week, i was too busy to give him a proper groom but it was getting warmer here and he needed a trim so we sent him to the dog groomers.

when his hair gets long it gets all curly and people think he is part poodle.

 

he can barely see from behind his eyebrows.

 

this is him after his cut. he looks much smarter and very neat and tidy. i think it even makes him prance around a bit more. with more time off i have been able to take otto form more walks and hang out with him. he is such a great dog!

and today i found myself mid afternoon with no plans or obligations and i decided to pin together the quilt that i started ages ago .

my table was not big enough so i stared from the middle and then had to work my way out to the edges.

its all pinned now and ready for when i find myself at a loose end again.

 

a few days off doing regular activities makes a world of difference!

random update

did you know your body can't tell the difference between good stress and bad stress - its all just stress. lately life has been busy. but a good busy. here are a couple highlights.

 i had easter lunch at my friend's house. they had a huge leg of lamb on a spit. impressive and tasty. a nice new tradition.

i finally had time to go and spend too much money on new seedlings, and planted my winter veggies. think spinach, lettuce, beetroot, kale, garlic, potato, silver beet, brussel sprouts.

 

somehow the birds seem to know exactly where i planted the broad bean seeds, like they were watching me do it, but hopefully one or two will come up.

 

and finally there has been no tie for shopping except the internet kind. i bought this bamboo wadding for my quilt that is waiting to be finished, and the grey with white circles wide back fabric for the backing of the quilt. now all i need is some time. to be honest i have been doing some other sewing just not any quilting and once i get some decent photos i will show you what else i have made at the sewing machine.

progress on world wide quilt

quite some time ago me and my friend started a quilt. we both cut out 4.5 inch squares of printed fabrics. we kept one of each fabric for each of us. then we traded the squares of printed fabric we had. this friend of mine lives on the other side of the world, so all our trading has been done in the mail, and most of the planning as well. we decided to use a grey linen to compliment the pattern squares. so once that was all cut out it was time to sew.

this is the collection of squares at my sewing machine sewing single squares together into pairs.

then i sew the 2's into 4's. the nice thing about quilting is how quickly it progresses when you are actually just sewing. its like making production glass once all the decisions are made you can just work and keep busy.

there is not much planning at the stage, just making sure not to sew 2 of the same patterns into one set of 4. 

the real planning comes into play when you layout the whole quilt to then sew it all together. i wanted to lay it out to make sure that i had the colours mixed up, and that there wasn't a concentration of too many lights, or darks, or pinks in one area.

i put up on the wall a flannel sheet from the bed and then pinned the 4 tile squares onto it in the layout for the quilt. this way i can stand back and make sure that there are no double ups or funny patterns in the layout. this also helps me keep otto off the quilt.
he is happy watching from the bed.

i will leave this up for a couple days to check it out and then later this week start sewing the 4's into 16's. and then put it all together. so far i think it is looking pretty good.

it will be interesting to see how different or the same the 2 finished quilts are.  we still need to decide on backing fabric and binding, so lots of work left to do.

quilt test update

ok this is going to be a bit of a long one but here it goes. i made the mini half scale square test quilt with the grey linen and the larger to scale back black square test quilt.

then i quilted them. i used an old mattress protector as the wadding, and quilted the large and small squares separately so i cold stick to the quilt pattern of an X in each solid colour square.

  

the front of the black large squares

the back showing the quilt pattern more clearly

this is the front of the small grey linen squares quilted. 

 

 and the back, just so you can see the pattern. 

side by side -  i need to choose the best one. borris and i both like the grey linen and unfortunately we both agree that the mini squares size also looks great, but seeing as i already have all the pattern squares cut out to the larger size, we are going with that. 

maybe i will do a mini squares quilt later.

i still needed to wash and dry the linen to see how it went, and make sure it didn't wrinkle up or do anything funny. 

so in order to do that i put the 2 halves together with one more layer of the wadding, making it three layers of wadding and a patchwork front and back. i bound it with some left over fabric from a jelly roll. 

now it is ready for washing.

  

and this is the back after washing and drying, looks good. 

 

and the front linen after a wash and a dry. also looks good. 

  

a close up of the black squares quilted, washed and dried.

i like it but i think it is a bit harsh.

and a close up of the mini grey linen squares quilted, washed and dried. 

i think this is the winner. i am still a bit afraid of choosing a linen, but i think it is the right colour and the change in texture will add another detail to the quilt.

what do you think?

 i will buy the fabric in the next week or so and get started on the real thing. in the meantime otto gets this mini quilt to be used as a lining for his bike basket, 

but more on that project later.

still undecided

i went to the quilt shop the other day and met my friend who is a good quilter there. i brought along all my squares and we set about looking for the right fabric to make the solid squares for the quilt. after trying white, black, grey, green, another grey, we just could not find the right one. we both liked grey but there was not a true grey fabric to be found. they were either too blue or too pink.

then we asked some ladies who happened to be in the shop, and they agreed they grey we had was not the right grey, then one of the ladies suggested this fabric. now this is not a solid grey, and this image from the internet is not indicative of the true colour, but this patterned grey fabric against the squares looked pretty good. i was shocked. i was not prepared for a pattern fabric as the background, but the pattern is so small that really from a step back it looked grey.  

so having decided i liked this fabric i then set about doing the maths to see how much i needed to finish the quilt. it turns out i need 3 meters!  this is a lot, and unfortunately there was only 1.4 meters of this fabric left. i could try and buy it online, but basically i am left undecided. 

the lady who works at the quilt shop suggested this linen fabric for the squares. i must say the colour grey worked with the quilt. again the colour on this screen is not exactly right, but i was unsure about mixing cotton with linen on a quilt especially with large blocks of linen making up 50% of the quilt.

so i bought half a meter of the linen and my friend suggested i set myself the task of making a mini half scale of the quilt. 

this is the layout of the 2.5 inch squares, my quilt in the end will be 4.5 inch squares.  the layout looked pretty good, so i sewed it together.

sewing the linen and cotton was ok, the cotton has more stretch which i can see being good and bad. the linen did not stretch at all making it harder to line up the edges maybe.

i am going to quilt it together tomorrow, in the cross pattern, just to see what it looks like and how the linen actually quilts. then wash it to see how  it wears. the final quilt i am going to make will be used on my bed so it needs to wash well.

then i decided since i am making this mini quilt (probably for the dog) i would make the other side to scale but with black cotton. black is the colour i naturally choose for most things. i am comfortable with it. people have said its too dark for this quilt, but i am not so sure, i think it could be a good option. so this is the back of my test quilt. I will quilt it tomorrow too. 

then maybe i can decide what fabric to go with and start the big project. does anyone have any tips for sewing with linen. it's not 100% i think it is 55 linen 45% cotton, but still different from the 100% cotton.

any opinions about the black, or the linen or the 

grey mini dot?

who knew quilting was so complex. all i wanted was a relaxing task and a new bed cover.