Latest baby quilts

Hi all:

I wanted to post some pictures of the two baby quilts I just made for different people.  The first one is of course, a flannel one.  I have made about 10-12 of these over the years, for various people and I like making them as they are quick and require no real quilting. I like making rag quilts only in small sizes as you know how much cutting the fringe is!!!!!  

This is the quilt I made for the director of my band, who's wife had a baby last week.  He wasn't sure if it would be a boy or girl so I made the quilt with green flannels. I think it turned out quite well. I managed to cut it out, sew it and fringe it in about 3 1/2 hours as I wanted to present it that night at rehearsal. I also made a small cuddly, soothing blanket for his older daughter, so she wouldn't feel left out with the " new arrival".

I wanted to sew it up fast, so I made the blocks 10" x 10" and cut the fringe on each row as I went along.  It goes much quicker that way!!

As well, I realized that very good friends of ours are having another grandchild in March. Since I made a rag quilt for their daughter's baby, I also need to make something homemade for their son's baby.  Frankly, I am a little tired of making rag flannel quilts so I decided to make a quick baby quilt using some of my "Oink-a-doodle-moo" fabric. I immediately fell in love with this fabric when I first saw it and had to buy it.  I could only get some of the prints and was saving it to make a small lap quilt for us - barnyard animals for adults??? Blasphemy!!!  It doesn't matter that this is a child's print.  I loved it so much, I wanted a quilt made from it as well. I managed to make large 10" blocks and use only 1 panel of the large panel print.(it is hard to part with any of them but I decided on the chickens).  I then cut         5 1/4" blocks for the chicken wire and watermelon prints.  I thought the watermelon went well with the colour scheme and farm theme and I had left over fabric from the orchard quilt I am working on right now.  I think it turned out well too.  I will be sandwiching it with some leftover yellow flannel and leftover bamboo batting and then "quilting"  it quickly, along the seams on my own machine.  I will post it when completely finished but here are pictures of the quilt top.

Here is a picture of my bobbin cover. In a quilting class, I was told to cut a piece of moleskin bandage and adhere it to the bobbin case to mark that perfect 1/4" line.  It works really well, as you keep the edge of your fabric aligned with the moleskin and sew a perfect 1/4" seam.  I used an Elastoplast heavy fabric bandage and cut a small strip from it.  It sticks really well and will last a long time.  Just simply replace it when it starts to fray or curl. (My secret to perfect seams).

I hope you like this adorable fabric as much as I do.  I will post the completed quilt when done.

P.S.  It is snowing here today.  A perfect day to stay in and quilt!!!

Rosie

Sketches of Spring quilt is finished!!

I have finally finished my Sketches of Spring quilt and just got it back from the quilter's.  This is the third quilt that my friend Catherine Hanna has quilted for me and she again did a wonderful job of helping to choose a quilt design and thread colour. She used a variegated thread with lime greens, magentas and pinks and the colours really show up well on the quilt. Also for this quilt, I used 2 layers of bamboo batting.  In fact, Catherine was the person who originally suggested I use 2 layers way back when I brought my first quilt to her.  In the past, I had been disappointed with how my quilts turned out when other people machine quilted my quilts.  I used to use 1 layer of Hobbs Heirloom but found it was too thin and not very warm.  Now using 2 layers, they are much thicker and cosier.  I couldn't be happier!

Catherine Hanna's studio is located in Surrey, BC and you can visit her website at: www.quiltedgarden.ca.  She is an excellent quilter, a wealth of information, very friendly and is very fun to talk to.  I always enjoy visiting with her when I go.

Below are the pictures of my quilt.

You can see the rose/flower design Catherine carefully lined up on the border fabric.

A little closer view. I don't ordinarily spread my quilts out over my pillows like this - this is just to show the quilt.

Here you can see the variegated thread.

Closer still....  Sorry about the shadow here.

I hope you like this quilt.  Let me know if you would like to see more pictures.

Take care everyone and Happy Valentine's Day!!

Rosie

Newest quilt for 2014

Hi everyone:

I seem to be a little behind in posting new posts but that is because I am back at school taking classes and very busy. Taking classes, doing homework, practicing my trumpet for 2 different bands and managing the house take up a lot of time.

I am however, starting a new quilt which I have been thinking about for some time.  My last quilt (Sketches of Spring - Illuminating Spring) is finished and is waiting to go in for machine quilting.  I am taking it into my friend next week and it should be back within 1-2 weeks, so I will post pictures of it once it is quilted.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about making this new quilt for some time.  Our summer cottage is up in fruit country and in the summer, the whole area is filled with fruit orchards, vegetable patches and vineyards.  I thought it would be nice to depict this beautiful area in a quilt, with garden patches of vegetables growing in rows and lines of fruit trees and grapevines.  I have lots of ideas about how to do this and have started collecting fabrics from the sale bolts (like I always do).  I have started making vegetable patches and below are some of the fabrics I will be using.

I am trying to use a lot of greens for the rows of vegetables.

I am going to use creams/taupes for the rows of soil between the vegetables.

I plan to do strips of berries alternating with rows of taupe soil.

I am going to use this fruit fabric to make trees - possibly like Lori Holt's in her Quilty Fun book.

I loved this wheat fabric.

Perhaps I will make a single patch of wild flowers.

