Blogger's Quilt Festival: Freya's Quilt

This is my second entry into the Blogger's Quilt Festival. You can find Paul's Rainbow Skittle Quilt here!

Find out more here!

Freya was born to friends of ours last January. But I didn't start making her quilt till this time last year. I waited to find the perfect pattern, which arrived, after much internet surfing, in the form of I'm A Ginger Monkey's Fat Quarterly tutorial on Sew Mama Sew for the 'Fit for a Princess!' picnic quilt. Then I fell in love with the Apple of My Eye collection by The Quilted Fish.

I sewed the top over last Summer, falling in love with how the pressed seams looked on the back of each block!

The quilting didn't happen until I moved home to Ireland last August. I chose a bright pink thread and to not stitch in the ditch (cos on your second ever quilt, why not be completely crazy!?!). I loved how the quilting turned out, outlining some centres and crossing through others.

Even though the sewing took me a long time on the top. The pattern is really easy and goes together beautifully. I fell in love with this quilt completely while I made it, and the idea of giving it away seemed totally nuts the closer it got to finished!

I bought a jelly roll of the Apple of My Eye collection and cut it up into 10" sections to make the binding. I love scrappy binding now, and need to use it more in my quilts.

Just washed!

I made Freya a little embroidered label for the back, trying to get the letters large and clear and colourful! I added my initials and a strawberry, which is my little added signature emblem thing.

This was the first quilt I got to deliver in person. It was lovely and I've since been told that Freya sleeps under the quilt each night, which feels amazing! I think it's the best part of quilting (which seems mental what with all the pretty colours and fabrics and designs and satisfaction of just making use-able items!). One more picture, cos I can't resist!

Quilt Measurements: 45" x 45"
Special Techniques: Diagonal quilting (special for me, that is!)
Quilted By: Me!
Fabric Used: Apple of My Eye collection by The Quilted Fish for Riley Blake, yardage and a jelly roll, IKEA sheet for backing, embroidery thread, and Warm and Natural batting.

Entered into the Baby Quilts Category.

Thank you so much for coming to visit my blog and quilt!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Rainbow Skittle Quilt

Find out more here!!

So I only discovered the Blogger's Quilt Festival last week from Gemma's post over on Pretty Bobbins. It looks like a really fun event and one I want to dip my toes in, so I can learn more about it. I do know that it's on twice a year to coincide with the Quilt Markets and run excellently by Amy at Amy's Creative Side.

I'm entering two of my favourite quilts so far. This post is about Paul's Rainbow Skittle Quilt, which was first posted about here! When looking back on that post I realised that I didn't have very good photos of it all finished. It was packed up to go back to America with Paul too quickly for that, plus it's really dark and wet in Ireland in January. So we went out and took some more this morning!!

A year ago, now, I bought a jelly roll of Moda Marbles in citrus. The colours in there are exactly the kind Paul absolutely loves. But then making it into a quilt dropped down to the bottom of my priorities. Once we decided to get married around Christmas, I knew it would be the perfect wedding gift for Paul. So I got my ass in gear and bought a white jelly roll, and began sewing the colours and white into pairs.

Once I had the big long strips made, I cut them all into squares. Then by rotating each square, which were half white and half a colour, I laid out a design (not before agonising through several). All it took then was lots of aligning seams and pinning and sewing. But once I got a few squares together the happiness of the colours really carried me through the repetitiveness!

The hardest part was keeping it secret from Paul and off the blog. I made an embroidered label for the back, from a picture drawn by Britta who has a blog about her awesome art here. But I just realised that I haven't put mine or Paul's name or the date on the back, so I think that will be my evening handstitching this week.

Originally I wanted to quilt around each of the zig-zags with the machine, in thread the colour of the pieced zig-zag. Creating coloured outlines of zig-zags on the back of the quilt. However, about 10 minutes after starting that (and two weeks sourcing all the right coloured threads) I knew it was not going to work on my home machine the way I imagined. So instead I moved to my embroidery threads and hand-tied the quilt. One knot for ever corner of each zig-zag! All in matching colours.

This was the 4th quilt I made, and the first I planned out by myself instead of using a pattern. I found using Adobe Illustrator really useful for auditioning layouts.

Quilt Measurements: 62¼" x 61½"

Special Techniques: Hand-tying and embroidered label.

Quilted by: Me!

Materials: Moda Marbles in Citrus jelly roll, Moda Bella White jelly roll, Michael Miller Rainbow Stripe for binding, white sheet for backing, Warm and Natural batting, and assorted embroidery threads.

Entered into the ROYGBIV category.

Thank you so much for coming to visit me! I hope you're enjoying the blogger's quilt festival as much as I am :)

WIP Wednesday: Leftover Charms

Things are on a real stop and start around here. Last week in about a day I made a patchwork quilt top (the pictures are coming in just a few paragraphs!). The weekend was jam packed with exploring markets, grocery shopping, cooking, and planning.

Monday started well, with me beginning to cut out the pieces for the Velocity Girl Bag by SewSweetness, and then we went to our first pilates class. I'm still sore. It was good, but too intense for my still-recovering back. So back to google to find a new class to try.

Then yesterday came, and all the go that had been happening over the weekend died. Just died. I was tired and cranky, and there were arguments. I didn't do anything on my to-do list. I did start watching Craftsy classes I bought last Autumn... And got an idea for a new quilt, which I then mocked up in Illustrator instead of making chilli for dinner. Thankfully it was only me for dinner here last night, so I just microwaved some frozen lasagne and kept right on playing with quilt ideas.

Anyway, I don't really have a point. But I feel guilty for not getting more done, for not replying to emails sooner, and for finding settling in here harder on some days than others. I am not blogging or sewing as much as I'd like, but I'm guessing you can't force it and instead I'm trying to go with the flow.

Here is the quilt top in progress. I started with a bundle of mixed charms that have been languishing in a cupboard for over a year. I needed something simple to get my sewing courage up after 3 weeks of no sewing! So it started off super basic:

But then I thought that was kind of boring. So I cut it up,

rearranged the strips, and sewed it back together.

Then, I thought, why not cut it up in the other direction!? So I did!

And I sewed it back together again, and said, done for now.

It is just less than 30" square. I woke up at 5am last Friday with the idea that I could surround it in a mosaic of 2" squares in various shades of white and bind it in a mauve colour. Then my mother suggested that I quilt it as is and use it to make an enormous cushion (I got an enormous cushion as a teenager and it moved all over with me until I came to the States).

I honestly don't know what to do with it, so it's folded up and living in the corner right now. My quilt idea would keep it on the long finger for a while because I don't have a variety of whites on hand, and would need to wait for off-cuts from some upcoming quilts. The cushion would mean looking for an insert the right size or buying foam or something... Do any of you have an idea??

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced today! And heading off to do some more work on my new handbag - I'll leave you with a picture.