Monday, September 19, 2011

Newton's Lullaby Dreams quilt top

Star appliques have been ironed on
My version of the Newton's Lullaby Dreams quilt top is almost finished now. The outer border is on now and as well as the 8 applique stars. In the photo the stars look very bright compared with the pale yellow star fabric that they are on top of. On the actual quilt top, that fabric is not that pale. (My camera seems to be exaggerating the darker colours and under doing the pale colours.)



I just need to sew a blanket stitch around the stars now and I'll be ready to 'sandwich the quilt top to the batting and the back fabric. After that comes the fun of machine quilting it (... said 'tongue in cheek', LOL!) Actually this little quilt top should be pretty easy to quilt.  Still tossing ideas around in my mind about  the best way to do that.....



Close up showing quilt details before the stars were added.







Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Newton's Lullaby Dream Crib Quilt


Auditioning the Fabric:
Last weekend we were in Calgary visiting  our daughter and son-in-law. My daughter and I spent a few enjoyable hours at My Sewing Room a fabric store in SW Calgary.  What a huge place and what a great selection of fabrics. And thank you so much Sydney (salesperson) for being so patient and helpful! :)


We were trying to decide which of the fabrics to use in which parts of the baby quilt. Most of this fabric is from the Newton's Lullaby dreams collection by Leslie Ann Clark for Clothworks. The pale yellow stars and the blue stars fabric, however is Hey Diddle Diddle fabric by Sue Lipkim (for Clothworks).


Decisions, decisions! Should we go with turquoise sashing or the pale yellow with stars?
 Since my daughter was in Calgary and I was 250 km away, we sent emails back and forth until we finally got what we think is the perfect fit:


We went with the patchwork fabric and the pale yellow stars for the main body of the quilt top.  The strips are cut 5 inches wide. ( 4 1/2 inches once sewn  together.) The sashing we decided on was the turquoise Robert Kaufman 'Fusion".  Sashing strips were cut 1 inch so they are 1/2 wide once they're sewn in.  I used the blue stars (Hey Diddle Diddle fabric) as the inner border. Those strips were cut 2 1/2 inches wide.



This part of the quilt is 31 1/4 " wide and 38 1/2 inches long. Now to add the outer border
The outer border was never in question. We're going with the large Newton Lullaby Dreams in yellow with the small Newton in green for the back. They will be cut 6 inches wide to incorporate as much of the Newton pictures on the fabric as possible. That will make the finished quilt a little bigger than crib size but not by much. 

 More to come.... :)



Rag Teddy Bear quilt


I love making these simple little flannel quilts. My first 2 were made without batting in the blocks of flannel.  In fact I didn't even know you were supposed to until I went to Penticton to visit our step-daughter where we went to Poppins Quilt Parlour on Main Street.  I guess many people do that to make the flannel rag quilt firmer and warmer. You are supposed to cut the batting into squares that are one inch smaller than your flannel squares so that none of the batting gets caught in the raggy edges.


Teddy Bear raggy squares sewn together in rows

But Kathy, the salesperson there, told me that it is just a personal preference and it depends on what you are going to use the little quilt for whether you would want batting in the middle of your flannel blocks or not. If you do put batting in the middles, then you also have to quilt each block to keep the batting from shifting around.  The one I saw there at the store had hearts and xs stitched in the centres of the blocks. Seemed like a lot of extra work to me....

I found the cutest Teddy bear flannel fabric there with polka dot fabric in matching colors. Perfect for another raggy flannel quilt, I thought! :)


Back of the Teddy Bear rag quilt
I made these blocks bigger than the ones in my first 2 raggy quilts. These are 7 inch blocks, ( 6 1/2 finished), with 5 rows of 5 blocks. The finished quilt is approx. 31" by 31".

I sewed a polka dot square on the back of each teddy bear square and then just alternated them to get both bears and dots on both sides of the little quilt.


Rag quilt front before snipping the edges

Close up of adorable teddy bears :)

Now I'm ready for having same sex twins or opposite sex twins. Oops! Hope I'm not letting the cat out of the bag too soon!   :)
Happy Quilting!