Defractured – a baby boy quilt

I can’t believe I actually finished a quilt. It’s been such a long time! Don’t get me wrong: I haven’t been quilting much lately, infact I haven’t been sewing much at all (my mojo went missing). But FINISHING a quilt that’s something that has not happened here for a very loooooong time…

All that was needed to get me going was another baby to be born. Not mine. But my friends’. And another one (from my sister). And another one (from my colleague at work). So even if I finished ONE quilt now, I am already late for the other two… (stay tuned for more though, I am on a roll recently…)

And now, without much further ado, here is the baby quilt that I made for my friend’s second son:

In the upper left, the hexagons are still regular. They start to fall apart in the lower left part and are completely defractured in right half. Things can be pretty in life even if they are irregular. Harmony can be found in the oddest shapes, forms and places.

I combined low volume fabrics with vibrant boy-ish prints in blue, turquoise, grey, and different shades of green.

I decided to keep the quilting simple: I used the stitch-in-the-ditch method and only quilted within the main (block) seams.

I used a white backing with little blue pluses and a scrappy binding from leftover low volume strips.

No baby quilt leaves this house without the baby’s name on it! Although I am not a huge fan of serifs, I instantly fell in love with this font. I admit that I hated those tiny serifs even more when tacking them down with my sewing machine. I used a broad zig zag stitch for this raw-edge appliqué.

One last photo and I am off to visit the newborn!

May there be many more babies to come (or I will never finish my WIPs).

Do you sometimes need some extra motivation? Did you ever loose your mojo? How did you get it back? Any tips or tricks that you want to share?

Happy Quilting!
Christine

Railfence – a scrappy baby boy quilt

A sweet baby boy was born in late june. My friend Verena and I, we made him a gift inspired by this pillow.

We chose lots of black & white prints (many from ZenChic’s new line Modern Backgrounds “Paper”) and some blue, turquoise, green and yellow scraps.

We used raw-edge-appliqué to “write” his name on the back:

Here are some of my favourite blocks: some crowns…

… newspaper advertising…

…crossword puzzles…

…and some funky glasses…

I only stitched in the ditch of those inner seams, which makes a nice pattern on that flannel star-y backing:

We used left overs from the top for a scrappy binding. My favourite is this leaf-y print from Lotta Jansdotter:

As always, I used a triple zig-zag-stitch to sew the binding down with my sewing machine:

Here is another shot, all rolled up and ready to be gifted:

So easy and so much fun to make. Now to perpare another baby quilt for my cousin that is due with her second baby in December…

Happy Quilting!
Christine

DNA Quilt – a finish

This quilt was hand-delivered today and can now be revealed to you. It has been another long-term work in process. It began with a bunch of swap blocks from all over the world: In round 6 of the scrapbuster swap on flickr we made scrappy X blocks. I had to look it up, we made the blocks two (2!) years ago!!!

I began contemplating different layouts:

While I loved the above layout (photo taken before swapping, with my blocks only), the finished quilt would have been too small. And making 60 to 90 more blocks was out of the question.

I opted for some randomly stacked blocks but wasn’t convinced either.

Then I put the blocks together in one long row and found that the layout reminded me of a double helix. Hence the name DNA Quilt.

Once sewn together, I put it away because I didn’t have enough Kona Coal to finish the quilt. And time went by.

More Kona Coal arrived and was neatly folded. And put away. And time went by.

When in April 2013 Celine, our Queen Bee of Sew-Euro-bee-an asked for two scrappy X blocks, I seized the opportunity and made some more Scrappy X Blocks for this quilt. The additional blocks were safely stored with their sisters (brothers?).
And more time went by.

I finally finished it last December.

I echo quilted within those Xs…

…and straight line quilted the background by extending the diagonal lines of the Xs.

I backed it with grey and white leaves (I think it is from Moda’s Shades of Black) and bound it with a grey zig zag print.

