Final Reveal: The Fish & HSTs Baby Quilt

Last week, finally, ten weeks after his birthday my nephew finally got his baby quilt.

My sister had decided on a monster theme for his room. Hence the card and the little something I wanted to add to the backing. Unfortunately it came off in the first wash? Gah, ah well, you win some you lose some.

So here's the finished backing complete with the dotty binding, just block out the little monster in the top left corner.

The quilt has been a huge hit.

Bonus: Anniversary impressions.

We had a wonderful afternoon and evening. I decided to open "Chez Mareen" instead of going out for dinner after all and cooked up a lovely three-course dinner to accompany the champagne we received as a wedding gift by a very good friend and kept safe for a year. A year - still blows my mind. We ended up with lots of yummy leftovers to be had over the weekend which is always a plus.

Also, beautiful flowers!

Happy sewing!

Go and have a look at everybody else's finishes over at Em's Sewing by Moonlight. Find me at my regular Tuesday hangouts, too.

Hand Quilted Fish & HSTs = This Close to a Finish

So I've finished hand quilting the stars in each Fish & HST block...

...which leaves the back looking like this. Finally time for some backing!

Once I ditched my idea of paper piecing N's birth date, weight and height (yes, it definitely would have been a great detail but I didn't feel it in the end) I settled on this gorgeous Summersville print from my stash. I'd secured 1.5 yards shortly after it came out for a future child of mine but really couldn't resist using it here. It fits so perfectly and who else should you splurge some of your most treasured fabric on? Roughly half a yard is left anyway. So there.

I've even started machine quilting the small and big octagons. As soon as these are done I will quilt the small fish squares and then it should be ready for binding. Phew, I'm this close to finishing what has been in the making for a long time and, believe it or not, I'm still falling in love more deeply. With my nephew as well. No worries.

Well, here's the unchanged stats although both the baby and the anniversary quilt are making awesome progress.

Finishes - 0

Ongoing Projects - 5
Anniversary quilt
Fish & HSTs
square baby quilt
Red Riding - quilting is making progress
cushion cover for the husband

Stalled Projects - 3
Grecian Waters/Emerald HST quilt - finished the top! - stalled until deadline projects have been dealt with
EPP hexies
EPP parallelograms/stars - once more stalled

Planning Stage - 2
Summer dress 2 - Darling Ranges
Skirt

Happy sewing!

W.i.P. - Busy Hands

My nephew is now 6 weeks and a half - I couldn't be more in love! - and his due date which served as extenuating circumstances, remember he was an early bird, has come and gone as well. High time to spend more time on finishing his quilt. So this week I'm determined to finish some outlining hand quilting before attaching the backing - I don't want these stitches to show on the back - and then, maybe, I can finish and gift this treasured project next week or the one after.

Without further ado, here are my weekly stats.

Finishes - 0
 
Ongoing Projects - 5
Anniversary quilt
Fish & HSTs
square baby quilt
Red Riding - quilting is making progress
cushion cover for the husband

Stalled Projects - 3
Grecian Waters/Emerald HST quilt - finished the top! - stalled until deadline projects have been dealt with
EPP hexies
EPP parallelograms/stars - once more stalled

Planning Stage - 2
Summer dress 2 - Darling Ranges
Skirt

Happy sewing and sharing over at Lee's!

Back in the Game

I'm still taking it slow but the love sewing machine and I have been reunited which has resulted in this baby - a finished baby quilt top for the nephew. Do I have to give it away? Haha, no worries. I will. Just too happy how this is turning out.

It's also the return of the living room door as a backdrop. With a twist. The doors in our new flat have glass panels which, at least for this picture, is kind of cool.

Up in the air.

Meagre attempt at playing artsy.

I'm making progress on the owl front on the back of the Red Riding cushion cover as well. Another thing that will be hard to part with.

I'm off - I've got another date with my love sewing machine once I've cut into 2.5 m of fashion fabric (the blue floral print in this post) and 1 m of light blue cotton lawn. If all goes well I can swirl around in another summer dress of my own making after the weekend. Depending on the weather just as much as my perseverance.

Happy sewing and a wonderful weekend to you all!

More Needlework Whilst Convalescing

Thanks for your kind well wishes. You're all so lovely to spare a moment for me!

The cold symptoms are pretty much gone, the bed rest is and has been more about, well, resting. I was very lightheaded and nauseous on Monday which got me the extra round of downtime. I've been getting better since with all that sleep and no nothing but today I got half an hour in the park with my nephew and sister to get my blood pressure going a little. (He's still cute as a button!) Afterwards I was knackered and had a proper midday snooze but it was a very welcome change and more importantly needed. Can't risk a cold start on Monday but need to ease into being up full time again.

Well, enough with the whine and onto the interesting bit. Tada!

I've taken up working on the Red Riding cushion cover again. Can't believe how long I've been stalling this but somewhere along making plans for the hand quilting and deciding on an owl I'd hit a creative wall that I tore down yesterday. I'm using this as a guide. Whoop, getting all excited about this project 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