Batik zigzag baby girl quilt

 

 

Batik zigzag baby girl quilt

 

 

This bright little quilt measures 103cm x 138cms. That's roughly 41 x 54.5 inches.

The mummy of the baby that this quilt now belongs to told me that she lurves batiks... really, really loves them. So  I decided to make her a baby quilt with as many batiks as I could. I really like the way that this quilt has become a bright rainbow quilt.

This quilt features a total of 12 batik fabrics, including the binding. The beautiful purple batik fabric was a gift for my birthday (from the same mummy that I made this quilt for).
The white fabric is homespun and the backing fabric is a light green homespun fabric. The wadding in this quilt is pre bagged cot sized Bamboo Batting which I purchased from my local Spotlight store.

 

Before spraying down the quilt to baste it with 505 spray, I trimmed the batting to reduce wastage. One day I'm going to make a lot of fabulous things out of the scraps of batting I have strewn all over the place.

I had originally intended to make this a Chevron quilt, as I've never made one and they are very popular lately. So I started "googling" on my smart phone (probably while I was pushing a shopping trolley around the supermarket)  for easy Chevron quilt patterns and came across a great no triangles online tutorial at www.DreamPatch.com.au.
This is a fantastic tutorial, and I can't wait to make a Chevron quilt, when I read the instructions properly!

 I started out well cutting my fabric into 2.5 inch strips and sewing them together. I then cut them into 4.5 inch blocks while I watched a DVD and stayed up way past my bed time. (Sadly the reality of it is this seems to be the only time that I had use of the kitchen table, while it was cleared and clean.)

It was between Steps 5 and 6 that on the Dream Patch tutorial that I ran into trouble. I sewed the blocks together vertically. So all my rows formed large "L"s. Not strips of diagonal "L"s!! It wasn't until I had sewed almost the entire quilt top that I realised. So my first Chevron quilt has become a off centre zigzag quilt instead.

I've been assured that it still looks great, but I am still slightly annoyed at myself.
Oh well, I guess that next time I set out to make the Chevron quilt I'll pay more attention to what I'm doing and double check that I'm on the right path.

It turns out I'm going to make the exact same zigzag quilt for a baby boy (hopefully in time for next month's blog). The two babies who these zigzag quilts will belong to will be second cousins, so I plan to re use some  of the same fabrics while still making it a quilt suitable for a baby boy.

 

As always there's always so much to do and get done and not enough time to sew!

I still have quilts for sale at my madeit.com.au store "Netto" if you are after a quilt. I am hoping to add to my store again soon.

Elegant Floral Lap Quilt

Elegant Floral Lap Quilt

 

This quilt ended up being 52.5 inches x 52.5 inches, so it’s a lovely lap size quilt. I gave this to an old friend of mine at her baby shower. So she can use it for bub, or for herself.

The inner square of this quilt were pre-cut and sold as a pack which I obtained from Lincraft Toombul. There were no instructions so I laid the squares out to get a feel for how I wanted the quilt to look. Due to lack of space at the time I ended up laying out the quilt on my bed!

 

Again the edges of the squares were cut with the zigzagged edges. Still not a fan, as this can be very hard to line up and have everything look straight when sewing. However it saved me having to cut up fabric, which can feel like it’s taking forever when I’m itching to sew. So I’m learning to just go with it. Besides, when I saw the fabric squares I just HAD to buy them…they were too pretty!

 

 

I sewed the squares together in a strip first. While leaving the remaining quilt squares laid out in the pattern that I wanted to make. Then as I’d sewn each strip I replaced the strip to the unsewn pattern laid out on my bed, so as to make sure that I didn’t get any squares out of order.

As usual sewing for an hour or two can feel like five minutes, so I ended up having to pack away all of my sewn up strips. I didn’t want any to get out of order, so I’ve laid them carefully over a chair (this is so I could try to take up the project again when I had some more spare time).  And also as I HATE ironing!!! So it was my hope that I wouldn’t need to re-iron everything all over again when I did get a chance to get back to it. I pretty much only iron when I’m quilting to ensure everything ends up being straight, or if I happen to have some epic event that I need to attend.

