Ready just in time! I finished this quilt the day before the birth of my latest great-nephew. At the end of next week I am hoping to go and see him, as well as his little cousin who was born in July, taking an armful of boy quilts so that their mums have plenty to choose from.
The cars fabric is almost finished, but I managed to frame this British racing green sports car to put in the centre.
The London tea time fabric has made another appearance. For some reason Shakespeare has no eyes. I worry about the pound sign too. What if the infant that sleeps under this quilt is turned into a shameless money grubber?
I enjoyed combining the baby blue check border with the striped binding. It is a timeless classic combination that makes me go cross eyed. With a bit of luck it will hypnotise the baby to sleep.
This is a glimpse of the latest project, another 12 x 12 quilt for the exhibition at Midsomer Quilting. It should be finished by Monday.
I have been in my element today quilting these miniature leaves.
Here goes for week 66...
The project in Week 65 that really caught my eye was Teresa's dragonflies quilt in kimono fabrics with Oakshott cottons - absolutely stunning! If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more photos.
If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.
Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.
Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-
1. Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.
2. Link back to this post in your own post and/or grab the linky button for your blog's sidebar.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.
4. The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.
So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France and Macau have taken part. The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.
Linking up with Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Amanda Jean's blog Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday
and Angie's blog A Quilting Reader's Garden for WIPs Be Gone
and Michelle's Romantic Tangle for Let's Make Baby Quilts.
Ever got fed up of blue? I have. This week's theme has been red, starting with a variation on last week's tea time crib quilt.
There are tea pots, jam pots and tea cups in the dark frame around the centre...
... and the beige and greys in the paler frames are livened up with pieces of a very subdued floral print.
For some reason the combination of prints was difficult to quilt. I kept losing track of where I had been when doing the meandering, in particular on the red, cream and blue border print.
Strawberries made an appearance in the binding...
... and the backing features the twelve days of Christmas, so there are plenty of little pictures for a baby to inspect.
Meanwhile, there has been progress with the free motion landscape, which now has a big red orb in the sky, which I stitched before I saw...
...this big red orb in the sky - the blood moon! We had a completely cloudless night, so I stayed up to 3 am and watched a truly marvellous spectacle and took loads of fuzzy pictures. It was the first (and will probably be the last) time I have seen the moon turn an amazing shade of deep salmon pink.
Here goes for week 63..
Many thanks to everyone who linked up last week to show their free motion quilting projects.
The pictures in Week 62 that really caught my eye were these ankle boots by Maartje. I have been following her paper piecing patterns coming together and was looking forward to seeing how they would look once free motion quilted. If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more photos.
If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.
Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.
Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-
1. Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.
2. Link back to this post in your own post and/or grab the linky button for your blog's sidebar.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.
4. The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.
So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France and Macau have taken part. The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.
Linking up with Kelly's blog My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday
and Michelle's Romantic Tangle for Let's Make Baby Quilts
and Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Nina Marie's blog Creations... Quilts, Art... Whatever for Off The Wall Friday
and Amanda Jean's blog Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday.
Until now all the little cot and crib quilts that I have made over the past few weeks have been assembled from blocks. As a result I have been left with lots of short left over strips which I need to use up. This seemed like a nice simple solution - scrappy strips framing a central panel of one of my favourite fabrics.
The back is also scrappy, because I was left with pieces of the plain blue, which I have stretched out with other odd bits.
The London tea time print is definitely one of my all time favourites. It is so cheerful and comforting, and somehow strangely familiar.
I can't think why I am so attached to it.
Talking of tea, I need frequent tea breaks with this landscape project, which starts with a few free motion quilted lines (as shown on yesterday's post, where you can see a really quick video of the same piece of work at an earlier stage)...
... and continues with more lines being added to gradually build up the picture...
... with frequent changes of thread to give subtle shifts of colour. That, in a nutshell, is the method.
Here goes for week 62..
Many thanks to everyone who linked up last week to show their free motion quilting projects.
The project in Week 61 that really caught my eye was this lovely quilt of falling leaves by Judy. If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more photos and read about how she made it.
If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.
Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.
Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-
1. Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.
2. Link back to this post in your own post and/or grab the linky button for your blog's sidebar.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.
4. The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.
So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France and Macau have taken part. The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.
Linking up with Kelly's blog My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday
and Michelle's Romantic Tangle for Let's Make Baby Quilts
and Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Nina Marie's blog Creations... Quilts, Art... Whatever for Off The Wall Friday
and Amanda Jean's blog Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday.
If you think this quilt looks slightly familiar...
... with the trade mark cars in the middle... and there is an inner groan of "oh no not again", then spare a thought for me.
It has been a bit of a self imposed test to see how many quilts I can turn out, getting a mini production line going and avoiding all things pink or floral, so I can put aside a few quilts for baby boys.
This traffic jam fabric fitted the bill for the wheels theme, and the pale sage green cars tied in with the brash green crate with the rusty bonnet in the middle.
Green popped up again with the little trains,
and surrounding the London tea time fabric, where this time I have managed not to slice through the tea pots.
But I still don't like the sludgy purple. I must remember to keep it well away from green. I thought the purple might make the green look greener; instead, the green makes the purple look sludgier. Not that I should really care, because the baby that ends up sleeping under this one won't give a hoot.
