A quilt I actually like

I told you guys that I loved this green quilt so much I almost kept it. Instead I stocked up on batiks at a Fabric Depot and started making one for myself. I actually finished the top up a little while ago... can't remember exactly when. I love love love the colors, and the pattern. I'm wishing I had made it just a little bigger. But it's okay as is.

It's in the quilting stage, I'm doing the same echo quilting I did with the green quilt. It's slow going, but I'm plugging away at it. Again, lesson learned - only long lines until I get my hands on a long arm quilt.

What I've been doing when I haven't been blogging.

So you saw one quilt that I worked on but couldn't post about until after the shower... and here's another one. I'm pretty sure the mom doesn't even know I have a blog, but you never know!

This is for a couple I've known for a very long time. I went to college with the Dad to be, and met the mom shortly after that. They're another couple I know who tried for quite a while to have kids, and suffered a few setbacks along the way. So everyone's super excited for them. Of course I was going to make a quilt... but dang, this was the second baby shower I was invited to before I even had my own apartment!

For this one I used mostly fabrics from my stash, although I didn't have quite enough for the backing or border, so I picked up a yard each of red & blue at a Fabric Depot sale. I was a bit stumped for what pattern to use so I fell back on a basic 2x2 block in light & dark blues and red... the colors of the nursery.

I tried to avoid too much white because I didn't want it to look too patriotic. But truth be told, a lot of these fabrics went into my flag quilt, so there are blue fabrics with white stars and some of the reds are bandana-esque. Oh well.. this *is* America.



I like throwing together the back using left-over blocks.

The quilting is super basic ... just diagonal lines. But it works well.

So it may not be the most original or 'funky' quilt... but it's cozy and big enough to stay last through toddler-hood (40"ish by almost 60"ish). So I really hope he will like it!

Edited to add...

The shower was today, and the mom really liked it. She got a lot of awesome stuff... a lot of practical stuff that people who actually have babies know to give and plenty of 'aw cute' stuff. I felt pretty good about giving the only quilt. She also got a cute knit hat, mittens & matching blanket set from a mother/daughter knitting duo. But that was the only handmade stuff she got. That makes it nice for me... no other quilts to be compared against. ;)

In theory I get to start working on quilts for me now. Except that another friend just announced that she's pregnant. So there will be more baby quilts in my future. Oh well... keeps me busy.

Painfully ugly quilting

Ok... I finished up the Valorie Wells quilt. I thought quilting would help improve my feelings for it... but no, it actually made me even less fond of it.


I tried to do concentric squares around the boxes... but MAN it was a pain in the butt. My least favorite part of quilting is trying to shove half the blanket through the neck of the sewing machine while quilting it.... this one was brutal, every time I had to change directions the better part of the quilt had to get rolled up to go through the machine. The results are disappointing for the amount of work that went into it. It clearly needs more quilting - just to hold it all together, but there's no way I'm doing more squares.

I'm also not thrilled with the embroidery... again, it needs more. I mean... it's a nice touch, I don't think this part is ugly... but it didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped.


I'm going to treat this quilt as a learning experience. For me at least I need to have a quilt in mind before buying the fabric. As much as I love some of the fabrics, they never really told me what they wanted to be. Or maybe they were trying to tell me something and I just couldn't hear it. It's also possible that I just needed to let them all sit and stew a lot longer. But I'm an impatient quilter. I want the finished quilt NOW. The other thing I've learned is that long straight lines are much easier to quilt than trying to do smaller, unconnected shapes.

I'm glad it's done. It's a good size, it's nice and warm. It'll do just fine. I'm eager to start making myself quilts I really love though.