After sewing the central squares together I decided that I wanted to make the quilt at least the size of a lap quilt. So I rummaged through some of my scrap fabrics to see if I had anything that would suit the style of the quilt and to make sure that I had enough fabric before heading off to buy some more. Luckily I had a lovely print which I had plenty of to add some classy edging borders to the quilt. The border edges are roughly 6.5 inches.

The backing is a mustard coloured geometric circle print, which I felt could tie in with the binding fabric. Originally I searched high and low for a green fabric for the binding. However I just couldn’t find anything that I really liked, that I felt would suit this quilt. The prints in them were either too big or too small, or just didn’t feel right.

I ended up using a brown printed fabric that I had actually gotten with another project in mind. So since I laid it next to the quilt top and the backing fabric and it seemed to be the only thing that I could find that tied it all together… I went with it.

 

I quilted the quilt by making straight lines on either side of the strips seams. Which was a little tricky, as due to the way the squares were cut; not everything lines up 100%. That said I think that I did a pretty good job. This was the first quilt that I quilted with straight lines, and it was difficult not to have puckers (even though I had used a binding spray and it was very well stuck together before I started quilting). For the quilting threads I’ve used an off white coloured thread for the top and a golden/mustard coloured thread for the backing so that it blends in.

Hopefully I’ll have time to blog about the other quilts I’m making next month, however I’m flat out trying to find the time to sew!

 

 

Baby Owl Quilt

 

Baby Owl Quilt





Here’s another baby quilt that I’ve made for a friend of mine who has had a bub, and there will be plenty more baby quilts to come…as more and more family and friends are having babies! I only hope that I can keep up! As I’m studying full time, have my own very hyper little guy to chase around and am looking for part time or casual work that suits my already hectic life.  As much as I’d love to sit and quilt all day, every day… I don’t have that opportunity. Maybe if I could get some more followers for this blog, or started making some money from this blog I could justify it?

 

The feature squares came all cut up and ready to go in the form of a Charm Pack called Ten Little Things by Moda.  I purchased these at the Craft and Stiches Expo I attended in March 2013. I used most of the squares in the charm pack.

I’m not a fan of the rickrack edges to the pre-cut squares. So other than the other pre-cut quilt that I’ve already purchased (and will hopefully feature soon as its own blog post) I won’t be purchasing anymore. It just becomes a little trickier to make sure that the seam allowance is even, and can throw out the look of the quilt.

This quilt measures 37in x 43.5in or 95cms x 111cms. I’ve used cotton wadding which was purchased pre-cut and bagged at Spotlight. Love that stuff!!

For the boarders on the quilt top I’ve used a dark navy blue homespun, which I wasn’t too sure of when I first laid out the squares. I actually thought that it might be too dark. But it seems to make the squares ‘pop’. So I didn’t end up changing it.

 

For the backing fabric I’ve used an aqua blue/green homespun fabric. Which now I wish I’d gotten more of, as it really is a lovely shade and my pictures just don’t do it justice!! For the edging or the binding I’ve used a dark navy and white polka dot print, which I had just enough left over from when I made my brother a Man sized French Braid quilt. The navy and polka dot print was the backing fabric on his quilt.  

 The threads that I used for this were the same variegated threads that I used for my own Hectic Eclectic Quilt. For the top of the quilt it was the various blues variegated thread and for the backing it was the blue, green and yellow variegated thread. I’m lucky that I had enough left over to quilt this quilt too! Quilting is all about recycling they say…so I’m glad that I can actually find the odd project here and there where I can reuse the same threads and fabrics. Also it saves me from having to run out and try to find something that will go with the quilt that I’m trying to make. Especially when I’ve already taken longer than I would like to make the quilt!

 

 

I’ve machine quilted this in the stripling style, and even though I’m pretty new to machine quilting I think that it turned out pretty good.  

My new scrappy cot quilt

My New Scrappy Cot Quilt

 

My poor crafty blog has suffered a bit the last year from lack of action. It wasn’t that I wasn’t constantly thinking of blogging or crafting…I was.  Let’s just call it ‘technical issues’ and leave it at that, or this could very well end up being yet another rant blog.

