A Square Quilt--gift for big brother

 I had meant to include this quilt on the elephants post, but forgot.  My cousin who had the twins, also has a 5 year old, and he knew that the new babies would need his receiving blankets, even though he still liked to cuddle with a few.  So, his wise mom sent me 3 of his favorite receiving blankets, and I made a cuddle quilt from them.

 I was able to use the patterned one as the center, and added the other two as outside borders to increase the size.  I took inspiration from the center fabric for the quilting, and added a chocolate brown minkee on the back.    And, it being a cuddle, utility quilt, I folded the backing to the front and stitched it down as a binding.  It looks nice and crinkly because I washed it, having used some Elmer's school glue to hold the binding down before I stitched it.

The new baby brothers gave this quilt to their big brother (again, a very wise Mom), so he could have his favorite flannel blankets back.

And I took a bunch of pictures while quilting this to show how I load and keep a quilt square....and it's on a page on my blog loading-quilt-square-and-keeping-it square.  I'm not sure why the pages don't show up on the blog home...I might figure that out sometime.

Elephants, quilt density and loading two at a time.

These elephants were the inspiration for these quilts.  I found this flannel, and knew that was what I wanted for backing these two baby quilts (my cousin had twins), and then I had to find fabric for the tops. 

I made 2 disappearing 9 patch quilts, with the same 3 fabrics in them, only the fabric placement and binding varied.

 The light fabric has adult and baby giraffes

And the grey fabric has adult and baby tigers, monkeys, elephants and giraffes

I started out quilting a wavy zigzag from block corner to block corner, which leaves an unquilted space about the size of my hand...according to the batting specifications, this density is enough to hold the batting stable and hold the quilt together. 

 However, I took into consideration that these are baby quilts, and will be washed weekly, daily, monthly??  Depends on how the day goes, as any of us who have had children will know.  So, I wanted more quilting, and added a line of stitching between the existing lines.

 and I'm much happier with that quilt density.

Here's a photo showing that I loaded the two quilts together--I made the backing long enough for both and when I reached the bottom of the first quilt, I just added the second, about a 1/2" or 1" away, and kept going.  This saves time in loading and saves backing, because usually I need 6" extra for each quilt, this way I only needed 7" extra total (thus saving 5" and a bunch of time)

Web slinging

Heather made this quilt for her sons 4th birthday, to go with his newly redecorated superhero room. 

Some before photos:

Fun fabrics, and Heather chose a fun thread (bright green)....so what to quilt????

Webs, webs and more webs.

 Heather found this really nice wide back flannel at Fabricland...it didn't even shrink the expected 10% flannel shrink when washed, and a wide back often shrinks more. 

 I was really pleased with the extra diagonal lines created by the webs...adds a new pattern.

There are a lot of superheros in this 80x100 quilt, and I didn't take a photo of it, but somewhere on that quilt I quilted in a very tired spider.

The 4 year old who sleeps under this quilt told his friends "his super powers quilt pushes the bad dreams away and gives you hugs while you sleep".  Aww... I was thinking of the webs as dream catchers, and told him how that might work, but wasn't sure if he got it...he did.

A Grandma's Love

This is a quilt client Ethel made for her Granddaughter, so I quilted it with hearts and swirls.  (the one she made for her other Grandaughter is here, now that I know it's safe and the quilt has been gifted)

 This bali pop had really great color combinations. 

and a very fun lime green minkee backing.  Did you know that with those textured minkees, the texture (the lines, bubbles or whatnot) are heat set into the fabric, and so if you use too much heat in the wash, dryer or iron those shapes will come out?    I haven't personally experienced this, but have read an article in a magazine where someone tested a bunch of minkee.  It was a few years ago, so I don't recall the source of my information. 

100 Modern Quilt Blocks--Months 6 and 7

I got caught up on this blocks of the month in early July (and then I picked up the mail, so now I have month 8)...

Month 6

The only critters this month are the tiny little peacocks that I quite like, actually, in the yellow and orange block....once this block is all sewn in, you'll hardly know they are birds

and my favourite block this month is this flying geese block

oops, sorry for the fuzzy picture, looked just fine on my camera screen.  There I made it small again, and it's not so fuzzy anymore.

Month 7

 I like a lot of the blocks this month...the three in the top row, and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th from the left in the second row.

And this little bird was the only critter.

Now to find some time for more piecing...

Rainbow Stoles

 Aside from wishing I'd quilted the 2nd stole with the right and left panels on the other sides so it would look better in the photo, I'm thrilled with how these turned out.  These were pieced by Sarah.

 I used wool batting, for lovely loft and because it's light for wearing (and also it shouldn't crease).  Quilted with feathers with pearls in the stems.

I'm looking forward to seeing these worn during church service!