Maritime Baby Girl Quilt - Kick-off

I did it. Today, for the first time since my gran died, I've employed my iron, rotary cutter, and sewing machine. I put on some favourite music, ironed several yards of fabric, got cutting, and then I made the decision to go kind of improv with the blocks. Let's see where that'll take me.

It's been only a few seams as I'm busy with household chores and will be babysitting my nephew in the evening but these few seams make all the difference (and will be continued tomorrow!). I might have got a little emotional when the machine started whirring. Well, it's ridiculously wonderful to be back and I'm so so excited to be working not only on this girl quilt for friends but on a second baby girl quilt as well.

Yes, the sonographer confirmed it this Friday: We're expecting a little girl. Having made quite a few boys' quilts over the past years it's something new. Though my quilts have never been heavily gendered it's sweet to be making "something different", if only by appellation.

Here's the backing - I can't believe that's set already. It's usually the last thing I decide upon!

So much for now, I've got to hop off but I'll be back.

Happy sewing!

Ahoy, Matey!

First of all, thank you for your kind words that have reached my through comments or by e-mail. They are genuinely appreciated and a reminder of why I enjoy sewing blogland so much as well. It's good to be back in the fold and if I haven't replied to you yet be assured that I will.

As I told you last time the cute little boy who got the viking quilt in November 2012 will be joined by a sister this October. As his parents adore the old quilt and because I don't think girls must be gifted with tons of pink and frilliness I've decided to play up the sibling theme and make another maritime quilt.

These are the fabrics that are new - isn't the panel gorgeous, aren't the mermaids cute without being over the top girly? - but I'll also throw in some well-known friends from previous quilts as well as some vikings.

A fabric I might not use is this pretty flannel, it depends whether I decide to stick with my idea of using the big boat on the backing or not.

I'm still playing around with the layout - although the clock is ticking - but it sure feels good to be working with fabric again.

Happy sewing!

Vikings 4.0 - Saying Goodbye (and Hello)

Here’s the promised Viking quilt picture post.

Last time you saw it it looked something like this.

Now, without a gorgeous little baby boy on it, it looks like this.

I badly want to show you the hand quilted details, alas, my camera and the lighting were really bad, so I can only hope that you can make them out properly in the pictures. (I think I'll wish for a new camera for Christmas so you won't have to suffer awful pictures for much longer!)

First, wavy lines in the corners.

Looks much more interesting than before, don't you think?

My good friend Perlendiva suggested that I quilt shields on the squares and echo the waves in the Viking parade print on the orange border. I decided against the waves because I didn’t want to clutter the quilt too much but definitely fell for the shields and quilted four different ones.

Posting the quilt to Finland proved such an ambiguous moment! On the one hand, I was incredibly excited and happy, I love gifting things that took a lot of time and thought. On the other hand, it was tough to part with it. I’d grown so accustomed to seeing it and I feel that it’s my best quilt up to date. To be honest, I still miss it a tiny bit! The hand quilting only made it all the more precious to me. Then again, I know it's being treasured. I can't believe the little one is already 5 weeks old.

Due to time constraints I won’t be gifting handmade this year, but I’m all the more happy to finally start working on my quasi-brother-in-law’s pixelated Yoshi quilt next week. It’ll keep my rotary cutter and sewing machine busy! 

I'm back in Berlin until Thursday evening, having two important appointments. Would you keep your fingers crossed for tomorrow morning between 10 and 11am UTC+1? Cheers.

Have a great week, everybody! 

See the full journey here
Part 1

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

W.i.P. - Vikings 3.5

My last post about the Viking baby quilt generated a few questions about the fabric and I thought you might like a few more deets about my quilt, measurements and the like. With the move being in full force and me being out of sewing time and machine it's also a good 'filler' while I'm away doing more 'important' if less fun things. (This move is doing me in, friends.)

The fabric collection is an organic cotton one by Timeless Treasures, simply called Vikings. It contains three Viking prints, the cute world map, the fish and four differently coloured crosshatch prints. I only used two of the latter.

Yardage I ordered for this quilt

0.5 yard Blue Fish (8 squares, 4 long strips, 2 short strips)
0.5 yard Tossed Vikings Navy (6 fussy cut squares)
0.5 yard Vikings on Boat (6 fussy cut squares)
1 yard Map (basically on large square)
1 yard Vikings Stripe (4 strips)
1 yard Crosshatch Sea (6 uni  squares, 2 squares for regular HSTs, 1 square for HSTs to match Viking borders, binding)
1 yard Crosshatch Sea (4 uni squares, 8 long strips)

I cut more squares of everything than indicated in the brackets to have something to play with yet I still have quite a few leftovers of the Viking prints. (I see bibs in the future?) Same goes for the Vikings Stripe print but for a different reason. The print runs vertically on the fabric and I wanted to have continuous borders rather than pieced ones.

Measurements of design elements

My piecing isn't 100% accurate but I'm giving you the aimed for measurements in centimetres, centimetres because that's what I worked with and do work with most of the time. Being European and all and still needing to buy a ruler measuring inches. (I really should!) Yep, means I have to calculate tons all the time on top of the regular calculating.

Simple Squares and HSTs - 10 cm finished
Fish border - width is 4 cm finished, length depends on your piecing
Fish strips to fill in gap in cross element - 20 cm x 5 cm finished
Viking Border - 10 cm x 67 cm finished
Orange Border - 5 cm finished
Map - 67 cm x 67 cm
Blue Binding - 12 cm (6cm folded)

Best don't rely on my measurements, especially if you're re-calculating to work in inches, but start with your squares to make up the big square and go from there attaching borders and strips as needed. You can work with longer strips and cut them to size after attaching them. Helps to keep things square, I feel.

Stats for the Week

The Move - 85 per cent or thereabouts
35 packed moving boxes, two disassembled closets, several disassembled shelves, a defrosted fridge/freezer, all washing
only a few things left to pack until Saturday, then to paint a few walls


Ongoing Projects - 4
Viking Baby quilt -  machine quilting finished
EPP hexies - 29 finished flowers
Polaroid blocks Tote
EPP parallelograms/stars

Planning Stage - 3
Chair cushions for my sister - ordered yardage
Yoshi quilt- some yardage has already made it into the moving boxes
Wedding Anniversary quilt

Happy sewing!

W.i.P. - Vikings 3.0

*Picture-heavy post

As my sewing mojo had returned a little and because what shall be remembered as The Dark Sewing Machine-Less Days is looming, I made sure to get the machine sewing bits of the Viking quilt out of the way.

First, I finished piecing my backing.

Then I spray basted my quilt and got quilting.

I just love the details of the fabric.

 

Prepped binding.

I've decided to spruce up this cutie by adding hand quilting. Still so very excited about this quilt.

Stats for the Week

Ongoing Projects - 4
Viking Baby quilt -  machine quilting finished
EPP hexies - 29 finished flowers
Polaroid blocks Tote
EPP parallelograms/stars

Planning Stage - 3
Chair cushions for my sister - ordered yardage
Wedding Anniversary quilt
Yoshi quilt
ET Phone Home EPP project
Moe Moe's Star quilt

I've decided to take two projects off my list. They're not scrapped forever, I might return to them sometime later, but I feel like I've got so much on my plate right now and for the time to come (Christmas sewing will have to be considered soon, too!) that I needed a little purge and readjustment. Reduce the pressure.

Happy sewing!