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Sweet Baby James

By Liz · Comments (10) · February 22nd, 2013

Different quilts start in different places for me. Sometimes it starts with a color scheme or a stack of fabrics. Sometimes a design or a shape I’d like to make. Sometimes the whole thing seems to pop up almost fully-formed in my head, waiting to be executed.

This one started with the fabrics. Specifically, some of my long-hoarded, out-of-print Heather Ross fabrics, which were desperately waiting for just the right little boy. Almost directly from one of the Heather Ross prints, I was in love with the combination of aqua/sky, navy blue, and a reddish orange – no brown. Boyish without being TRUCKS AND PIRATES AND ALIENS, and appropriately preppy for the son of a pair of Manhattan lawyers.

The only question was – what to do with it all? I hit up my Pinterest boards, looking for something that would be quick and relatively simple, but not too boring. The one that jumped out at me was the Reunion Quilt from That girl… That quilt. So lovely! Simple patchwork made just a bit more interesting with some hourglass blocks thrown in.

Needless to say, this came together quickly, and I am so, so happy with how all of the fabrics work together. The solids in the half-square triangle and hourglass blocks, in case you’re wondering, are Kona Aqua, Tangerine, and Nightfall, with Snow.

The back is a polka dot I bought ages ago at Joann’s, as though it were always meant for this project. To bring it up to size, I added some more Nightfall and Tangerine (not easy colors to photograph, especially indoors in the winter!), as well as the light blue Lizzy House XO print.

I didn’t realize until I went back to link to the inspiration quilt how close to exactly the same quilting I did on mine. Whoops! I started out quilting either side of the horizontal seams, and then went back and quilted diagonally, every third block. So the whole thing has stayed nice and soft and minimally quilted, but I like that some of the squares have a diagonal or an X through them.

The binding is even more hoarded Heather Ross – a stripe from Lightning Bugs and Other Mysteries that I randomly scored a few years ago at my first Boston Modern Quilt Guild meeting.

So, off this quilt has flown to New York, to hopefully be loved and used and abused by Lucy‘s new little brother, James. Hope you love it, sweet boy! (And your mama, too.)

Comments (10)

Categories : Finished Objects

Tags : aqua, baby boy, baby quilt, half-square triangles, Heather Ross, hourglass, Lightning Bugs and Other Mysteries, navy, orange, patchwork

Linc

By Liz · Comments (7) · January 28th, 2013

It’s a mini baby boom in my world (none of them are mine, and let’s all be grateful for that). And, naturally, new babies need new quilts!

Here’s the first, for sweet Lincoln born in mid-December, a first baby for one of the groomsmen from our wedding. When I started to plan it, before he was born, I had to go gender-neutral since they weren’t going to find out what they were having. But pale greens and yellows just aren’t my cup of tea. And I had this lovely stack of rainbow charms that I had gotten from a swap at Sewing Summit. I thought it would be fun to do a zig-zag rainbow. (Or are we not saying zig-zag anymore? Just chevron? Sounds fancier that way.)

I actually had to laugh to myself, because it reminded me of a conversation I once had with a couple of crafty friends. We were talking about sewing for babies, and especially about designing quilts for baby boys. And someone came up with the greatest question to determine how adventurous you could be with the colors: how heteronormative are the parents? I’m not talking about whether they’re straight or not. I just find that some people, as parents, tend towards the more traditionally gendered colors than others, regardless of whether the parents themselves are straight or otherwise. Anyways, knowing this particular couple, I didn’t think anyone would feel threatened by a little color.

And to me, this is actually a really gender-neutral rainbow. Leaving out the purple makes it a little less feminine, and the gray background feels kind of urban and modern to me (this family lives in Brooklyn). And then the binding choice would let me tip it in one direction or another – in this case, a deep blue Lizzy House print.

The quilting is fairly dense, which meant it took a lot longer than I thought it should for such a small quilt. It also, unfortunately, made it not want to lie flat any more. But in addition to looking really cool, it gives the quilt some amazing texture. When I got to the gray, I gradually spaced out the lines to soften it up.

And because I used different color threads in each section of the rainbow, you get a little echo of it on the back of the quilt. The back, for once, is a single piece of a single fabric! Can you believe it, a non-pieced back?! It was refreshing.