 

Anyways let me show you what I have been up to…

 

Once in a while I’ll spot such a beautiful quilt that I do something that I know I probably shouldn’t…I ditch all my other current UFOs (In this case it stands for Un Finished Objects) and start to make yet another quilt.

 

This time I feel totally justified in doing so, as this quilt was so much fun to make and it truly is striking! In fact I’m already thinking about making a double bed sized version of this quilt. This version is a cot size; it measures 96cm x 132 cm or 37.5 inches x 52 inches.
 

 

This beautiful cot quilt is inspired by ‘The Original Ticker Tape’ pgs. 138-141 from the book ‘Sunday Morning Quilts’ by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkinson.

 

With this quilt the ‘quilt sandwich’ is made first. I used my favourite quilting spray and basted my quilt. For the top of the quilt I used white homespun fabric.  The wadding is cotton, which was purchased pre-cut to cot size. While the backing fabric is vintage cotton Australian wildflowers print.

 I started working on the quilt top by laying out scraps of fabric to see how it looked, then when I was happy with the layout I pinned the scraps to the top of the quilt.  During this process I actually ended up causing myself a few nasty needle stick injuries from the pins. So I took the time to unpin them all and re pin them with safety pins instead. What I would recommend for anyone else that attempts this style of quilt in the future is to just use safety pins from the start.
 

 

The scraps are sewn on by rotating the quilt around the needle with the needle down in the work. So the scraps are designed to fray with wear, which will over time give the quilt a rustic look and feel.

 This is a great way to use up odd scraps of fabric. There’s an array of beautiful scraps that are from my previous projects, while most are left overs from other’s fabric stashes from when I first started to get interested in quilting and they were kind enough to send some unneeded fabrics my way.

 

The backing is a vintage Australian Floral Print, which has featured in my first Papillion Quilt. But being such lovely fabric I wanted to keep it uncut, so I’m excited to use it as the backing for this project.

 This quilt is up for sale on my madeit.com.au store which is called Netto. I’m hoping to complete some more quilts that I can add to my store over the next few months.

 

At this stage my store items are only available in Australia. However if you see something that you just lurve, let me know and I will investigate the postage and customs restrictions for your country to ensure that your quilt will reach you.

 I hope to show you another quilted project next month.

 

 

Train Panel Quilt

                                                      
                                                          

My son is mildly obsessed with trains, so when he came with me to Spotlight at Everton Park to purchase some backing fabric (for different quilting project); I knew that I had to purchase this train quilt panel to suppress my guilt for yet again dragging my child to the fabric shop.

The train cot quilt panel was $15.00, so not such a bad deal.

 The trickiest part has been being mindful of when I want to work on it (often when he’s in bed asleep). As on one occasion I have had little hands trying to grab at it from under the sewing machine whilst I’m still working on it.

This isn’t such a huge project, but still I’m still glad to finally have it finished for my son to enjoy.

Of course now I wish I’d made it a single bed size instead of just cot size; as it would continue to be a more functional quilt, instead of just another play time blanket.

 The quilt measures 33.5 by 42.5 inches, or 86cms by 108.5cms. The backing is left over pirate/treasure fabric that I have previously made a library bag for my son with last year. (see blog post from Feb 2012) This fabric was originally earmarked to be the backing of my son's first single bed quilt (see blog post from April 2012), but last minute I decided upon using another fabric instead.

I’ve quilted a basic grid on the quilt in a blue cotton thread, before heavily quilting other random areas of the quilt, with colours that blend into that section.

 I have quilted the trees with green thread in random sewing style. It’s become more of a practical way for me to practise the quilting attachment for my machine more than anything. I’ve also quilted the trains and some of the carriages.

 I was originally going to continue quilting this one until I’d used a range of different coloured threads and sections on the quilt. But I did have a very impatient little boy asking me when I would be finished with his quilt as he needed his new train ‘blankie’.

The wadding is bamboo. I think I’ll always end up using in every quilt that I make from now on as it’s the ultimate in wadding. It’s a renewable resource, it’s hot or cold when you want/need it to be and it’s just so amazingly easy to quilt with.

