Winter Baby Girl Quilt #12 - Binding

Thank you for all the input on my last Winter Baby Girl Quilt post. I followed my guts and your assurances and bound the quilt on Saturday, applied it to the front after lunch (see above) and sewed it down by hand all evening. That was a looong session of approximately 4.5-5 hours but worth it and very calming.

I feel much better now that I can just fill in my hand quilting whenever I've got time and still have the quilt appear finished before little one's arrival - more pictures will follow sometime. It's also freed time for other things I need to finish before Christmas, like some knitting.

Little one, however, appears to want to stay put where she is for as long as possible. Neither doctor nor midwife expect her delivery before Christmas and wouldn't be surprised if it took longer. Can't say I'm thrilled but of course we'll take it as it comes.

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #11 - Hand Quilting

This is going to take forever - even hand quilting is tiresome at this stage, 38 nearly 39 weeks - but I do love how it's turning out. I'm actually considering to bind this baby now and continue just add in my quilting. Good idea? Bad idea? I just don't know right now. However, ready at little one's arrival? I sincerely doubt it now, not that it matters that much.

Either way, working with the silk thread is a blast. I love how it highlights the piecing of the top and looks somewhat like children's drawings on the backing. Obviously this is due to my not quite accurate stitching but the effect is wonderful and I'm embracing it rather than stressing myself.

My first action was to quilt the outline of my stars with a grey thread as to give the quilt some stability. This way I can drag it around now and it won't fall apart as soon as a line of hand quilting gives up (if that should be the case sometime, hopefully not before 20 years hence...)

The plan is not to highlight all stars as intricately as the big one but we'll see where inspiration takes me. I'm done predicting too much with this quilt and just taking things as they come - but there will be snowflakes! Stay tuned.

I'm also currently binding my nephew's whaley Christmas present. I'd called it a quick fix, right? Haha, well, the top was. Then it took 3.5 weeks to touch it again and put in a power session taking care of the backing, quilting and binding. In love with it, though. Can't wait to show you.

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #10 - Basted!

December? Really? Wow. Well, good on me that I spent November being all serious about my Winter Baby Girl Quilt because I'm certainly quilting on borrowed time. Only 3.5 weeks until the due date and babies do tend to show up earlier in our family...

I finally finished assembling the top and backing and have basted my quilt today. Quite a feat. Let me assure you that cutting and pinning curtains on the floor at 28 weeks is definitely-entirely-utterly different from basting a quilt on the same floor at 37 weeks. Huffpuff, I had to go much much slower with some serious breaks and boy am I glad to be done with it. No more of this until after the baby.

Since the front is a rather busy nightsky of stars and snowflakes I kept the backing simple. It should make a nice canvas for the quilting and hand quilting I'm planning. The simplicity does appeal to me and I think a quilt with just one big, intricate star on a darker background with tons of handquilted tiny stars and snowflakes above the trees would also look absolutely stunning.

Never fear, though, those aren't second thoughts. I'm still chuffed with how this quilt is turning out. Seeing it basted - quilts immediately look so much more substantial once the sandwich is done, don't you think? - has given me another huge boost and I can imagine it finished in time. But not tonight. I think I'll cut into some fabrics for cushions for a change and will keep the quilting for tomorrow.

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #9 - Assembling the Top

So I did it, I made a new snowflake using Shape Moth's beautiful paper pieced "Snow Cristal". This time around I avoided the mistake of cutting away my seam allowance and I made the block so much prettier, too, by using different fabrics for the different tiers. I still like the idea of a white snowflake against a dark background but it simply wasn't working for this particular quilt.

Just look at the difference a proper seam allowance makes! The new block is lying all flat and wrinkle-free.

This block has given me a huge boost and I've finally decided on my layout. Not only that, I've even started assembling the top as evidenced by our bed.

Time for a break now because the bump is getting in the way and demands a period of rest but I'm sure to sew up at least another column today. Whoop whoop.

Evening update:

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #8 - Layout

And the journey continues.

It's not that easy to put all my blocks together in a well-balanced way that pleases me. It took me probably an hour to come up with these variations. The first one isn't so good because there are two irregular stars next to each other.

In the second one the faulty snowflake (still to be re-done) is too dominant and the snowflakes are too close too each other.

I think I like this third layout best but the big snowflake is still too prominent. Maybe I should rather make a third one from parallelograms if my scraps allow for it, maybe I should consider re-doing the big snowflake with some of the beige fabric and not just my teal remnants. I'll give it a pondering. What's your take? Excess blocks aren't problematic. They'll be relegated to spicing up the backing.

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #7 - HST Star Blocks

Argh, I've run out of white white fabric so can't re-do my faulty snowflake today. Yes, I will re-do it. It just doesn't live up to the standards for this quilt. It might do just fine in another project but not this precious baby quilt. Nope.

Well, this little stumbling block hasn't stopped me from getting a bit more work done before visiting my parents with both my sister and nephew for the weekend. Actually, it freed up time to finally get around sewing my HSTs together.

And these blocks definitely meet my criteria for the quilt. The first one will be embroidered with little one's initial - once daddy and I finally make up our mind/finish our discussions. Hehe.

When I'm back from my mini-holiday it's time to set my mind on layouting the quilt. Hopefully it'll all come together!

