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

Sewing for boys – a picture post

I am still here! I was MIA here lately (again) but have been sewing lots of clothes during this last winter.

This is a picture post about some of the apparel I made for my sons, nephews, and godsons. Some pieces were gifted before I took time to take a photo…

Many pairs of trousers, this is about half of the lot I made.

 

 

   

And then T-Shirts, short and longsleved. Here are two of them. I love sewing according to the boys interests.

 

And then I made two jackets for my youngest.

One outdoor version that is made from a softshell fabric he chose at our local fabric store. I doubted his choice at first but am now in love with his new jacket. He wears it every day and is very proud that he helped making it.

This is the indoor version, made from a blue and white/grey knit fabric. I made visible seams with my new Bernina Coverlock machine.

And then little boy chose this sheep-fabric for another sweater. It turned out too large for him so now big boy gets to wear it first…

This was the boys’ lot. See you soon with the clothes I made for the girls in our family!

Do you have a great pattern for boys’ apparel that you can recommend?

Keep Sewing and Happy Mother’s Day!!
Christine

An old friend revisited

Remember this sweet baby quilt? I made it years ago and was never able to let it go (aka give it away). But I finally found a home for it – my sister’s third baby received it for his christening.

I had to go back to fix it before wrapping and gifting, though. Back then I chose a zigzag stitch that was too narrow for the raw-edge appliqué. So the fabric began to fray after the first wash. Duh.

So I added another MUCH wider zigzag stitch to stop the fraying…

… and I added the little boys name, too. Thankfully my sister and my BIL chose another short name – very sewist-friendly (o;

Here’s a full view of the fixed version. One hardly recognizes the added stitches from a distance, does one?

I am happy I was finally able to let it go. Because that’s what quilts are meant for, aren’t they? To bring joy and comfort to someone we love.

Happy quilting!
Christine

Quilts for brothers (2)

Here's the second quilt I made for the boys: another strip quilt, this time with 60° triangles.

 

 

Once I had all those triangles cut and sorted, I pondered about the layout. On the left you can see monochromatic spiderwebs, on the right I layed out multichromatic spiderwebs.

 

 

 

I liked the multichromatic version better so I started sewing those webs together: I had to use tons of starch to get acceptable results.

 

 

 

Like the first quilt I made for the boys, I only quilted within the white strips. This time choosing a single, simple quilt design, because I thought things were already varied enough. So, simple steep loops, many "l"s was all I quilted in light grey Aurifil thread throughout those light parts of the spiderwebs:

 

The backing is the same on both quilts: black pindots on white. I used the same fabric for the binding.

 

 

Here's a close-up shot of the quilting:

 

 

And this is the quilt in it's entirety:

 

 

I hope that these two quilts will be loved by the boys, now while they are still small and also later when they grow up. I chose those contemporary colours and prints so they can still use them when they are teens or twens or "really old" (o;

 

Happy quilting!
Christine

 

 

Quilts for brothers (1)

When our friends moved away, I made quilts for their boys as a special memory to take with them, to remember us from time to time. The boys used to share one bedroom so I wanted to make similar quilts, matching in colour but not strictly in design.

I chose low volume grey and white-ish prints and accent fabrics in blue, green, dark grey and turquoise and started sewing 4 strips together. Out came my 90° ruler and I cut striped triangles from each 4-strip-set.

 

Then the fun pain of trying out different layouts began... I opted for a giant arrow, diagonal rows, chevrons and diamonds. Which one do you like best?!

 

 

Once I decided on the design (Diamonds, because it matched my choise for his brother's quilt best), I started sewing the blocks together. Trying to match those points and cursing when the bulky seams made things difficult...

 

I only quilted within the light strips with a light grey aurifil thread and tried out different fmq designs...

 

(oups, can you see how I kept myself going while struggling with the quilt...? What is you prefered beverage during fmq sessions?)

 

I tried waves...

... and leaves...

... and triple loop-de-loops...

... and feathers.

 

I added his name and used a scrappy low-volume binding, finished off with a triple-zig-zag-stitch.

 

 

And here it is... the first of the two quilts for brothers...

 

I'll be back with the second one shortly...

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