Elmer baby boy quilt

Our friends had their first baby in November and when I asked her what kind of quilt she’d liked to have for the baby she said: “Elmer”.

Well. So much the better! I always wanted to make a solids-only version of Elmer! Et voilà:

He really looks like the original from the book:

Above you can see Elmer fused to the background and here he comes “unassembled”:

Then I had to wait for the baby to be born because I wanted to include the name. They named the little boy “Valentin” and this is me during one of our MQG sew-ins:

 

Can you beleive I acutally embroidered the name?! Me, who hates handstitching?! But as I told you, every name has a “hidden” font. Valentin called for handembroidery.

For the back I chose a simple patchwork of kona cotton solids from various charm packs.

The free motion quilting was once again done with Aurifil thread in light grey. Dogwood design almost all over, I only omitted the elephant.

Instead of using the striped multicolour binding I used in the original Elmer Quilt, I chose a rainbow of solids:

Once again finished with a triple zig zag stitch.

And here you can see him ready to be cuddled and loved:

I somehow feel that this is not the last Elmer Quilt I made… They are just too much fun to make!

Dare to be different!
Christine

Bags, bags, bags

I made four more bags. It all started with this fabric:

And it ended in a sports bag for my youngest who was about to have his first handball lesson ever.

In the photo above, I stuffed it with boxes, the bag is too floppy in reality. You can see, that is not stiff enough in the photo below:

Of course I should have known that big brother would ask for one, too. I made the second one much stiffer by using a fusible interface. And I used a laminated IKEA fabric as lining.

See? It keeps it form without stuffing.

Plus I tried a covered zipper. Yay.

And then there was my mother’s birthday. She asked for a little bag with the emblems of her rowing club. Well. Here’s the result:

I enlarged the emblem and appliquéd it on a low volume love fabric (wonder if she saw the hint?!)

I lined it with a red and white striped fabric and I even put in a little zipper pocket for keepsakes (which is lined with a fun fabric featuring all kinds of traffic signs).

I am happy to report that she loves this little bag and that she uses it a lot.

And I made another bag – another quilted one – that will be a gift for a dear friend. So just a little sneak peek today:

Happy Quilting!
Christine

A Baby Boy Patchwork Quilt

My youngest sister had her first baby in February. A sweet little boy. They named him Oskar and you’ll never guess what I made for him…

Ta da…

A rather soft-toned little patchwork quilt with his appliqued name. (Well, how DID you know it was a quilt?!)

I chose the striped background to make it look like the name was written on lined paper. I raw edge appliqued the letters and outlined them with black Aurifil in a rather careless, wonky way. I like the effect so much that I will surely come back to this method often.

I free-motion quilted the patchwork part with dogwood quilting, one of my favourite quilting designs ever. As there are much more light fabrics, I used a white 50 wt. Aurifil so the thread blends well with most fabrics and just adds texture. The striped part was fmq using straight lines within the white stripes (see photo above).

And the same light striped fabric was used for the binding. If I knew where I bought it or what it name was I’d buy some more, I really grew fond of this versatile fabric! For the backing I used a dark grey fabric with white and green butterflies that I’ve had in my stash for ages.

And then I tried something new. When my husband gave me this sewing machine for christmas 2012, it came with an automatic embroidery module. I never tried it because I never wanted to sacrifice the little spare time I have for reading the manual.

Then I decided that Oskar’s Quilt needed a proper label and eventually I read the manual and installed the hoop. I could not make it work. I read the manual multiple times but the hoop did not move. After spending two hours muttering and swearing I called the Pfaff Dealer in complete desperation.

It turned out that I only forgot to remove a little transport securing plastic device. Stupid me. After 2,5 hours I made it work:

In the end I was so happy with this little label that I am sure I will make many more (Now that the darn plasting thingy is gone…)

Now guess what happend?! Little Oskar likes his quilt! See??

Isn’t he cute as pie? And he is sooooo “well behaved”! He sleeps well, he eats (or rather drinks) well, he seldom cries (and only with a low voice). He is such a handsome litte baby boy!

