Amanda's Baby Shower Quilt

About a month and a half ago I hosted my first ever baby shower for my darling friend Amanda. I met Amanda 3 years ago at our Plunket new parents group and we have continued our friendship into toddler and second-new-baby hood.

At her baby shower I had the guests (with a lot of encouragement needed!!!) design up a quilt block on freezer paper (bought from Spotlight), they cut out the design and ironed it on to pre-cut quilting cotton.

At home I painted each of the blocks with a glitter gold fabric paint. It's actually quite sparkly and the photos don't do it justice here. In hindsight, I wish I had chosen a different method of doing this, because the glitter is a bit rough and probably not very practical for a nice soft snuggly quilt.

But I wasn't to know that, and I really wanted gold (for some reason). So I continued on, and built the quilt. The yellow around the outside and on the backing has little white dots in it which are hard to see here. 

I love each of the designs and they are all so different. When I showed Amanda the quilt today she had remembered each and every quilt block and who had made it. Impressive!

The back has a wee stripe of mini squares to jazz it up a bit and was hand quilted and hand binded together. Binding I think is my favourite part of making a quilt, its so satisfying all those tiny stitches and smooth edges and corners.

So here is my second ever quilt, not a bad effort, but I'd definitely change some things if I were doing it again.

I'm sure Amanda will do something with it though (and hopefully enjoy it), and it was a joy to pass it over to her and her family. (The new Pepe is doing great by the way :) I got snuggles today! Melt!)

READ MORE:
My first everyday quilt
My current scrappy quilt

I'm Joining In:: Scrappy Quilt Along

The last week, thankfully, flew by as we made our way through our first school holidays with Milla home from Kindy.

It was relaxing and I felt the pressure of being out of the house by 8.20 in the morning ease, along with packed lunches and tired cranky girls after busy days.

I've been sick for the last three weeks, trying to get over pesky swollen throat glands and headaches and last week I finally found some relief in the monotony.

As a result, I missed my Stuff I've Made blog post, but I did instead get the absolute honour of guest posting on Deb's Works In Progress blog.

I wrote to her readers about joining the Scrappy Quilt Along and showed off my first blocks and a little video of the process that the hubs made for me. You can jump over to the post to see it if you want to :) :: (Scrappy Quilt A Long Sophie Slim Guest Post).

So that's what I focussed on last week, a basket of some 1000 little fabric squares that are being sewn into rows and large squares. It's time consuming, repetitive, colourful, and just what I need right now.

Peace x

My First 'Everyday' Quilt

I've just finished my very first quilt! I am sooo excited about this project! I wasn't intending on making a quilt, but I follow so many amazing quilting crafting genius' on IG it was hard not to feel inspired (Thanks Deb, Cat, Leonie, Laura, Juliet, Jenny, and everyone else for all of your advice and help!)

I searched through Debs quilting blog history and found this super simple beginners version that Deb calls her 'every day quilt'.

Altogether I used 10 FQ's, a meter of fabric for homemade binding, fabric for the backing and cotton wadding. I bought everything new, but all for sale, and it worked out much cheaper that I had anticipated. And much cheaper that crocheting a woolen blanket and actually cheaper I think than I could buy it for (which often doesn't happen in the crafty world)

(sorry for not ironing it before the photo Nana!)

This quilt is intended to be Katies for her first big girl bed, just like I made the white crochet blanket underneath in the first photo for Millas first big girl bed. 

It worked out smaller than I had hoped for. Silly me, I should have sourced the backing first - all the tutorials said to make sure your backing was bigger than your quilt top. But because I got the backing last I couldn't find any that was bigger than the top. Next time I'll go prepared to shop for a backing first, and will hopefully pick up a cheap sheet from somewhere so its plenty big. Unfortunately I had to trim a few inches off each side to accommodate my smaller backing. Doh! Sad! Lesson learnt.

The backing I did go with is the same as that square that has the light pink with the different spots on it.

I really love how simple this is for a first quilt project. It meant I could get it done in a few good nights without distraction and I didn't loose heart or get too confused or frustrated.

And I surprised myself, I especially loved hand quilting it together and hand sewing the binding on! It was so satisfying, getting all those little stitches to line up. 

I love how bright and colourful this blanket is! It's so happy! A few weeks ago it was nothing, and now with a little time and love it is something that will keep out family warm!

Now that I have some new found skills and discovered I enjoy somethings I didn't think I would I know this wont be the last quilt that I make.

Thank you to everyone on Instagram for your input and encouragement! You inspire me everyday with the creations that come from your hands.

Here's some handy links if you're wanting to make your own:

Debs 'everyday quilt'

Ultimate Binding tutorial

How to Make a Quilters Knot and Hand Quilt

How to Sew a Block Quilt