Quilting Away on a Baby Quilt Gift

This is the baby quilt I am working on. My dear neighbor's granddaughter-in-law is expecting a girl in September.  She has been so kind and helpful to us since we moved here that I felt compelled to make this baby quilt for the new baby.

 

Here you can see a close up of the hand quilting that I am doing. I am almost done with it.  I will post a picture of it when it is finished.

I have to work on this to get it done before my daughter comes on the 9th so I can fold it up and put it away.  Don't want my little granddaughter getting into it.  But, I also still have to make that little mattress and pillow for the Baby Doll Cradle for my granddaughter.  Hope it all gets done in time.

Meanwhile any other projects or UFO's that I have, including the string basket weave quilt, is on the sideline until after my daughter leaves.

I just heard from my youngest son and he said he will be here when the oldest daughter comes from California!  YAY! Now, if we could only get the youngest daughter to bring her little family also, then we could almost have a complete family reunion.  What fun! 

My youngest son wants to rework the roof on the new storage shed we are building.  We had a severe hailstorm and it ripped up the roofing paper that had just been laid the week before.  That has to be replaced before we can put the propanel aluminum shingles.  Maybe my son-in-law will help a little while they are here.  My husband is not physically able to help anymore since his stroke.

Meanwhile, Keep on Quilting!

Aveli

Baby Doll Cradle and Finished Quilt

This is the baby doll cradle that we bought at the flea market. I thought it was a good deal because it is all wood and it was only $12!  You can tell it has been used a lot because it has a few "dirty" little fingerprints on it!  It just needs a good washing and that should take off the fingerprints.

I have put the actual baby doll and the little quilt that I made for it in the cradle so you can see how it will look all together.

It has curved pedestals so it can rock very easily.

 

 Now what I have to do is make a little mattress and pillow so the doll won't be uncomfortable, LOL!

I thought a couple of layers of batting inserted into a pillow type casing should do for the mattress and another couple of small layers for the pillow would be perfect! I think that I will actually attach the little pillow to the mattress so it won't get lost.  Anyway, if it needs washing, I can throw the whole thing in the washing machine!

I was also thinking of adding a few hexagons to the pillow cover.  A while back I made some 1/2" hexagons to see if I was interested in doing that size.  Since then, I have decided that they are too small for me and just put them away.  Those are just the right size for this project!

I will post more photos as I finish the mattress and pillow for the cradle.

Keep on quilting!

Aveli

Baby Doll Quilt Finished!

So Yesterday I finished the baby doll quilt! YAY!

I sewed the backing, which is purple and pink hearts, to the quilt top on the machine. You can see the backing in the picture below. I decided on sewing on the machine because I didn't think I had enough time to hand quilt. After I finished sewing the two layers together I needed to bind it and decided to use the border for binding.

First I trimmed the backing close to the quilt top edge as seen below in the picture.

 Next, I rolled the border back onto the backing and tucked it under itself and pinned. See picture below.
 

 

Here you can see the rolled border from the front -- before and after rolling and pinning.  

 

I hand stitched the binding in the back and that was it! I loved making this little quilt from all my scrap crumbs.(tiny pieces) It really did save a lot of fabric and makes a very nice little quilt for a baby doll for granddaughter! Now that I saw how cute this came out, I think I will use my other scrap strips to make a table topper for the cabin. Although, I wont use white for the sashing, maybe a wine.

Now to get back to the baby quilt that I am hand quilting for my neighbor's granddaughter who is expecting in September. I will post pictures of that quilt some time later this week when I am finished.

Keep on Quilting!

Aveli

Hexagon Adventure, Chapter 2

Well as mentioned before I had cut my plastic hexagon template from a 1 gallon plastic milk jug.  Great! Now I am ready to cut the hexagons and start sewing. . .wrong!

What on earth will I use to mark the hexagons?? In my sewing experience I have used chalk, chalk markers and #2 pencil.  But this is quilting! There are so many types of markers out there. I guess the only way to find out which is best is to try them out.

I had heard that you can print on the back of the fabric and then cut shapes out for your quilting. I did that but when I test washed the fabric the ink bled into the rest of the fabric.  I guess that's out. On to markers, I tried regular markers from the dollar store.  First, the tip was too big and chunky and second, they went through the material to the front of the fabric. Then I tried fabric markers, same as the dollar store variety. Then I bought this really expensive pen made for marking on fabric. I got the white one.  It was really neat and was a fine tip and showed up really well and didn't go through the fabric and didn't bleed when washed. So, what was the problem? For some reason, when I was writing on the fabric, the ink didn't show up for a good 30 seconds later. So, for each line I drew I had to wait 30 seconds to make sure the line wasn't crooked or that it had drawn with enough ink. With hexagons having 6 sides, that came out to 3 minutes to draw each hexie!! I had to draw hundreds of these . . .that was not going to work out. I thought I was doing something wrong so I did some research and found out that other quilters were having the same problem as I was with the delay in showing up.

So now I went to pencils.  Regular colored pencils were no good because they need a heavy pressure in order to draw on fabric and that pressure would stretch the fabric. The last resort was my trusty #2 pencil.  Very thin line when sharp, does not need a lot of pressure, washes out and is pretty cheap!  Later I tried a #1 pencil.  Do you know how difficult it is to get a #1 pencil in the mountains?  Practically impossible! I ordered a box of #1 pencils online and used it very successfully.  It is a very soft lead so very little pressure is needed for marking and like #2, washes out completely. Then I discovered that I could get a #1 lead in a mechanical pencil --- I was in heaven.

So here I am merrily drawing and cutting and forming my little hexies.  YAY! I went from wanting a dresser scarf to wanting a bed cover.  So I started looking for a workable pattern where I could use the rows that I had already sewn.  Then I discovered the "Insanity Quilt" made in 1/2" hexies!!!

Oh my word was it beautiful! I was in love! I immediately decided that the hexies I was making were too large . . .LOL! I decided to use my one inch freezer paper foundations that I sell on my website and start all over! OH NO, Really???

Stay tuned for Chapter 3 in my ongoing Hexagon Adventure . . . .

Everyone, keep on quilting!
Aveli