All pictures a pre-washing and you can still see those chalk-marks I used to keep the lines straight.

I guess that quilt would still be an u.f.o. (unfinished object) if that stroke of fate had not happend.

A close friend (for more than 30 years) of my husband sufferd from two ruptured celebral aneurysms in October. Thanks to the quick reaction of her teenage daughter, the neurologists saved her life.

But her brain suffered from the hypertension and she was kept in an artificial coma for several weeks. She is almost hemiplegic ever since BUT her cognitive abilities are almost fully restored. Her longterm memories did all come back but her short-term memory does not work (yet). At first she conversed with pencil and paper, slowly writing down her thoughts and wishes. She is now able to speak and makes process with her movements. She really fights her way back into life.

My husband brought her this quilt today and came home shaken and very thoughtful. Our thoughts are with her family, especially with her three kids (her youngest is only eight years old). She still has a long way to go on her path back to (what we call) normality.

Hopefully my little quilt will bring some comfort and love to our friend and her family.

Christine

Dare to be different – A finished Quilt

Yay! I finally finshed the scrapbuster swap quilt. It was my first swap ever and the first round was postage stamp blocks. I made a bunch of blocks, send them off across the big ocean…

… and received colourful scrappy blocks from around the world. I wanted the quilt to be big enough to serve as a throw quilt and added more blocks…

But I alwasy felt that the quilt was too busy and lacked a bit of interest and a little special something. And then, two years ago, inspiration came disguised as a book:

I knew how I wanted to use all those scrappy swap blocks. I made several grey elephants out of grey linnen. I made Elmer from more scraps and then I got stuck halfway down the way. I needed a background fabric and I was not sure how to arrange the blocks. Elmer in between colourful rows?

So what did I do? I put the entire project in a box and let it rest for almost two years. Am I the only one?!

Three weeks ago, I finally took it out again and suddenly everything went on smoothly. I made some more blocks, decided on a block layout (KISS: keep it simple and stupid) and made a reversible quilt:

And I won’t even try to diguise how happy I am with the final result. I loooooove this quilt. Both sides of the quilt. And as it is going to be used on our sofa, there is no chance that only one side will be visible.

I love how some scraps bring back memories of quilts I made and there are also squares of Mini Charm Packs that my friend Brigitte brought home from Quilt Market. I also used scraps from her four fabric lines for moda. And I love the thought, that this quilt also represents memories that my fellow swappers have of quilts that THEY made.

Here’s a close up of Elmer. Elmer is not grey like all the other elephants and at first is uncomfortable with his appearance. But by and by he realizes that his personality is not defined by his appearance and that he is happiest when he is himself – without disguise or pretentions.

A lesson I try to teach my two little sons as well: dare to be different!

So I kept the other elephants without details. I didn’t even bother to make them eyes. Only Elmer stands out. I wanted to stress his differentness by enhancing the sameness of the others.

I free motion quilted Orange Peels all over the quilt. I quilted with the patchwork side facing up, using the squares as a natural grid and using a blending grey thread for the “back”. Then I turned the quilt and stitched in the ditch of Elmer’s patchwork. Afterwards I turned the quilt again and quilted only horizontal Orange Peels (or Petals) through the other elephants.

This is a look at the back and top. I love how the Orange Peels turned out - if I do say so myself (: I thought about Dogwood at first but somehow thinking of elephants I rather thought of Orange Peel…

I used those Ann Kelle remix stripes as a binding and my favourite method of attaching the binding: the triple zig zag stitch of my sewing machine.

et voilà:

One last shoot with the patchwork side peeking over…

It is that time of the year again: It’s Blogger’s Quilt Festival again! There’s so much to be seen and so many lovely stories to be read.

This quilt is my entry for this fall. I’d say it is a Group Quilt or Scrappy Quilt.

 

Thank you very much for vising.

Please consider leaving a comment, that way I can hop over to your entry, too!

Happy Quilting everyone and remember: dare to be different!
Christine