This sale fabric, has long rows of cream/taupe designs which I cut into strips to use for the soil between the vegetable rows.

One of my vegetable rows.  I am not sure how I like this yet.  I may not end up using it.

You can't have a vegetable patch without strawberries.  Each of these blocks finishes at 10"x10".  If you look really close at the above 2 patches, you might see where I had to splice 2 strips together to make enough soil to finish the last row.  Again, I always seem to have mistakes/problems but that is the beauty of patchwork, isn't it?

I couldn't help myself.  I bought a little more fabric yesterday and couldn't resist this watermelon fabric.

I loved this daisy fabric and made a single 10"x10" square, like a field of wildflowers. 

I loved this heirloom tomato fabric and will make rows with it as well.

The colours of this don't show very vividly, but the greens are very bright.  I plan to use strips of this to suggest that the whole quilt is farmland.

This is the bright white I will use for the sashing and borders.

I can hardly wait to see how this will unfold.

Happy quilting!!

Rosie

Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years.  It has been far too long since my last post, so I thought I would start the year off with a more concerted effort in blogging.

My Christmas was quiet/busy but very well organized. For once, I wasn't baking until the last couple of days before Christmas, nor was I wrapping on December 24th!  What a switch from previous years.

My Gingersnap cookies, before baking.

Pecan tarts, hot out of the oven.

This was only the start of my baking.  I also made Skor shortbread, Rosie's Scrumptious Chocolate cookies (my recipe), Chocolate Truffle cookies and Vanilla Kipferl, a Viennese traditional Christmas cookie.

My beautiful Kitchenaid stand mixer.  I couldn't do this much baking without it. It is a gorgeous lavender colour and I have never seen that colour again since.

This is the entire amount of counter space I have in my tiny, cramped kitchen. Hard to believe such tasty things come out of this space. Can you see my sink on the right side? I also have a whopping     2&3/4" (yes, you read that right!) to the right of the sink, before the counter ends and drops off. If I am careful, I can actually balance a spoon on that much counter!  I don't know what the architects were thinking when they designed these houses in the 1960's. They certainly weren't cooks!!!! Oh and notice my lovely original, hand hewn  cabinet doors of indeterminate wood? Every door looks like it has been hand-planed by Paul Bunyun, with divots and scrape marks and uneven sides.  Every single door is a different dimension and the only way I could cover up the uneven surface was to paint them this lovely mahogany brown/red.  I actually like the colour.  From a distance, (and if you squint your eyes real tight) you might think I had upgraded to a high end cabinet. Ok, maybe not. Notice the open drawer (1 of only 4)? It is so full and heavy with cutlery/utensils that I honestly believe it is the cause of my painful shoulder problems which I have been experiencing for years now and is only getting worse. I could go on, but enough of my rant.

Like everyone else, I ate far too much and am feeling very much like a roly-poly. Does anyone remember those from the 60's? So today, I was determined to start a fitness regime, ONCE AGAIN, and managed to do 40 minutes on my Tony Little Gazelle.  I am pinning a lot of hope on my Gazelle, so I am going to try to do it every day.  I need results fast!!!  My jeans are all a little too "snug", if you catch my drift.  They are hugging me where they shouldn't be hugging me. In fact, I don't recall buying jeans that accentuate 3-4 rolls on my stomach! (My last count was 2, so where did 3 &4 come from?)

I haven't posted pictures of my most recent quilt yet, as I haven't gotten it machine quilted yet.  That project has taken a back seat to Christmas and the costs associated with that, so I will have to wait to get that done. I will post those pictures as soon as it is finished.

I did, however, manage to sew a few hats for myself and as presents for my sister and Mom.  My friend Maureen and I have been doing an annual Christmas shopping day/spree to the small town of Fort Langley for the past 6-7 years and on this trip I found a beautiful hat that I really wanted but of course, couldn't afford.  It was a whopping $210.  Granted it was made of fine wool and hand made in Canada, but I couldn't justify spending that much so I decided, hey I can make one for myself!  Now, I often get these hair-brained schemes to make things myself, even when I have never made them before and sometimes they turn out and sometimes they don't but I am happy to report that this scheme paid off big time!

I had a hard time trying to find a pattern that would work but after much searching, I found a pattern and bought some beautiful Malden Fleece.  This fleece is quite thick and sturdy; perfect for hats, so I purchased some and was on my merry way.

The fleece was very easy to sew and the pattern was a breeze, although I modified it somewhat. I made one for myself in a nice plum colour and when I returned to the fabric store to buy more, my hat stole the show. Everyone wanted to see it and asked about how I made it.  Buoyed by the compliments, I made a hat for my sister and Mom for Christmas.  My sister, by chance, happened to mention that she "Doesn't do Hats", right after I had made hers.  On Christmas, she tried it on but decided it wasn't for her, so my Mom came out the big winner and left with both hats.  She was very happy.

 Here are pictures of the hats I designed/modified.  I hope you like them.

This is the grey hat I made for my sister, which she promptly rejected!! (I added flowers to the sides of the hats to give them more flourish).

My plum hat. I used a vintage button to anchor the flower. I love this hat. It is so warm and stylish.

I must sign off now.

I hope everyone has a very happy and healthy New Year. All the best to you.

Rosie