Another cute baby quilt, this one has a modern touch and was made by Mary. The pantograph we chose, Taj Mahal, is very close to the shapes in the outer border fabric which made it perfect for this project. It adds texture but stays in the background, and the quilting is on the lighter side which keeps the quilt soft and cuddly.
This darling little quilt was made by Barb as a baby shower gift. Isn’t that little guy just the cutest? The hearts scattered across the top made choosing a pantograph easy, this design is called “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”.
This lovely modern quilt was made by Amanda. “Eclectic Elements” is the name of the Free Spirit fabric line designed by Tim Holtz that she used for her project. Amanda asked for an overall swirly design, and “Wild Wind” worked well with her quilt.
Debra made this colourful collection of I Spy quilts as gifts for her grandchildren. She collected suitable fabrics for several years and even bought some assortments on eBay until she had enough to make five quilts. Each of the quilts has a different border colour, so they can’t be mixed up. All five were quilted with the pantograph “Wild Wind”.
Lisa loves English Paper Piecing and made this fabulous quilt called “Emma Mary”, pattern by Judy Newman. There is a bit of custom quilting in the centre medallion to enhance all those lovely hexies. For the pieced blocks around the centre we decided that they were busy enough and detailed quilting would only get lost, so I used a pantograph in this area. The design is called ” Paisley Curls”.
If you wondered what happened to the Happy Hippo quilt, I did finish the top in a timely manner. And I was ready to quilt it over the May long weekend. I had to fix the backing because I hadn’t considered that the fabric was directional, and it was very distorted. After spending half a day on calculations and straightening the fabric and sewing it all together until it was finally ready to go on the longarm, I realized that I was very low on the turquoise thread that I wanted to use for the majority of the quilt.
I decided to postpone the quilting rather than risking running out of thread in the middle of the project. And I can’t just run out to the next store to get more thread as I order wholesale from a distributor in Ontario. Anyway, the thread arrived in the meantime, and I finally quilted the top last weekend. And wouldn’t you know it… I had just enough turquoise thread left to finish the quilt and didn’t need the new spool. But I am sure if I had taken the risk and started quilting without another spool for backup, I would have run into trouble. Oh well, at least it’s finally done. Now on to the binding!
Happy Canada Day! We had really bad weather during the first half of June, cold and wet, and while the spinach still decided to bolt, I had little hope for my remaining cucumbers. But as soon as the weather changed, the first flowers appeared on the cucumbers, and they seem quite content by now. The tomatoes ignored the weather as well and have apparently decided to outgrow their cages as quickly as possible. They are in a rather dry spot close to the house but I didn’t think they would grow that much while it was so cold. In other gardening news, I have decided to try to grow Brussels sprouts. I belong to the 50% of the population who cannot taste anything bitter in Brussels sprouts and have always liked them. And I know they grow around here, you can see them in the fields awaiting harvest in late autumn. I had to order the seeds online, I guess this is not a very popular crop. As you can tell, I am having a lot of fun with my garden experiments.
But you are not here for my veggie stories, so let’s move on to this month’s penguin. July means Canada Day, and Canada means hockey. So of course the July block had to feature this favourite winter pastime and Canada’s official national winter sport. I realize the little guy should be dressed in red and white and not in blue but it didn’t look right in the final layout of the quilt. So I have decided to have him play in Vancouver Canucks colours instead. The hockey penguin will be available for free download until the end of the month and then move to the store section to make room for August’s free block.
EDIT: July is over, and the block has moved to the pattern store where it is now available for purchase if you missed the free download.
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Dianne made this space-themed quilt as a gift for her grandson. Stars and the moon were a perfect choice for quilting her project, and we chose the pantograph “Starry Night”. I just modified the moon a bit, the original pattern has the crescent moon with a face which looks great on baby quilt but isn’t really suitable for older boys. But it was easy enough to just quilt a curve instead of the face outline, and we were both quite happy with the result.
Jean made two of these quilts that she calls “Posies in the Forest”. Both of them look very similar, using the same layout and fabrics. But Jean made her four patch blocks using the “Stack and Whack” technique, and every block ended up being a different kaleidoscope of flowers. The pantograph she chose is called “Ground Cover” and goes well with the forest theme of her quilts.
Mary helped her two teenage granddaughters to make these quilts, using the Jelly Roll Race pattern. They each picked a jelly roll in their favourite colours, and after finishing the tops they also picked the quilting designs for their quilts. One of them chose “Wandering Daisies”, the other one “Ginger Flower”. They both did an excellent job, and I hope they enjoyed working on their quilts as much as I loved quilting them.