Anyway, before I bore myself to oblivion with all these cot quilts, I have the next project bubbling between my ears, and I really should get started.
I even got some threads out today to help the planning process, such as it is. That is as far as I have got. The weather was far too glorious for staying in, and I have spuds to dig up.
Here goes for week 60..
Many thanks to Kim, Judy, Bernie, Gwyned, Angie and Malinda for linking up last week to show their free motion quilting projects.
If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.
Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.
Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-
1. Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.
2. Link back to this post in your own post and/or grab the linky button for your blog's sidebar.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.
4. The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.
So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France and Macau have taken part. The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.
Linking up to Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Amanda Jean's blog Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday
and Michelle's Romantic Tangle for Let's Make Baby Quilts.
Having made a couple of cot quilts for baby boys over the past few weeks, I thought they would all turn out looking very similar.
The cars have made a reappearance right in the middle of the quilt, so the wheels theme carries on, but the colour scheme is a bit of a departure. Not my usual shades at all.
This nursery print is to blame for sending me in a different direction. It's a version of one of my favourite fabrics, the toys hanging out their washing, which I have been using in cot quilts for months. I bought several bundles of four fat quarters, each of which had the same print with different colour backgrounds - pink and pale green, both of which I have almost used up, a peachy pink which is so pretty I have been saving it, and this really peculiar sludgy purple which leaves me slightly confused. It is not a colour that I readily associate with babies. Leafing through one of my books this week I found that purple was a colour that was popular in quilts in this country in the mid 19th century, especially after Queen Victoria took to wearing a shade derived from a synthetic dye called mauveine. That probably explains why I associated this iffy purple with mourning, not a brilliant choice for a nursery print, and I wondered whether I would ever find a use for it.
Then I tried it next to this rather jolly scooters print and decided to use it.
The tiny hearts in the border print are exactly the same shade of mauve, and by using the glum plum nursery print for the binding I might manage to use it up quicker. It has given this quilt a definite make-do post-war austerity look.
But that doesn't mean there isn't any fun in it. The tea time theme is here again, with a Big Ben mug turning up in the London mugs print...
...and tea cups, tea pots and jam pots with little hearts...
...which manage to tie in neatly with the hearts in the border print. Even the binding is fun-packed, with this elephant peeping out at us...
...and his friend going cross eyed on the corner.
So it has turned out to be the perfect quilt for the vintage austerity baby boy racer who is determined to have fun against the odds.
And after all my misgivings about the purple, something went totally right. I used the same colour bobbin thread for the quilting and the binding, and this is how much was left when I finished. It wasn't just that the bobbin was almost finished, but that I couldn't have refilled it anyway because I had none left.
Here goes for week 59..
Many thanks to Bernie, Gwyned, Alison, Norma, Cynthia and Angie for linking up last week to show their free motion quilting projects.
If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.
Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.
Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-
1. Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.
2. Link back to this post in your own post and/or grab the linky button for your blog's sidebar.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.
4. The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.
So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France and Macau have taken part. The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.
Linking up with Kelly's blog My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday
and Michelle's Romantic Tangle for Let's Make Baby Quilts
and Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Amanda Jean's blog Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday.
The second cot quilt for a baby boy is finished, with a car in the middle and runaway trains (both shown in last week's preview), and with blocks with aeroplanes and a pale green nursery print left over from the first quilt.
Having assembled all the blocks in the centre, it took me a while to decide on the border. Initially I wasn't sure about this tartan patchwork print, but it turned out looking just right because the shade of blue was a perfect match with the binding.
This London teatime print is a complete laugh. I was able to carry on with the wheels theme with this taxi on a mug...
...and add a splash of red with this telephone box.
Needless to say I have enjoyed myself so much that I have started another.
If there is anybody still at home, here goes for week 57..
Many thanks to Gwyned, Angie and Cynthia for linking up last week to show their free motion quilting projects.
If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.
Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.
Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-
1. Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.
2. Link back to this post in your own post and/or grab the linky button for your blog's sidebar.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.
4. The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.
So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France and Macau have taken part. The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.
Linking up with Kelly's blog My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday
and Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday
and Michelle's Romantic Tangle for Let's Make Baby Quilts
and Angie's blog A Quilting Reader's Garden for WIPs Be Gone
and Amanda Jean's blog Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday.
Having enjoyed making a baby boy's cot quilt so much, I am now making another. This time, instead of cars all round the border, there is just this racy red set of wheels in the centre. I only have four short strips of the cars fabric left, so I am eking it out as far as it will go.
To keep the wheels theme going, this quilt has runaway trains, which have been printed off the horizontal and are rolling downhill.
The quilting is finished, and the binding will have to wait for a few days. My husband is on his two week summer holiday from work, and we have some trips planned. Stony beach last week, sand this week...
If there is anybody still at home, here goes for week 57..
Many thanks to Maartje, Angie and Dena for linking up last week to show their free motion quilting projects.
If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.
Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.
Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-
1. Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.
2. Link back to this post in your own post and/or grab the linky button for your blog's sidebar.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.
4. The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.
So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France and Macau have taken part. The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.
Linking up with Angie's blog A Quilting Reader's Garden for WIPs Be Gone
and Michelle's Romantic Tangle for Let's Make Baby Quilts
and Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Whoop Whoop Friday, where Sarah is celebrating her millionth blog view(!!!) with a give away!