To make the quilt sandwich I’ve used my favourite tried and tested method of spraying the 501 spray and smoothing the fabric on to the wadding. I’ve learnt to always do this on an old sheet as the one time that I haven’t I’ve had to use sugar soap and a scrubbing brush to remove the sticky residue off of the floor.

It’s just much easier to throw down an old sheet, then wash said sheet in the washing machine afterwards.

The binding is an orange and white striped print, which is actually poly cotton; thankfully it didn’t stretch too much loose its shape. I’ve just machine stitched the binding on as I was in a hurry to finish this project due to a very excited little boy asking me when I would finish off his train quilt. Usually I love to be able to tack on the last part of the binding my hand.

I would make this type of quilt again (and recommend others too as well) if I was setting out to make a cot quilt with very little time available to me. The quilt top is done, so it makes the whole processes quicker than designing, cutting, sewing (piecing) a quilt top.

14 Placemats and a Table Runner...My first commissioned Piece is finished!!!

14 Place mats and a Table runner… My first commissioned Piece is finished!!

Yeah, I can hear you all laughing at me, as I’ve taken my sweet time making this happen in between work, looking after my little guy… and all of the rest. Well I’ve done it! My first completed commissioned pieces and they look great! But don’t you all just line up yet with different things for me to do for you! (I still have far too many UFO’s haunting my spare room and cupboards!)



It all started when my aunt came over for a cup of morning tea when I first moved back to town. She loved that I had quilted myself washable place mats. (As, let’s face it, plastic ones fade, or just aren’t that nice after a while). So with the scraps of wadding from making quilts, I made myself some place mats and she saw them, loved the idea and then commissioned me to make 14 for her and a Table runner. The idea being that she can have many fabulous family dinners, or just use and wash as she needs!

My aunt selected all of the fabric, so all I had to do was cut it up as needed, and of course I cut up too much which led me to create a mini tablecloth for her. (See blog post from December 2012). Which she sees as an added bonus (thankfully), and not a severe oversight on my part.

 

  To make these place mats I’ve just cut up fabric to make braids as if I were making a French Braid Quilt. This has saved a great deal of fabric and cutting in the long run. Then I’ve cut up the Braids as needed to make the centre of the place mats and the table runner.

 

The table runner was a bit scary for me to attempt. I had the length of braid needed, but was worried about how to join the edges in the fashion that my aunt wished.  I worked it out and then felt silly for not being able to do it sooner.

The binding for these is an apricot linen type material which was difficult to sew.  After doing this project I will not attempt to quilt any fabric that is not cotton. There were cottons, batiks, upholstery fabric, poly cottons and linens used in this project.

I used bamboo batting or wadding for this project. I purchased a double bed sized bagged amount of bamboo wadding (from Spotlight) and managed to use it all, by carefully cutting as needed.

To quilt I’ve used Ranstant and Gutermann threads. As I’m doing more and more, I’m binding by using the Spray. I do wait a few days so that my needle on my machine doesn’t gum up. And I find that its next to useless to baste spray anything when it’s raining, ultra hot (so if one’s breaking a sweat) or  if it’s constantly overcast, but it might or might not rain….basically any weather that we’ve had in the last six months!

Hidden Butterflies Tumbler Quilt

 

Tumblers Hidden Butterflies Quilt

 

Second UFO Finished! Phew! That feels so much better!

My goal or resolution this year is to finish more UFOs. In quilting terms a UFO stands for Un Finished Object. So my apologies if Google has led you astray. This blog post isn’t about me finally finishing building a UFO in the backyard! Maybe next month…

This is actually the third quilt that I started. Well, I started cutting up some of the fabrics in late 2009. Then a friend was due to have a baby, so it got put away while I made her the Papillion quilt (see my blog post Papillon Quilt, June 2012). Then I moved house, so it got mislaid in a large box of other craft stuff for a long while.

The fabrics are a variety of cotton, poly cotton and batiks. Since I started this when I was new to quilting I didn’t have a fabric ‘stash’ back then (hard for me to believe now that I have two 65 litre tubs of fabric!!) My Nanna had given me a few scraps of her fabric to get me started on my quilting journey when she heard that I had started quilting. Then my mum gave me a box of fabric when she thought that she was moving across the other side of the country. I have also included fabrics from a friend who was moving to Canberra and gave me several bags of clothing that her family didn’t want to take with them. So after sorting through the bags I found some great shirts to cut up. The quilt top is made of at least seventy per cent recycled fabrics.

