Blue triangles - a single bed quilt for Claudia

I can't for the life of me seem to come up with decent names for my quilts! So 'blue triangles' it is I'm afraid.

I did finish this one a while ago, but have been away on holidays for a month (and suffered from phd - post holiday depression) so it's taken me a while to get back on the blog. Had to give myself a swift kick up the proverbial.

So, to the quilt, my little girl recently moved into her big girl bed (a king single), and while I've made quilts for her bed previously, I thought a special new one would ease the transition into the new bed (any excuse for a new quilting project!). She loves blue, so I pulled out all my blues and scraps (and some that just have blue in them) and cut my own 5 inch charm squares. I had a couple of packets of pre-cut white charm squares (handy), and I'll admit, all those half square triangles did take quite a while, and yep, got pretty tedious towards the end! Plus I decided to trim every single one, which is really not like me to be that fussy, but I really wanted this one to be perfect (it's not, but it's about as good as it gets for me!).

It's about 80 inches x 57 inches, not as big as a single doona, but it sits perfectly on top. One of these days I'll take a photo of it in her actual bed.

The quilting is just simple straight lines and diagonals.

The backing is mainly Sarah Jane pinwheels, I used some of the leftover HST's to make a zigzag strip, and paired it with some natural linen and a strip of Jay Cyn for Birch Fabric's organic line, also bound it with this fabric, I love the look of the coral with the blues and white. Coral is my new favourite colour (last week it was yellow….). I do love the back, I'm always glad when I put in a bit of effort and do a pieced back.

The transition into the bed wasn't nearly as painful as I imagined! thanks to the quilt, I'm sure.

In other news, I am soon to be the proud owner of a Bernina 550QE, I don't know much about it admittedly, but I do know it has a stitch length regulator, and I cannot WAIT to try my hand at free motion quilting. Stay tuned!

City Weekend Swirly Pop (more pinwheel love)

Waaaay back at the beginning of May I started on this quilt using Cluck Cluck Sew's Swirly Pop pattern (yet more gorgeous pinwheels) and my long ago purchased City Weekend charm packs.

Inspired by this quilt by Red Pepper Quilts I wanted to try using a different base colour than my usual white, so I used a light grey, it definitely makes the colours pop. But this has been one of those quilts that I've alternatively loved and hated depending on what stage it's at (funny how that happens!). Luckily now that it's finished, I really love it. It's a bit more complex than my usual, and I do lose interest fast when my pile of blocks doesn't seem to be growing quickly enough but I persevered (not that it's a difficult pattern, it definitely isn't!).

I have to admit that I had a bit of an issue (actually a BIG issue) with the outer border, I initially used one of the pink prints as a more solid border and it just looked really ordinary (husband said it looked good, but I'm pretty sure he was just saying that for an easy life!), I ended up unpicking it (after I'd quilted the quilt, wouldn't recommend doing that if you can help it!), ordering two more charm packs and going with the mixed border like the RPQ's one. It added a couple more months to the project (but what's a couple more when it's taken 6 months right?) SOOOOO much better!!! it really makes the quilt I think.

The finished quilt is approx. 60in x 68in and used 4 charm packs of City Weekend (2 for the quilt and about 1.5 packs for the border), plus a solid light grey (I just used one from the local fabric shop).

Hand quilting

So this is a quilt I recently finished for my baby girl using repro 1930's fabrics. It's my first attempt at hand quilting. I was dubious and thought it'd take eons to quilt but have to say, I'm hooked. I love the way it looks and I loved having a project to work on during evening couch telly time. Felt so productive! But I think I'll stick to smallish quilts for hand quilting.

Cute huh! Could be my favourite quilt so far, weird because I started out hating it!