Thank you, dear brother-in-law for that lovely photo! And thanks for your permission to use it on my wee little blog (o:

Happy Quilting!
Christine

P.S. As you can see from the label, I made this quilt in january. The baby was born at the beginning of february. It “only” took me 2,5 months to write a blogpost. Guess how much sewing has been done during the last 4 months? Nearly nothing. My daytime job is so exhausting at the moment.

I so long for more time (and energy!) to sew. Even on the occasional afternoons off (when the boys are visiting friends or grandma), I can’t gather enough energy to sew. I am tired all the time. I can’t count the evenings when I headed downstairs for my sewing room, turned on the lights, looked at my WIPs and turned the lights off again.

Does this happen to you sometimes? How do you get over it? Is there a tried and proven method?

A group quilt

Today I want to share a group quilt we made for our first “Modern Quilt Guild Bielefeld Baby”.

We knew that our guild member and New-Mom-to-be  was expecting a girl but does not like too much pink and rose. So we picked a grey background and decided on wonky star blocks. Each of us made 2 or three blocks and I volunteered to put the quilt top together and baste, quilt and bind the quilt.

Here’s our baby girl quilt for little Leona:

I used a variegated red-pink Aurifil to free motion quilt stars and loops…

…and outlined the stars using a white Aurifil thread.

All stars are scrappy and some are multi-coloured and others are monochromatic.

I found a fabric with little stars in colourful circles for the backing and used a multi-colour-striped fabric for the binding.

Below you can see the baby’s name quilted in the top left corner for some extra little individuality.

During our last sew-in the little baby came along for the first time. Below you can see a snap shot of her on Brigitte’s arm with her new quilt. She was such a cute addition to our party. Napping in her pram or being carried around by other quilt members.

You are most welcome to cheer us up with your little smiles and “uh-ohs” and we hope to see you again soon, little Leona!

So this was a long kept secret (we started sewing in October, I think) and I am glad I was able to finish the quilt just in time for her first visit.

Do you have a go-to baby-quilt pattern? I have to start another baby quilt soon, so if you know a good pattern, I’d love to read your advice!

Happy (secret) sewing!
Christine

In the hedgerow – a quilt finish

I recently finished the quilt that I made for my mother in law. It is (almost) a wholecloth quilt and quilting this one took forever.

My MIL loves nature, especially birds. But I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make a rather reduced quilt, not a “bold statement”. She has browns and blue-ish greens in her appartment and I didn’t want to add more colour.

Believe it or not: I tried some paper piecing! After Lynne’s class in London 2012, I only made on other block (during a Modern Quilt Guild Bielefeld Sew-in). And then I went crazy and chose this block:

A blue tit (pattern bought here). Let me just say, Lynne’s class helped a lot and despite of all those little bits and pieces, it came together rather smoothly. The seamripper came out once or twice but within three or four evenings I was able to complete the paper pieced block.

I later embroidered the eye in black DMC floss.

I “extended” that branch to both sides and added only white kona as background.

I then free-motion quilted leaves all over the background. I started with these easy leaves - until I ran out of this variegated (Aurifil) thread.

After some muttering and swearing, I chose another green-ish variegated thread and quilted some other leaves – a bit more difficult, I admit.

I am sorry, but I found it very hard to take photos of that “light-green and white variegated thread” on white fabric. Here’s another shot of both kinds of leaves together:

For good measure and to add some interest, I added a dragonfly (in a gree-blue variegated Aurifil)… (inspired by this book)

…and a caterpillar in the same colours.

I pondered on the bird’s quilting for a long time and in the end, I simply stitched in the ditch around all the larger pieces. That meant a lot of thread changes, though…

I am however happy with the result. The stitches are almost invisible and the bird is crisp and radiant compared to the (almost) white background.

I used some white-brown-blue large scale print for the back and machine-bound my quilt in more kona white, stitching the binding down with a triple zig zag stitch.

Here’s one last shot where you might be able to see the scale of the leaves. I did not want to quilt it too densely and it came out of the dryer very soft and fluffy.

I hope that this quilt brings some joy and comfort to my MIL who will have to undergo a major surgery in a few weeks. I am happy to report that she liked her quilt and I sincerely hope that she will use it often: she remarked that it was “too precious to use” (o:

Does that happen to you, too? And how do you persuade the presentee to actually use his/her new quilt?

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