The evolution of a baby quilt

Ok, now that my daughter has seen Patric's quilt, you can too.

Remember this? He was the first teddy bear.

I think this little guy was third.

Do you notice the fabric surrounding the blocks? I planned on adding a one inch border around all the blocks using the colour that each teddy is wearing. I didn't know whether I wanted to use orange...

or yellow. I did know that I wanted the teddy to wear overalls, sunglasses and have a pail and shovel.

So, you see, I chose the yellow. I thought it was a brighter, lighter colour and went much better with all the other colours. These blocks are laid out on different grays because I was trying to choose sashing. I hemmed, and I hawed but in the end, I brought all my grays and all the blocks with their background fabrics with me one evening to show the ladies that I quilt with. They helped me choose the right one.

If you make the photo bigger you will notice that the upper right teddy (the first teddy bear) has had a few additions and so has the little girl bear. This quilt was started before Patric was born and no one knew if he was going to be a boy or a girl. I told my daughter that I could make another teddy and keep the little girl bear for a future quilt. She said no, there are little girl bears so she stayed in.

I'll show you the finished quilt soon. It needs to be bound.

An old quilt

I did show you a new baby quilt last week and now I have an old quilt to share.

It is a scrap quilt. Made for my second son, Eric, who will be 31 at the end of July. I started quilting in the fall of 1980 after taking a night school class. At the time I was pregnant with my third child, a girl, Maili. It was a 10 week course and I figured that I would miss the last class but she came early and I missed the last two classes. I don't know when I made this quilt. Eric was child number 4 and one of three who did get a quilt made by me. Quilting was not in our family.

 This is the back of the quilt. Most of the fabrics were cotton but I suspect that some may have had polyester blends too. The batting is polyester and you can see it peeking out at the top.

 I have no idea where this baby donkey fabric came from but I think it's cute.

It was hand quilted and as you can see, it did not stand up to wear. I am thinking of fixing it and giving it to Eric if, and when, he has a little one of his own. For now, it will stay with me. For a while Eric used it as a dresser scarf on top of his dresser.

I have another old quilt I will share in a bit. This one, unfortunately, was not signed or dated but it was made between 1982 and 1986.

Seriously? In this day and age?

We have all heard of the bullying in schools but this really does take the cake. At a supposedly Christian school too. I won't copy and paste the article but I will put up the link.


http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/student-pulled-n-y-school-being-mocked-canadian-192130420.html



So sad.

New quilt

This has now been delivered.

 Staggered Coins is how I refer to it since it could have been a coin quilt if I had left all the prints in one column.

The backing has Mother Goose fabric. Just perfect for a brand new little baby girl named Aylin.

I am linking up with the Needle and Thread Network. Pop on over to see what other Canucks are up to this week.

I'm also linking up with Esther's WOW.

Worth reading

For anyone who likes quilts, loves quilts and/or appreciates quilts and their history, please read Esther Aliu's latest blog post. It's here.

Esther has re-created a quilt - a true vintage quilt and if you wish, you can make one too. All you have to do is join her yahoo group - it's free and therefore, the pattern will be free too, for a limited time. There is some mystery surrounding the quilt, where it is today, if indeed it still exists. It was shown in a 1956 copy of Patchwork by Averil Colby.

And since a blog post is not truly complete unless it has a photo, I shall show you this.

This is just one of the beautiful bouquets I received on my birthday last year. The flowers are all gone but the gorgeous photos remain...

Christmas Quilt Along

I don't usually join quilt alongs or sew alongs since I have way too many things to finish on my own but, Sheila's blog led me to it and it sounded like fun. You see, it's not just a quilt along, it's a challenge. What you have to do is make a quilt, any size (not exceeding 96" in perimeter), but it must not contain red or green. Go here to find out more and to sign up, if you wish.

I have fabric and I have some Christmas fabric too that is in a box, separated so that I can find it easily. This is just one of the Christmas fabrics that might or might not make it into my little project.

Getting ready

Later this month we will have a few visitors. Little Luc, Patric, their mom and dad will be visiting family in Ontario. Since Luc is now a big boy and sleeping in a big bed, I thought it might be nice to make him a special pillowcase. He loves cars, trucks and anything with wheels.

I came upon this very easy pattern and instructions on the web for a pillowcase and decided to give it a try. They are, after all, instructions for teaching children how to sew.

After reading the instructions, I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out and wasn't sure on the placement of the fabric. As you can see, the pattern goes (in my mind) the wrong way. Never fear, since this was the prototype. If Luc doesn't want it, I can always donate it. I must say, I was impressed with the instructions (step by step photos were included) and the ease with which it all went together. The only hard thing was measuring and cutting anything that was 41 inches wide.

These are the real ones. So now Luc has a choice of a blue trim or an orange trim. If you click on the photo, you will see that there are different cars on the fabric. I used up all the fabric that I bought on my last purchase for the body of these two pillowcases. The blue broadcloth trim was a leftover from the prototype and it is all gone now too. I still have a whole metre of the blue that I purchased and all but10 inches of the orange left. I guess I could make a summer short-sleeved shirt or two for Luc...

Tuesday Treat

I broke down.

I bought some fabric. I wasn't going to but I did. These were all on sale and all have been assigned a project. When I'm finished sewing with them, I'll show you what I made. They have all been washed - except for the second one from the left. I'm still debating if I should wash it or not.

Just some sewing

I made this round trivet/hot pad in March for my daughter who needed something for her table. It had to be a fair size so I used a dinner plate as a pattern. It has one layer of thin batting and one layer of Thermolan to deflect the heat. As you can see, I just quilted it in various circle sizes. She liked it so much that she requested another one but I haven't done it yet. I need a reminder...

 

The hazards of quilting. It pays to have a lot of quilting needles on hand in case this happens. I bend needles every once in a while and it does hamper the flow of progress. This little quilt is now done but it has not yet been delivered. Once it has reached it's destination, I will show you the whole thing.