Quilts for Weddings and Babies..

A long time ago, before we were even dating, my husband and I moved into a share house with another one of our really good friends, Bryden. He has been friends with both of us, independently, for a long time (I met the boys when I was 15) but I generally think of him as my husband's best friend (although sometimes I refer to him as "our" best friend). Bryden has been like a brother to us over the years, with both of our families considering him part of the family too. He was there in the waiting room when we had baby #1, and before he met Carley, I spent many a night making sure he ate "real food" (because an iced coffee and a Mars bar is not really my idea of an acceptable daily meal!).

After dating a number of ladies that weren't quite the right fit, he met the lovely Carley. It wasn't long before they moved in together, and over the next 5 years they adopted a lorikeet and an eclectus parrot, bought a house, adopted another lorikeet and finally got engaged at our wedding. (Naturally Bryden was our Best Man.. and with our blessing he surprised Carley with a proposal at the end of his speech!) For their wedding present I decided to make them a quilt, and I asked Carley to choose some fabric that she liked. Being a girl after my own heart, she fell in love with Kate Spain's Cuzco line (it's those peacocks!) and chose the Hidden Stars pattern from my copy of Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts by Pam & Nicky Lintott. 

The completed quilt top, ready to baste.

 Carley's favourite colour is orange, and I found the perfect homespun at my local Spotlight store in their Organic Cottons section. There's nothing shy or quiet about this quilt!

I decided to emphasise the stars by hand quilting (also my first time hand quilting..) them using a variegated 12wt Aurifil thread #4648. I also machine quilted in a large cross hatch between the stars using 28wt Aurifil #2150 on the front, and 50wt Aurifil #2130 on the back. The stitching is virtually invisible, but you can see the outline on the back.

 The quilt in backed with a smooth lemon yellow minkee with white spots. It's super snuggly and warm. I did learn a few things about working with minkee though.. 1. Pin basting didn't work for me. I had to unpick all of the quilting I'd done (and I thought I was nearly finished the machine quilting part too.. I was devastated!). 2. Spray basting plus pin basting works a treat.. that sucker didn't move or pucker or pleat again!

I bound the quilt with the same orange homespun, and machine bound it using Aurifil 50wt #1133. I machine embroidered a label and then hand stitched it to the back of the quilt using the 12wt variegated thread. I them popped it in the wash with a couple of colour catchers just to make sure the colours didn't run, and it was good to go!

If you look closely you can see the stars on the back

Ready for wrapping!

The bride and groom

The wedding was beautiful. Bryden's mum was the celebrant who officiated the wedding, and it was held in her gorgeous garden. The weather was perfect for the ceremony, although it rained all through the reception! Thank goodness for portable gazebos and carports! I'm very pleased to say that they were thrilled with their quilt, and took it on their honeymoon with them. I hope it brings them many years of warmth and comfort.

I was also asked by one of my good friends, Linda to make a baby quilt for a friend of hers who was expecting her first baby. Linda is very crafty, but has never jumped into the quilting pool (yet!). I happened to have a charm pack of Deb Strain's "Meadow Friends" that was perfect for whipping up a quick baby quilt. We kept it simple with white sashing and binding. I backed it with a Denyse Schmidt print I had in my stash, and then straight line quilted it 1/4" out from the charm squares.

It was very well received at the baby shower, and I've since received photos of the beautiful baby enjoying her first sleep at home, wrapped in the quilt. It warms my heart to see these quilts being put to good use :) I'm also ready and waiting for my husband to gift the blue and white quilt from my previous post (well, 2 posts ago) to his friend, and then my quilty heart will be full of joy ;) I think those will be my 3 final 2012 quilt finishes, but I've got a couple more lined up for early 2013 :)

All Systems are GO!

The Accuquilt GO! Fabric Cutter

Guess what!? I ordered an Accuquilt GO! from Cutting Art today! I've been wanting one for months... and was half hoping that my husband might order me one for my birthday (in July), but no such luck. It wasn't until I 'threatened' to buy from the US via eBay that my husband realised that I was serious and agreed that I could order one as an early Christmas present. It then took another month or so to *actually* get him to agree that I could order it *right now*.

Incase you don't know what an Accuquilt GO! is, it's basically a die cutter (think Sizzix, Cuttlebug etc) that cuts fabric. How cool is that?

Ever since my husband and I finally got married (after 11 years and 2 children together!) in April, I've been thinking about making a 'marriage quilt' to commemorate our wedding. I did a bit of research and some thinking about what I actually wanted it to look like, and I settled on the traditional Double Wedding Ring design, incorporating the Rose of Sharon. I'm thinking that I'll do more of a medallion style quilt instead of having the DWR all over the quilt - partly because I've never sewed curved patchwork pieces before. While reading some issues of Australian Patchwork & Quilting (and similar) I saw an ad for the Accuquilt GO! and so I went hunting online to find out more about it.. and well, once I saw that they had dies for the DWR & the Rose of Sharon, fate was sealed!

Now it will only take me a short eternity to make the marriage quilt, as opposed to the long eternity it would have taken without the GO!.

Having said that, my first project is NOT going to be the marriage quilt, it's going to be my son's Christmas present.. Bean is 5 years old and absolutely Harry Potter mad. We're reading the books (halfway through book #4 atm) and it's all he and Blossom (3 and a half years old) ever talk about. It's been 4 years since I made his quilt, and so I thought it might be time to upgrade from his baby (cot doona size) quilt to a full size single bed quilt. I thought "Hey, surely there must be Harry Potter fabric.. I should do a google search" and found that yes, there is... it's just hard to get because it's been out of print for nearly 10 years! So I *did* purchase some through eBay in the US, precut into ~4" squares (left over from other projects, I gather) and combined with some co-ordinating non-Harry Potter fabric.

August Wind Quilt Designs - "Split Drunkard's Path"

Given the fabric is already in 4" squares I'm kind of limited by what I can do with it (aside from leaving it as squares) so I've been looking online for inspiration. The first thing that caught my eye was the Accuquilt Blazing Star die (because I was so busy browsing their website) and I also searched some other blazing star style blocks that use diamonds, but neither of the Accuquilt dies will suit my 4" squares. Back to the drawing board. What about a 'chisel' star? Nope, still too big. And then I found it. While googling "Drunkard's Path" (I don't even remember why - it could have been because of the super-cute owl tutorial on The Tulip Patch blog) I discovered a design by August Wind Quilt Designs that *looks* like stars, but is actually made by halving drunkard's path blocks!

And even better, Accuquilt has a 3.5" Drunkard's Path die, which should fit perfectly with my 4" squares - yay! But wait, there's still more! Cutting Art was having a 30% off sale on selected Accuquilt dies, so I was able to pick up the DWR die on sale, and I was tempted into also purchasing the baby 2.5" strip cutter (I mean really, how could I not? Not with all those metres of binding in my future!) on sale and then because I just couldn't help myself I indulged and bought the Sunbonnet Sue and the 3.5" Tumbler dies on sale too (as well as the Rose of Sharon & Drunkard's Path which were not on sale). So I have lots of cutting fun coming my way! I can't wait!