Sunday 23 August 2015

Chevron

Last year my daughter was lucky enough to have a wonderful teacher. This teacher also subbed for her the last 2 and a half months that she was in grade 1 and my daughter was so excited when she found out she would be her teacher again in grade 4.

Anyhow, she announced to the class about a month and a half before school was out for the summer that she was expecting her 2nd baby. The kids were so excited! The day she told them also happened to be Track and Field day and when I showed up after lunch to help out, they couldn't wait to tell me. So as we walked home from school at the end of the day, I told Emilie, we should make her teacher a quilt for the baby. Her face lit up and she couldn't wait to start working on it.

I knew we wouldn't know the sex of the baby before the end of the school year so I needed to find a gender neutral palet. My mom and I went to a quilt show and Mad About Patchwork had a beautiful bundle of Prisma Elements. I thought they would be perfect.

Plan
The plan

This quilt was so fast and so much fun to make. I kept it simple with big HSTs. For the back I pieced some Pieces Of Hope fabric by Riley Blake. The colours kept it gender neutral. I used the red puzzle pieces fabric for the binding.

 

I quilted it on the Gammill after it was retro-fitted with the Statler so it was one of the first quilts we got to try with the computerized designs. This quilting design is called Scratch Modern. I love how it looks like a windmill.

As it turns out, Emilie was too busy with gymnastics competitions and school, so she didn't get the chance to help out much but she was very excited to give it to her teacher. And on the last day, the teacher announced she is having a girl and will be decorating the room in coral colours.

 

 

 

Tuesday 4 August 2015

Swoon

Hello! Wow, I can't believe it has been 6 months since I last posted something on my blog. Although I do think the break was good for me, I am hoping to post more regularly now.

I may not have been blogging, but I have been quilting. I have a lot of things to share with you so I thought I would start with my favourite finish so far this year, my Swoon quilt.

I started these blocks back in January 2014. I love that the blocks are so big but still take precise piecing. I enjoyed making every one of those blocks. The fabrics are Architextures be Carolyn Friedlander and Home Essentials by Mark Lipinski.

Swoon on quilting machine
The very beginning of the quilting.

This past spring, I decided I was ready to do some custom free-motion quilting on a quilt, using the longarm machine. My Swoon quilt was hanging in the closet at my mom's so I decided it was the perfect quilt to try custom quilting.

It took me a long time to decide what to quilt. I looked at a lot of photos of Swoon quilts on Flickr and on Instagram before deciding to do some ruler work along with some loops, continuous curves and swirly things in the stars.

Swoon block-quilting
Quilting in one swoon block

I love the way it turned out!

Swoon quilt after quilting
Here it is right after I finished quilting it.

I am very proud of this quilt. I truly love everything about it. It is now on our bed, and I love making my bed in the morning and running my fingers over all of the texture.

 

My mom has since upgraded her Gammill to the computerized Statler. I am still doing hand-guided free-motion quilting however and can't wait to work on the next one!