New Project

This monkey marks the beginning of my next quilt. I decided I wanted to give my three year old grandson Brandon a quilt at the same time as his new baby sister gets hers. Which means I have to get my skates on as the baby is due in about 3 weeks or so!

The original design of the monkey quilt is by the incredibly talented Laurraine Yuyama of Patchwork Pottery. Unfortunately I don't yet own a copy of the book "Quilts, BABY!" in which this quilt appears (it isn't published in the UK till July), so I'm bungling my way through it using guesswork and the pictures that Laurraine has posted. I know this isn't a patch (no pun intended!) on the original but all the same I've never done any applique before so I'm very pleased with how it's turned out. Only 11 more monkeys to go!!!

Version 2

I've completed the top for the quilt which is to replace the one I thought may be too boyish.

I used pretty much the same pattern as the quilt I made for Molly, along with most of the leftover fabric (with a few new fabrics thrown in). I believe Claire, my daughter-in-law, will prefer this version. Mainly because after three and a half years of dressing our grandson, Brandon, I think she'll be looking forward to having a bit of fun with more 'feminine' colours and fabrics. Hope that doesn't sound too sexist.

I'm thinking I'll get some more of the light green with pink parasols for the backing. And I'm even contemplating having a go at proper binding rather than self-binding with the backing fabric. Not too sure I'm up to it yet.

I made a big effort to improve the accuracy of the piecing; carefully cutting the pieces and using my new quarter inch foot for more uniform seams. In spite of this there are still some botched joins, although overall it's an improvement. I can only assume that with practice it will all fall into place.

Pizza delivery

These arrived in a pizza box - aren't they yummy? But just like pizza I think a little goes a long way (apart from the fact they cost a fortune!), and this is just enough to tile the windowsill in our kitchen.

I'd love to be able to capture the colours and the iridescence in a quilt.

Back in the land of the living

I haven't felt up to posting recently as I've been recuperating after an operation. But well on the mend now! One of the advantages of slacking on the sofa is that I got the opportunity to finish of my second quilt.



I made this using the pretty much the same techniques as the first one (diamond quilting and self-binding). It was intended for another grandchild I have on the way (expected in July) and from the start I was intending for it to be unisex. But I now have doubts and think that it's ended up looking pretty boyish. I think it wasn't too bad until I foolishly added a light blue pattern fabric as the backing (and the binding). What was I thinking?



Anyway as Sod's law will have it I've since found out that the future arrival is a girl. So I'm thinking I'll start over using more girly fabrics and put this one into storage until the next baby boy enters our lives. Anybody got any good tips for safely storing quilts?

My First Quilt

Made for my brand new granddaughter Molly, I'm so pleased with the way this quilt has turned out. I know it's not perfect but it's so much better than I thought I'd be able to manage for my first one.

One of the main things I've learned is how essential accuracy is for the piecing. I was happy with the cutting out of my pieces but things kept going awry when it came to piecing them together on my machine. I'm not an experienced sewer so I'm hoping that this will improve with practice. I've also now bought a 1/4 inch foot so we'll see if that makes a difference next time.

When it came to quilting I finally opted for straight lines using a walking foot. This was after several practice runs at freestyle 'meandering' quilting (again more practice required!). I toyed with the idea of 'in the ditch' but decided it might be more interesting to do a diamond pattern.



Finally, I completely chickened out of making and attaching a separate binding and went for the self binding method - folding over the backing fabric.