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #6 - More Snowflakes

I should have cut the triangles with a proper seam allowance as Joanna clearly writes in her tutorial - silly me for not reading it and simply plunging in. Though I'll certainly not repeat that mistake! Piecing the halves together was hell and it's a tiny bit puckery now when it was all so accurate due to actually paper piecing the block - and I'm a bit scared whether it'll hold up with such a small allowance - 3 mm?

In the quilt or out of the quilt? We'll see. I'm piecing two more star blocks and then I should be done and able to piece my top and back. Maybe I'll just make a new big snowflake and keep this one as a reminder to work slowly now and then.

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #5

I made this yesterday and am unsure whether I like it enough to go in the quilt or not. For one, I made a construction mistake - the white was meant to go to the edges and the teal in the middle. I didn't realise my misstep until I'd attached and cut to measure the background fabric on half the pieces. Given that I'm running low on this fabric and am still planning further blocks I didn't want to disassemble and cut more.

So the star doesn't look as planned. It's also not as perfectly matched in the middle as all those seams have made it rather bulky. But it was a ton of work!

All in all I like it better after a night's sleep but I'm still on the fence. Guess it's best to just continue with my blocks and see how they fall into place in the end. If I don't use this one it'll still be good for a cushion or some other trinket.

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #4 - Snowflakes

More block additions to the Winter Baby Girl Quilt and yes, I did go with the snowflakes! It might have been a bit mad not to paper piece these but I managed and am deeply satisfied with the results. Can I just say how great I feel about this quilt already?

These will likely get frames in the evening, for now I'm off to visit my colleagues with cake and a gazillion sweets. Soul food to make up for my absence.

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #3 - Seeing Stars

The joys of pre-baby maternity leave - I've got lots of time to sew and you get tons of eye candy and regular blog posts - enjoy it while it lasts *wink*.

Here are two stars with a stained glass window effect that I started yesterday and finished today. Gee, I love love love them. And to think that it always starts with tiny strips of fabric nowhere close in effect.

The big one isn't one hundred per cent perfect and it's entirely my fault for hypercorrecting with the roll cutter during the sewing process. (Btw, I got a new blade in the mail today - it's always such a dream to cut with a new blade, isn't it?) I was more relaxed when assembling the smaller star and wouldn't you believe that it's ever so neat! This makes me especially proud as I didn't paper piece them.

I'm collecting quite the wonderful selection of stars here and am terribly fond of them. But, methinks, I might throw in something else. What do you reckon, wouldn't one or two snowflakes go perfectly with them? Either blocks or quilted, or both? I'm off to have a look for patterns to see whether I'll go for it.

Happy sewing and have a great week!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #2 - Saturday Stitching

I simply must share a few quick pics documenting my laborious but glorious afternoon.

Sticking with the star theme and still making it up as I go. Looking forward to what tomorrow brings.

Happy sewing!

Winter Baby Girl Quilt #1

I did it. I cut into these very special fabrics.

I'd been huffing and puffing about what to do, itching and aching to make a decision, very unsure and insecure - so I did something. Something most often beats nothing. Something to see how the fabrics look sewn together, something fun and quick, something not necessarily becoming part of the baby quilt. In short: something to free my mind. Say hello to irregular stars!

At the same time I made a bunch of tiny HSTs using the handy paper I won ages back and which I used to make the nephew's Fish & HSTs quilt. I'm not yet sure where exactly this is going but I'm happy to take this less planned journey. I've got a feeling this is going to be good.

Happy sewing!

Grecian Waters HSTs - Return of a WIP #2

I'd like to say thank you to all of you who were as thrilled as myself to see this quilt return and have made useful suggestions helping me with my colour choice dilemma as well as providing creative input - looking at you Molli.

To avoid buying more fabric than necessary I trialled Kona charms from the dark palette.

I'm drawn to the less purply, less blue, less dark colours so these three are out: purple, midnight, raisin.

These two are much closer: eggplant (left) and hibiscus (right). Surprise surprise, they're both from my original set of choices! Guess somebody might be a little bit biased...

Berry, number three, isn't part of the charm pack but I'm now convinced it's a tad too light anyway. The picture doesn't capture the colours perfectly, meh, but they do look great in daylight. Both are sizzling contenders, however, I have made a decision and will be ordering yardage soon to keep this project going. Stay tuned to find out which one made the cut!

Happy sewing!

The Cuteness Paradox

Do you ever feel like your projects look too cute wherever you put them to actually finish them especially when, potentially, you have to part with them? Well, that thought certainly hit me when I looked at my bookshelf yesterday... They go together so well I'm can't even stop putting my finished dress there.

I am, however, steadily working on completing my pretties - despite the heat. Geesh, one must be seriously masochistic to be ironing when it's nearly 40°C outside, right? My sister definitely thinks so but she's no sewist and it's worth it. I've now finished three sections (two 9x10 and one 9x12) of the anniversary quilt. I have another row of wide strips that I will assemble, then cut in half and add to each side before assembling the section. Even then, the quilt won't cover the sides of the bed if placed like this, though.

As evidenced by the picture above. It should cover everything if placed sideways like this.

Then again, I haven't prewashed my fabric this time around so I'll have to expect some shrinkage which would mean that even put sidesways the quilt isn't a 100 per cent fit for our bed. I will have to come up with an idea to add some more width/length. Maybe a wide strip of solid on both sides (top and bottom in this picture)? I could probably even skip the narrow column on each side mentioned above and save those strips for pillows. Hmm.

Anyway, serious question - which placement do you prefer?

Happy sewing and check out these great linky parties!