Rainbows and Dinosaurs

Here's a scrappy quilt; a perfect way to use up tons of those squares you cut from scraps in a moment or hour or week of craziness. My grandson and I began this quilt with a dig through those squares. He was three. He'd helped finish the quilt for his bunk. This one would be for his baby brother's bed in a couple years. His mom and I decided to make a could more rows, but arrange them in groups of two just so the two would be a bit different.

Quilting with small children poses its own set of problems and its own opportunities for joyful giggles. Attention span might be shorter and your little one may exhibit the "oh shiny!" syndrome. If your partner in sewing lives on the other side of the world, it can be even more of a challenge.

We began by sorting out colors from the 2 1/2 inch square bin and sending pictures of the target color back and forth via email. Rowan would makes suggestion as to which block should come next and which had to sit next to each other. Over a few weeks, we put together rows for most of the colors in the rainbow. These rows were sewn together and just waiting for me to find a good sash fabric. Turns out it was a good thing that it sat on the shelf a couple months.

The first sign of a problem sailed in with a shipping company's ship.  The companion quilt, also a rainbow quilt arrived in Sweden. It was made of 3 1/2 inch strips...so instead of a mere 27 blocks per row, we now needed 39. Sigh. It's a good thing that my seam ripper and I are buddies. Adding more blocks often meant taking bits and pieces apart to improve balance between prints and shades.

The quilt also needed a bit of  redesign to expand the width. As it was, the sash strips were about the same width as the rainbow strips. It lacked interest visually. After brainstorming, we decided to border each set of blocks with a matching border. That added enough with to use a 2-inch sash.

If I Ran the Circus...

A fabric-inspired baby quilt

and their matching blocks:

Amanda's Quilt -- A Beatiful and Simple Way to Use Up Those Scraps

Combine a snazzy border technique, some creative applique and oodles of already cut block and you can have a lovely quilt almost like this.

S has been making quilts for each person in her husband's family. This jewel is for a sister. She loves blues and deep, rich colors so we began by choosing a color pallet and then hitting the 3 1/2" square stash.

We started with a 16 x 16 block center. It was edged with a white and dark brown sawtooth strip. Each of the four corners start with 14 block and 2 triangles decreasing one block on each side per row. It is also edged with the sawtooth strip on its long side. S created the quilt's showpiece by designing a flowing, flowering vine that twists on and off the work. It even incorporates an initial.

Getting there. How about adding a bit more length and choosing borders?

To make the quilt a little longer, we added a strip of matching fabric. A small, dark colored border popped the center a bright outer border finished the quilt top. Since the back featured an oriental print (see below), we decided to also use one for the border and the length extention.

Things had gone alone quite smoothly, to this point but we were soon to face quite the challenge. S had planned to gift it at Christmas. We had an appointment to use the long arm the December 19th. Plenty of time! Or so a person would think. Something bad happened the evening before to the bobbin assembly and the other machine was taken. I took the offer of a later date and the suggestion that we prepare the binding in advance.

R and I returned on Christmas Eve and got busy. She quilted this one first, using a ferny leaves and flowers pattern. We thought it needed some curves to balance the square blocks.

The minute it came off the long arm, I sewed the binding in place and sat down to hand stitch the second side down while R and S quilted two other quilts, the firefly baby quilt and a Halloween lap quilt.

It was ready by morning. Merry Christmas, A!

Yo, Beach Babe!

A surprise quilt for a surprise baby!

The nursery is done in a Hawaiian beach (think Lilo and Stitch) theme so we made this quilt to match. The baby's name has been blurred to protect the her privacy.

Putting It All Together

We started with this sketch, done by one of the S's who also helped create the artwork in the nursery. Once we had an idea, we hit the fabric stash and pulled out colors that would complement the walls. We needed blues for the ocean, greens for the trees and bushes, something bright for a surboard, a few brilliant colors for the tropical flowers, white for the fluffy clouds and a shiny yellow for the sun.

Challenge accepted!

The ocean looks lovely doesn't it? We paper pieced the sea together in a fit of insanity. Do not do this the way we did! It was a bad plan. The curves were too long and too tight for the fabric to lay smoothly. I'd suggest needle turn or your favorite applique instead.

The sand was created using a stack and whack technique from Browsing the Web, found in "New Cuts for New Quilts," by Karla Alexander. After the blocks were stitched into a long strip, we top stitched the ocean to the sand and hid the seam with blanket stitching. If you look closely you can see blanket stitching on some of the waves.

Another lesson learned this quilt. Letter are difficult. I'd tried to applique cut out letters in italicized cursive writing -- also a bad plan. We ended up embroidering it in bullion knot which turned out great.

The flowers were a lot easier than they look.

R quilted to match the area. The trees are filled with a meander. The ocean has waves and the sky looks as if someone drew in the wind. She left the tree stems and flowers empty for extra dimension but quilting in close to them.

Those extra inches of palm fronds? We'll get a look at them later.

Here's a close up of the sky and trees. You can almost see the wind lifting the branches.

You can see the blanket stitch holding them down. We chose a variegated green floss and used two strands.

Remember the dangling palm fronts. Look below. We continued them onto the back.

All in all we're very happy with the way this little quilt turned out.

Bunnies for Baby

A grand baby quilt! In my mind, I've made this quilt a hundred times or more, but now none of the patterns seem quite right. What would do for an October baby? A wee baby boy?

I've got it! Bunnies! Not in baskets, but hopping along, peeking up over the border or standing up staring. Our pattern began with Easter bunnies in "Our Best Seasonal Quilts by Fons and Porter. Then we made a few changes. They'd be made of felted wool with whiskers and tails to pull. We pieced tiny split, modified 9-patches in pastels and beige between the bunnies. How did that work out? Judge for yourself. Here it is fresh off the long arm. If you look closely you'll see that R quilted machined pow's behind the bunnies and added carrots in the borders and in a few beige squares. I believe a butterfly and buzzy bee might be flying around there somewhere as well.

We brought it home and added a border. You can also see the back, an old-fashioned bunny print on navy. A pair of booties sneaked in the photo. I don't know how that happened. ;)

Whiskers and tails joined the quilt at long last. The whiskers are a bamboo, silk yarn; the tails snipped wool circles.



Such happy bunnies. Great job on the faces, S!