If I was going to make this quilt again, the one thing I’d do differently is to make sure the blues were a more consistent hue/value. The fabrics I got in the swap were pretty varied, and some of them were a little too light and/or green-ish, so there isn’t as clear a contrast as I would have liked between the green and the blue. Regardless, though, I am happy with how this quilt turned out, and I hope it gets plenty of use in its new home!

Comments (7)

Categories : Finished Objects

Tags : baby boy, baby quilt, chevron, gift, gray, rainbow, zig-zag

Olivia and the Bird

By Liz · Comments (12) · August 22nd, 2012

I make a lot of quilts as gifts for friends and family, or quilts-just-cause-I-wanna, but I do not take a lot of commissioned orders. For one thing, I find that if I do it too frequently, it stops being fun. And for another, as all quilters know, it’s not as though there’s much of a profit margin on quilt-making. Fabric is expensive, and the quilt takes a lot of time. Precisely how much are people willing to pay for a baby blanket, you know?

But, sometimes the timing and the desire and all of that come together and I am more than happy to take a new order. Such was the case with this quilt. I made it for an old friend from middle school, whom I haven’t seen in 20 (!!) years but keep up with a bit online (thanks, Facebook!). A very close friend of hers (and someone else I know from our school days) recently had a baby girl, Olivia, and so came the impetus for this quilt.

The only big request from my friend was to include birds in the quilt. Birds are meaningful for her, so it would be neat that a quilt from her would have that motif on it. We found Joel Dewberry’s Aviary 2, and the rest of the fabric stack came together quickly from there. My goodness, that is a gorgeous line. I think Joel Dewberry is right up near the top of my list of favorite fabric designers. Anyways, I am SO SO happy with how this group of fabrics came together from the bits of Aviary 2 that I bought and my stash. I think it manages to be feminine without a ton of pink, bright and bold without hurting my eyeballs.

Making a quilt with equilateral triangles has been on my list for a while, now, and with a 60-degree triangle ruler, it was easy to cut and piece. These were all cut from 5.5″ strips of fabric, so the finished height of each triangle is 5″. I shuffled up the fabrics and randomly chain-pieced all ten rows at once, only trying to keep identical fabrics from being right next to each other. With random layouts, I find you can really over-think it and make yourself nuts, so I try to leave as much of it to chance as I can. (If only all of the points in the quilt came together as nicely as that little set in the picture did. Alas, I’m human, and I only take close-ups of the prettiest parts…)

I’m really happy with the quilting. As with this week’s mug rug, it was directly inspired from Angela Walters’ book – big layered flowers that remind me of peonies. While it makes for reasonably dense quilting coverage, the size of the design meant that it all worked up pretty quickly. And though it’s hard to see in photographs, it gives the quilt a really cool texture after a run through the dryer.

The bright pink dots on the binding (who doesn’t love a polka-dot binding?) are from Jennifer Paganelli’s Queen Street line, which I think might be out of print. Too bad, those Siobhan dots are awesome.

The quilt measures about 40×50″, my very favorite size for a baby quilt. Big enough to be useful, but small enough to be portable. Approved by 100% of the 18-month-olds in my house.

Comments (12)

Categories : Finished Objects, Quilts

Tags : aviary 2, baby girl, baby quilt, joel dewberry, triangles

Hullabaloo

By Liz · Comments (8) · May 28th, 2012

My husband’s aunt asked me, months ago, if I would make a quilt that she could give as a new baby gift. Her niece was having a girl, but she didn’t want anything super-girly. I had two charm packs of Hullabaloo in my stash that jumped out as a good option.

I toyed with a few ideas that were ultimately non-starters, and eventually decided to just do straight patchwork. Simple, easy, always good-looking. Except, here’s the problem: those damned charm packs. They SEEM like such a good idea, but then they aren’t all REALLY exact 5″ squares. I’m not saying my points and corners always match up the way they should, but when it’s so obviously NOT MY FAULT… argh, it was frustrating, to say the least.

I added borders to make it just a bit bigger, finishing around 45″ x 55″, but the whole thing just didn’t quite want to lie flat and straight. Hrmph. Maybe this is why I don’t usually do borders? But I decided my initial plan to quilt with straight lines would not be wise, so I did free-motion meandering for the first time in I-can’t-even-remember how long. (Answer: last September. Wowza.)

The back was a mish-mash of things I pulled from my stash. It was just a hair too big to back it with a single piece of fabric, but I was determined not to buy anything new, since clearly I already have entirely too much fabric.

