Sunday, May 13, 2012

Tangerine, royal blue, and grey. Oh my!

On my sewing table now: a baby quilt for a precious little boy who I got to hold when he was ten days old.  I made a quilt for his big brother seven years ago. Again, I am behind--I usually get baby quilts to their new owners before those owners have taken their first breath, but I'm doing my best to finish it FAST! I found the pattern at this wonderful blog, Blue Elephant Stitches:
http://blueelephantstitches.blogspot.com/2012/01/granny-square-quilt-block-tutorial.html

These overview images gives you a feel for how differently each of the blocks turned out:











I was so excited to use the oranges and blueberries from my recently purchased stash of hyper-realistic food fabrics:

























There are few things I enjoy more than watching fabrics come together unexpectedly:
















I am really loving this project! This is a completely new color combination for me. What a treat it has been, using a wonderful variety of fabrics from my stash. I'm working on a really wild backing, and then I'll quilt it up.

















Saturday, May 12, 2012

House Quilt: finally finished!

Life got in the way of quilting for a while--I can't believe how long it's been since my last post! I have a new job, new home, new city, and new sewing space now, in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia. I'm so lucky! I have finally finished the quilt I was working on for so long: baby Veronica will enjoy it, I hope, but she is too old for swaddling! Oh well. Here are some pics of the final product. First, the whole quilt. That's Veronica on the bottom as I imagine her someday. While the remainder of the quilt is original improvation, I got the idea for this square from a great flickr group, "sarah and molly's free piecing":



























Next up, the skyscraper is my personal favorite block. I love how the cynical owl turned out, and the butterfly floating above. It did seem a bit intense for a baby quilt, but I decided it was too wonderful to leave out:
















My second favorite block is this one, of a little girl wistfully standing outside a house. I have had this retro kid fabric for at least ten years, and I finally figured out how to use it without it looking corny. The snippet on the left is from a wonderful fabric designed by an artist in the southwest somewhere, purchased at the Houston International Quilt Festival a few years ago:














Everyone else likes this modernist block best! I don't mind it myself:









I think the reason it has taken me so long to finish this quilt is, I don't really want to let it go. But it will head off in the mail tomorrow. Goodbye quilt!