I still quilt!

My sister in law is having a baby this winter- and of course that means it is time for a baby quilt. They didn't find out the sex ahead of time, so I chose some of my favorite colors to make something gender neutral. (I've been saving this teal for a long time!)

I love this simple, bold design. I hope she does too.

Currently the baby-to-be is being referred to as "cricket" and like his/her sister "acorn" I personalized the quilt with some crickets.  (I thought I placed them randomly, but they turned out to form a pattern- with one missing... oops.)  You can see Acorn's quilt here: http://skittl1321.blogspot.com/2011/10/quilt-for-acorn.html

Something new I've been doing on all my baby quilts, for the past 3 or 4...  (I wish I had this idea earlier....) Just add a little love in!

Ghost Dog

I was embroidering dogs for a baby quilt (will post that in a month or two- I'm waiting on fabric) and  I joked about making a ghost dog.

Well, one of my high school friends said something about it, and how it would fit in her house because her house is haunted, so I made her a ghost dog. 

I think I might go back and put a little more stitching around the A, because it looks like an N.


Yeah, me and my friends in high school were a bit weird.

FINISHED Object Alert

Yes! You saw it right here: The snowflake quilt, Winter Wonderland, is DONE.

The quilt as you go was not easy, because I really wanted it perfect.  It isn't perfect, but I think it looks great.  I did the binding by machine, but incredibly carefully- I pinned and pressed each step of the way, and I took 8 attempts to get the 'seamless' (diagonal seam) finish to the binding so you don't know where I started applying it (I usually just go straight across and it isn't very pretty.)  My corners look pretty good, if I do say so myself.   I took all this care because I really want to try to send this quilt to the state fair, and possibly other shows.  I know the quilt isn't good enough to win shows, but after the AQS judge came to our guild meeting I have a thought that maybe it is good enough to get into a show? (And of course, the state fair is open).

Anyhow- want to see a beautiful quilt?  AAAAGHHH!  So excited!

Where is the quilt right now?  In the bathtub....  There is A LOT of starch in this thing, plus I think some water soluble thread is still hanging out from the initial step, and I don't want buggies eating it.   You can see here how bright the pink fabric I used was. The organza really pales it out, not to mention the mounds of white thread.

And of course, label your quilts.  I put a little message on this quilt to remember the stage of quilting I was in when I made it. Really, I was a beginner.  I took my very first free motion stitch just a year before I made this quilt, and I certainly didn't spend the entire year quilting!  This quilt was me saying "you know what, I'm going to get good at this!"  And doing all these designs and all this quilting- I think I can say pretty firmly now: "I'm good at this."

I want to thank Leah for the fabulous pattern, and the 365 project which inspired me to do this (and where I got a good number of the designs from.)


Posts about this quilt:
Starting the quilt
First steps

Snowflake 1, 2, and 3
Snowflake 4 and 5
Snowflake 6
Snowflake 7
Snowflake 8
Snowflake 9
Snowflake 10 and 11
Snowflake 12
Large Snowflake
Beginning Assembly

Painted Quilt

I took a Craftsy class recently about a painting a quilt.  I am SO impressed with my results.  (Although it looks better in pictures and on the wall then it does up close. ) This is definetly a technique I want to explore more.  The problem is, for this quilt, I had someone telling me exactly what to paint where- I'm not sure I have the artistic sense to figure that out for myself.

However paint on quilts is definetly going to be something I do again!

This is the pictorial quilt appliqued and but not painted.

It is amazing how the paint transforms it.  It is like a totally different thing.

The paints I used were Setacolor- they are transparent, so if there is a pattern under them it reads through it.  I got a pack on amazon and it was pretty affordable.  The other supplies I just got at Hobby Lobby. I think I'd want a better brush if I did this a lot.

Sunday edit:
I spent the day Saturday quilting it.  I LOVE it.  Which is unfortunate because as a practice quilt, I didn't use very good materials.  The blue is super thin Walmart fabric, and while the backing fabric is actually brand name-high quality, it was grab bag material and a ridiculous choice (why would it matter? It goes on the wall- well, it makes it harder to bring to guild and such where it might be seen.)  

This is my first time doing McTavishing.  I still need some work with it, but I like it.  Oddly, I did better with it with the Connecting Threads Essential (a thick cotton) than I did with the thin silk thread from the class at Pine Needles- maybe it is because it blends in, but I didn't get too much build up when I had to travel stitch.  A few times I did need to cut my threads and start over- I just got TOO stuck, but I tried to limit that as much as possible.

And here is the back- absurd right.

 But I'm showing this because, even with a practice quilt, I'm finally making it a habit to label my quilts.  I never labeled any of my baby quilts, but now, pretty much everything gets a label.  It is sewn into the binding and then I used steam a seam to hold it down.  I need to learn to hand sew, as the hanging tag hasn't been whip-stitched on.  I didn't do any quilting IN the flower (though I used invisible thread to sew down the formerly only fused applique) and I'm still trying to decide if that is the right look for the front.  I think thread will interupt the painting, so I am probably done. 

I guess now I need to decide if I want to make this same flower again with better materials.