The ultimate destination is somewhat up in the air. My aunt just found out that her niece already has a new quilt, so this one might go to another new baby girl. Either way, though it’s not exactly perfect, I’m glad to have this one done. Though I may never do straight patchwork with a charm pack again.

Comments (8)

Categories : Finished Objects

Tags : baby quilt, charm pack, Hullabaloo

Penny

By Liz · Comments (14) · September 22nd, 2011

Why yes, I have been sewing up a storm lately! Or, at least, a lot compared to the first eight or nine months of this year. This one is now safely at home with my new niece in Colorado, so it can have its internet debut.

A big shout-out to my friend Carl, who commented on my much-loved stack of fabric with the suggestion to use the Rectangle Squared tutorial from Film in the Fridge. It had been on my to-do list, as well, and I was so glad for the reminder. (You should see the ones Carl made – FREAKING GORGEOUS.) Anyways, the blocks were simple and beautiful and came together very quickly.

I loved Ashley’s use of scraps in the border of her quilt, and couldn’t resist doing a bit of my own.

I had 17 fat quarters pulled for this project, each of which yields three blocks, so I ended up with 51 blocks. I made the front 6×7, which left me with nine for the back. I am SO happy with how the back came out. I loved the little patch of blocks like the front, I love the dark raspberry stripe in the middle. Really, really happy with it.

When it came to binding, I initially latched on to the Full Moon dots in Camel. But I know I kind of overdo it on those dots, especially for bindings. So I crowdsourced it, and posted three different pictures on Flickr and Twitter to get some outside opinions. Turns out, the dots were the clear winner. How could I argue?

Quilting was my swirly-girly all-over meandering in white thread. Pretty easy (minus all of the thread breaking – OMG does anyone else have this problem with a Janome 6600?), and quick to work up.

I don’t know how it happens that my brother’s kids have two of my favorite quilts I’ve ever made. At least, since they’re family, I’ll be able to see this one and Charlie with relative ease. Oh, and the kids, too.

Comments (14)

Categories : Finished Objects

Tags : aqua, baby quilt, gift, gold, green, pink, rectangle squared

Ellie

By Liz · Comments (23) · March 18th, 2011

Those who follow my personal/parenting blog already know, and those who don’t have probably guessed: my beautiful daughter Eleanor Margaret arrived three weeks ago. And that means, among many many other things, that I can finally show you her quilt.

I was going to use my Heather Ross stash, but ultimately was not quite happy with any of the piles I was putting together. I started over and was leaning towards some kind of red/pink/aqua combination. Maybe with some gray? Then, my friends at Sew Fresh Fabrics briefly had some Sherbet Pips precuts in stock, and I snatched them up just as fast as I could. What can I say? The little girl on the swing makes my heart swell.

It’s modern girlhood to me. Yes, there’s pink, and dresses, and daydreaming on the swings. But there’s also being out and about on your scooter and playing with the dog. It’s what I dream of for my girls.

I got two charm packs, and went straight for my go-to favorite, Amanda Jean‘s stacked coins tutorial. Simple and easy, sure, but it makes for such a lovely quilt and I don’t actually have one at home. However, I decided I couldn’t bear to cut some of the girl and dog prints in half, so I left those as full squares and only sliced up the more graphic prints. I decided to sash it in Kona Ash instead of white. Not only does white get dirty awfully fast, and not only am I on a serious gray kick, but I just thought it looked great with those prints. A little grown-up for a baby girl, perhaps, but I love it.

That said, the gray did make it feel a little bit… serious. The first thing I did to balance that seriousness was the backing. Both prints are from Patty Young’s Sanctuary collection, and I love how bright they are in contrast to the front. Also, that blue tile? Someday I want a bathroom in exactly that color glass.

Then, I quilted it in my doodle-y double flowers. It was a fun experiment, and I’m glad I did it. Again, I think it lightens the mood just a little. And the quilt is not so girlish that it can’t handle some fun flowers without going over-the-top.

And, then, the binding just makes me grin from ear to ear. The red dot is from Bonnie & Camille’s Bliss line for Moda. It is competing with Amy Butler Full Moon as my favorite dots in the whole wide world, and is possibly even harder to find at the moment. Might have to binge a little and add more to my stash…

Anyways, that is Ellie’s quilt. You might wonder why there’s no picture of her with/on it. Unfortunately, she is not yet home. For a variety of reasons, she is still at the hospital. She’s quite stable, actually. Not particularly fragile or sickly. But also not able to take her feeds well by mouth, so there she stays.

