Baby Quilt

I have a baby quilt to get done for May and I've decided to make life real easy for myself. I picked up this lovely Beatrix Potter panel and I'm just going to add a small inner border and a regular boarder and call it a done deal. I will do a pseudo "stitch in the ditch" to outline the blocks in the panel and find a nice baby motif for the main border. There are times when it's nice to keep things simple.

Amazing Goodies from Australia!

Back in February I entered a giveaway sponsored by Kelly of Purple Paisley Patch and as part of entering her giveaway she asked everyone to tell her her something about ourselves. My comment was "I have 2 Scottish Fold kitties named Fergie and Jordie who are always helping and supervising me when I do my quilting."

Well after the random draw Kelly also decided to have a draw for her favorite comment. As Kelly put it "Yeah, great idea Kelly - NOT!!! I knew it was going to be hard to pick just one favourite comment. I gave up, I have three." And I was one of the three because, again in Kelly's words "I have a moggie and two gorgeous Ragdoll kitties and they all love to harass me when I try to sew!"

So here is the lovely package that just arrived from Kelly. Unfortunately the flash has glared on the lovely postcard.

Here are some lovely Australian aboriginal designed fabrics.

This one has wonderful Australian images. I'm going to have to come up with a design for a wall hanging here. Not sure yet what it will look like and I may have to get some additional fabrics but this will be the start.

Then Kelly included some lovely purple fabrics and a kitty cat print.

Finally some of the lovely miniature strawberry and flower print fabric that was part of the original giveaway.

And she even included a Koala and Kangaroo calendar. I really hit the jack pot with this giveaway. Thanks again Kelly for your generosity. Very much appreciated.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 6

I finished the dragon wall hanging this evening. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and I even have a couple of days to spare. I'll be seeing my friend on Saturday to celebrate her birthday which is actually on the Monday but with working it's kind of hard to find the time to get together during a work day. I know she is going to love it.

Here is a close up of the corner so you can see the quilting in the border as well as the corner motif that I used in the actual body of the quilt.

International Women's Day Fat Quarter Swap - Goodies Have Arrived

I signed up for Kelly's ( http://purplepaisleypatch.blogspot.com/ ) International Women's Day Fat Quarter Swap and was paired up with Beth at http://modernjax.blogspot.com/. My FQs arrived today in the mail and it was such a nice treat after a long day at work. Here's a picture of them, but my camera decided that the purple fabric on the far left was blue for some reason.

The fabrics are great, thanks Beth and I hope to be able to use them sometime soon. They look so nice and spring like. I hope my package arrives to you real soon.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 5

I finished the stitch in the ditch around the borders and all the free motion stitching of the dragon. I must say the dragon took quite a bit of time because of the intricacy, thus you can't rush through it, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I don't know if you can really see if from the photo (click to enlarge) but it actually has some dimension and really looks sharp. Since I don't want to detract from the dragon I've decided to quilt corner motifs in convergence section of the quilt and a border design in the purple border. I'm still checking out several designs but I have a couple of days before I'm ready to tackle it because I won't have time to do any quilting for the next two evenings.

Below is a photo of the back. If you click to enlarge it you might be able to see an outline image of the dragon.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 4

I got the two borders on today and it really adds to the quilt. I did mitered corners but I need more practice because the two didn't line up just right. I think there might be a better way to do it. Next time I have a quilt where I have 2 sets of borders, I will sew the two strips of fabric for each side together then sew that combo to each side and then I will only have to miter once.

So now just to cut fabric for the backing, and the batting, put it all together. I hope to get started on the quilting over the weekend.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 3

Last night I did the fussy cutting of the dragon. I use Misty Fuse for this kind of intricate work because it is quite fine so it doesn't add a lot of bulk to the applique piece. Once it's on the back of the piece that will be appliqued, it pretty well stops the fabric from fraying when you are cutting it out, and it's not very gummy on your scissors or the sewing machine needle.

I don't like using Steam a Seam for any applique work because it is really bulky, doesn't give you the precision you need and it's hard on your hands when cutting out shapes. There is another one called Wonder Under which I use for shapes that aren't as intricate, but it's a bit stiffer and for something like this with all those in and out scales on his back it would be tough.

Today when I got home while it was still light out I got it positioned on my top and ironed it in place. Tomorrow will be the outer borders. I have a turquoise fabric that will be a 1" inner border and then a purple jacquard weave for a 3"outer border. Then comes the quilting part. First will be work on the dragon, doing some outline work and then I have to have a look around to figure out what to do on the rest of the background and the borders. Flames seem to be the obvious and I don't know if I want to go down that road.

Dragon Quilt Wall Hanging - Part 2

I got the convergence quilt part completed today for the dragon quilt wall hanging. I made one change in the fabric. I had a plain dark purple batik that I switched to a lighter mauve one. I realized that it was too similar in value to the other 2 purple batiks (one with the dots, and the other one with the turquoise) that it wouldn't give enough contrast.

Overall I'm pleased with my first attempt at convergence quilts. You definitely want to starch the fabric before you even cut your initial 14" - 16" squares. I found that there was a lot of play in the fabrics and with the first pass through of sewing my seams weren't matching up that good. Fortunately that section gets cut out. When I rotated and merged the sections, the next pass through the seems matched up quite nicely.

Next step is to get the dragon appliqued to the top.