Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Last Month's FOs and WIPs

I had a busy month as you can see.

First, I finished the quilt for Baby Bea. I quilted it using a taupe cotton thread, because I wanted to be able to see the quilting without it overpowering the block design. Anyhow, the quilting was not perfect, but for my first attempt, I was rather pleased with the results. The funny thing was that free-motion quilting was addictive. I found myself thinking about it all the time and just itching to get back to my machine to do more.


The backing and binding is Kona cotton. The binding is machine attached on the front and then hand-stitched using a blind stitch in the back. I have to say I was tickled with how well the mitered corners turned out. Once finished, I washed the quilt and the quilting looked so much better -- everything sort of poofed out.

The second project was my own Birdie Sling. I used about one yard each of fabric from Amy Butler's Lotus line for the main bag and contrast handles. I have a lot of left over fat quarters, though.



Here's my new label, too.


My current project is a zig-zag baby quilt using a charm pack from Moda's Botony line. My first attempt was less than pleasing. I just could not get all the points aligned. So I ripped out everything I had pieced, and started over by first trueing up each square to 4 1/2 inches. It was painstaking, but helped immensely in achieving mostly aligned triangle tips.



The final project is another windmill baby quilt, this time for some friends' as yet unnamed baby boy. I need to pin it (which I will do next time the kitchen floor is sparkly clean), then quilt and bind, hopefully all before June.

You can see this time my corners are much better. The green, yellow, and red polka dots are from Amy Butler's Belle line. The red and white polka dots are by Monaluna for Robert Kaufman, and the solid yellow is again Kona cotton.