Her quilt is waiting for her, here at home. It’s big enough that it’s just a bit much to keep at the hospital. In the meantime, her upcycled receiving blanket quilt is keeping her company just fine.

All happy thoughts for getting her home are appreciated. I’d say it’ll be, at minimum, another two weeks. And believe me, the three we’ve already had has been more than enough. I’m glad she’s at a wonderful hospital, being watched and cared for by some of the smartest people around. But, dammit, I want her home with me.

Comments (23)

Categories : Finished Objects

Tags : baby quilt, bliss, kona ash, moda, sanctuary, sherbet pips, stacked coin quilt

Adventure on the High Seas

By Liz · Comments (10) · February 8th, 2011

Yes, finally, my first finish for 2011.

This is a baby quilt for my friend’s new son, Charlie, born last week. He is, believe it or not, the FOURTH boy to join their lovely family.

This quilt has been quite some time in coming. The fabrics were picked and cut way back in JULY OF 2009. Whoops. I pieced the top together in the midst of Triangle Madness. I basted and quilted it and did the binding a few weeks ago, and have just been waiting for this little one to make his appearance.

Obviously, it’s 100% Neptune, front and back. All cut from the first fat quarter bundle I ever purchased. The back is the Turtle Damask print, and the binding is the scales. This line is long since out of print and hard to find, but come back tomorrow and I’ll do a little giveaway with some of what I have left!

I quilted it very simply in lines on either side of the zig-zag seams. One thing I did for the first time was to use a different color thread in the bobbin. I used a pale aqua for the front, but that didn’t look quite right with the back, so I used green thread in the bobbin. Worked out just fine.

Taking a picture, as you might guess, was something of a challenge. There’s several feet of snow in my yard, making an outside photo quite out of the question. And there’s not a lot of natural light in my house. So I hung it up on the door of my sewing room, put on my wider-angle lens, and got as far back as I could. Yet another reason to look forward to Spring.

Comments (10)

Categories : Finished Objects

Tags : baby boy, baby quilt, gifts, half-square triangles, moda, neptune, zig-zag

Welcome to Miami

By Liz · Comments (16) · September 13th, 2010

Oh, finally, a finished quilt! Quick, put on your sunglasses, this is a bright one.

My friend K had her third child, a boy, way back last Fall. She asked me to make him a quilt, but told me that it was no rush at all, to take my time. I’m sorry to say I really milked that one for all it was worth. Sorry!

She gave me total freedom in designing the quilt. She likes bold colors, and affectionately calls her son her “Liberace baby.” No reason to stick with the same old dull neutrals here! Additionally, though I’m sad I no longer get to run into her at the playgrounds here in Massachusetts, she has recently relocated to sunny Miami. So I decided to pick colors and fabrics to go with their bold new home.

It’s a raw-edged circle quilt, made basically from the tutorial at Cluck Cluck Sew. I cut the fabrics so long ago, it’s hard to remember, but I think I started with 9″ squares for the backgrounds and 7.5″ squares from which to make the circles. This is most definitely NOT an instant-gratification project. First, all the cutting, which is slow-moving when you’re going for a relatively scrappy look. Lots of squares, then lots of cutting half those squares into circles. Then matching them up, attempting to center the circle on the square, sewing the pieces together without too much shifting or puckering. THEN you get to cut them into quarters, trim them up, sew them back into blocks, trim those up. Whew!

I think it’s a really cool look, and the time it took was worth it. But it definitely takes time.

For the quilting, I did a swirl inside each circle, and then decided to do another swirl in the negative space between the circles. It moved along pretty quickly.

The back is a great dot I found at Joann’s, and the binding is an orange pindot. I do love a pindot.

Now that Fall has come to New England, this quilt is seeking warmer temperatures down South. It is certainly the brightest, boldest quilt I have ever made. While I appreciate the light and smiles it brings up here, I think it will find itself more at home in Miami instead of Puritanical Boston.

Comments (16)

Categories : Finished Objects

Tags : baby boy, baby quilt

In Full Bloom

By Liz · Comments (13) · April 29th, 2010

How can you see all of this color and not jump up and down with happiness for Spring?

This is a baby gift for my cousin’s new little girl, Mia. Crazy story left me rushing a little with this one – my cousin actually didn’t find out she was pregnant until she was about 30 weeks. A few more weeks and she would have been on one of those TV shows! So, yeah, it was a bit of a surprise to everyone involved. But regardless, the whole extended family is plenty excited to have a new baby in the family.