Some fabrics were sourced from The Fabric Palette in Gladstone (Central Queensland, where I was living at the time) in the form of strips or fat quarters. The yellow and orange print was purchased from Lindcraft Gladstone and had a barcode sticker on it. Even after prewashing the fabric it was still sticky, so this had to be cut out and thrown away. I will never buy fabric with stickers placed on the fabric again.

The tumblers part of the quilt is from the Australian Quilters Companion, Vol. 8.3, No.37, Funky Tumblers, pages 90-94, Chris Jurd.

 
To make the Tumblers I got some template plastic from Lindcraft Gladstone to cut up the templates required. The problem was that I kept on trimming my templates as I cut the Tumblers with my rotary cutter. Now there are all sorts of wonderfully florescent coloured templates, and should I ever need a template again – I will most definitely invest in one! So the Tumblers that I cut up last are slightly smaller than the Tumblers that I cut up first. This is why some of the Tumblers don’t quite match up as I feel that they should. I have been told that it’s not noticeable by a non-quilting friend, but I knew and I didn’t like the look of it…which is why I decided to add some butterflies.

The idea of putting the Butterflies on with Vliesofix was still on my mind from making the Papillon quilt (see my blog post Papillon Quilt, June 2012). The butterfly template is from Australian Better Homes and Gardens Magazine, February 2008, page 166. I arranged them at random angles to cover any slight areas where the tumblers didn’t line up, and to make it appear more naturally like how the butterflies would randomly glide about, I think it worked well.
 The wing vein pattern on the butterfly is how the butterfly patches are attached to the quilt top. The edges of the butterflies will naturally fray slightly with age and general wear, but this will add to the general appearance of the quilt as it ages.

When quilting I have quilted around the butterflies (bar one which was unavoidable). So on the backing side there are rough outlines of un quilted butterflies. I wouldn’t have left these sections un quilted if they’d been any bigger as it would mean that the quilt wouldn’t be able to be machine washed. As I live with a six year old boy, I am a firm believer in being able to machine wash everything regularly and with ease.

The thread that I used to quilt was a light Peach Rasant 120. I used roughly three bobbins worth, while quilting. I remain deeply disappointed in the thread. It broke constantly. I changed needles, cleaned and oiled the machine, even changed bobbins. It was just the thread. I won’t be buying it again. Best form of protest I know.

The wadding is Bamboo, which I love to use as it’s so thin and easy to machine quilt. Bamboo also remains warm, and is made from a renewable resource. So between the wadding and the recycled fabrics, this quilt is very environmentally friendly.

The backing is an orange or rust coloured geometric print. This was just the fabric that struck my eye when I was out searching for backing fabric.

The binding was purchased from Spotlight for $19.99 premade. This is the first time that I’ve used this and I would use it again as long as the colour of the binding was suited to the quilt. It was wonderfully different to have binding with no seams in it and to not have to think of where the seams would fall around the quilt. Ultra simple binding, a must for all of those that hate binding!

To baste this quilt I used a new basting spray (as I couldn’t find my preferred brand the last time that I was looking for it). Birch Basting and Quilt Spray, it didn’t perform as I feel that it should have. It was fine for this quilt, but the other that I was basting at the same time didn’t stick together at all. This could have been due to the humidity and incessant rain. But what I don’t understand is why one quilt would stick and then the other not. Both were sprayed within half an hour of the other, in the same conditions. Hmmm…a quilting mystery!

 

I did enjoy making this quilt, so I don’t think that this is the last time that I’ll make a Tumbler quilt. In fact I’ve stumbled across another pattern in an old magazine, so the next Tumbler design will be slightly different.

The quilt measures 45inches by 59.5inches or 115cm by 150cm. So it’s the perfect sized lap quilt or a short single bed quilt.

This is the first quilt that I’m offering for sale. I’m selling this quilt for $170, so please contact me if you are interested. I’m offering free delivery in the Greater Brisbane area. Otherwise, please note that I will only mail my quilts by registered post, so this will add to your cost.