Saturday 28 September 2013

Conor's Quilt

I think I need to start actually naming my quilts and not just calling them after the person I gift them to, but I'm not starting today :) I made this quilt back in March/April time, for a little boy who just turned 3 last week! Conor loves all things farm, including tractors and has his own little one to 'drive' around just like his grandad.

When I saw Oink-A-Doodle-Moo by Jenn Ski, I knew it was the one for him. I bought my first ever layer cake, and set about sorting the fabrics and pairing them off.



I decided to sew them into giant HSTs, using the no-loss method.  One blender and one print to make up each one. Then layout deciding took a few days, and the whole of my bed.

Realising I want the blenders as diamonds, but feeling a bit messy.

Till I found the perfect one!

Paired blenders in each diamond, much more cohesive and still crazy colourful!
From this point the quilt was easy to sew together. And I had a lot of fun making the back. I used the end of the green Ikea sheet that has been in almost all of my first ten quilts, some leftover blocks (that ended up too small because the rotary cutter got carried away by itself - totally the rotary cutter's fault) and a lovely soft deep orange fabric.

Please excuse my jumper in the top right of these, running up and down
stairs was hot work!
Then came the marathon basting day, when we moved all the furniture in our dining room.


I've slowly been adding more and more quilting to my projects as I've along. I quilted all the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines on this one - with a line of stitching a ¼" on either side of the seams. It turned out so soft and beautiful to touch.


I bound it in a sort of denim blue solid, and then put it through the wash!


I don't think that if left to my own devices I would ever have put this amount of colours and prints and patterns into one quilt, but I love how this turned out. It feels to me like it's right on the edge of crazy, and exactly suited to an exuberant 3 year old.

This one's been really hard to keep under my hat for so long, so I'm really glad to send it out today. It was very cheerful to work on during the sometimes grey and dreary spring.

Hoping to be back again in a few more days, with yet another finished hidden quilt. Have a great weekend!!

4 comments:

  1. Aoif! This quilt is gorgeous! Well done, my friend.

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  2. Adorable! And I love your quilting lines! Oh, he's going to love it! (And I totally need to start naming my quilts too. I'm just too lazy!)

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  3. Wow! I love the final layout you came up with for those HST's, Aoif! This is certainly a fun and happy looking quilt. I am sure Conor will love it! I do!

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  4. Looks fantastic Aoife! My little guy (3.5) always asks to see the farm quilt when i take him into my LQS, it's made with this same line and he loves it!
    I'm the same with naming my quilts too. My last finish was named Max's Plus quilt and i was slightly embarrassed when i saw it on the Sew Mama Sew blog with a bunch of other "properly" named plus quilts. I just can never come up with anything decent!

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