The starting point for this quilt was the Alexander Henry Apples & Pears print. I’ve had a yard of it in my stash forever, and the colors seemed like a good place to start. I like the way the white in each block kind of reminds me of the white outline around each fruit in the inspiration fabric. Though I think in my head I originally thought the white space would be more prominent, I like that it ended up so bright and colorful. Nearly all of the fabric in this quilt was already in my stash before I started.

The back is nearly all of the remaining Apples & Pears on one side, and a nice girly pink on the other with a few print blocks for fun. The pink is one exception to the from-the-stash statement: I was cutting fabric for the back when I realized I didn’t have quite enough of a single color of pink, so I had to make a run for some more. Whoops!

I did my favorite loopy quilting in white thread.

Speaking of quilting – LOVING free-motion on my new machine. The extension table makes such a huge difference, plus I got one of those teflon-y sliding mats and the spiffy gloves, so the quilt slid around quite nicely. The stop/start button was an enormous bonus during free-motion, because I knew the needle speed would remain consistent without thinking about how heavy my foot was. The fact that it takes a second to ramp up to full speed when you hit “start” was also really nice. I did have a few periods of annoying thread breakage, not sure to what I should attribute that problem. But it’s one that has not completely disappeared and is always a pain. That said, I was overall very happy with the experience, and remain quite enamored of my new (and still nameless) sewing machine.

At any rate, that counts as my first finish for Spring to Finish! Now I’m off to trim some pinwheel blocks…

Comments (13)

Categories : Finished Objects

Tags : Alexander Henry, apples and pears, baby quilt, free-motion, gifts, Janome Memory Craft 6600P, sewing machine

Charlie

By Liz · Comments (15) · February 2nd, 2010

That’s right, it’s madness up in here! Two finishes in less than a week! Well, it makes sense, as these two babies were born less than a week apart.

My nephew, Charlie. My very first nephew. My brother’s son. He was born last Wednesday, about 10 days ahead of schedule. I was already working on the quilt when I got the call, but obviously his arrival sped things up a bit. I hope they like his quilt. Because if they don’t, I’m taking it back. Because I am in love with it. It feels so “boy” without beating you over the head with BLUE and TRUCKS and STEREOTYPES!

It all started with a fat quarter bundle of Robert Kaufmann’s Animal Party prints that I bought from an Etsy seller, ages ago. I bought it on a whim, thinking it would be great for a baby boy at some point. Lo and behold, the ultrasound revealed that my brother’s first child was, in fact, a boy. And my sister-in-law mentioned something about a jungle/animal/explorer theme. Golden!

I was undecided on what to do with these prints for a long, long time. I toyed with a whole bunch of different ideas, and couldn’t settle on one that I liked. And then Ashley posted about the Spotted Squares quilt she’s working on, and I had my inspiration.

I felt compelled to be somewhat organized about it, not totally improvisational. (Because, seriously, improvising takes time! I like to chain-piece, people!) They are all 8″ (finished) blocks. There are two different sized center squares (2″ and 4″, finished). There are two different layouts (centered and off-center). And there are two styles (print/color borders and white borders). I picked fabrics from my stash to coordinate with the prints I already had, sticking mostly with brown, green, blue, and orange.

Oh, and the back. I kind of love the back. As much, if not more, than the front. I have to remember to do an actual quilt like this. Maybe for my kids…

I was also torn as to how to quilt it, as I seem to be on almost every quilt I make. I didn’t want to quilt it too densely, that much I knew. But I’m psyched with what I went with: straight horizontal and vertical lines at random intervals. I love that it kind of works with the square-but-wonky style of the front. I marked the lines with a washable pen and my ruler to keep them as straight as I could.

Binding is from Connecting Threads, their Riviera line, which is now discontinued and on major clearance (those circle/dots are still available in three different colors).

Anyways, I’m thrilled that this one is done. And I can’t wait to deliver it in person on Saturday, when I fly to Chicago to meet my sweet new nephew. Hooray!

Comments (15)

Categories : Finished Objects, Quilts

Tags : animal party, baby boy, baby quilt, gifts, robert kaufmann, scraps

Archive for baby quilt

Sweet Baby James

Linc

Olivia and the Bird

Hullabaloo

Penny

Ellie

Adventure on the High Seas

Welcome to Miami

In Full Bloom

Charlie

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