Here’s a fun table runner made with Nautical and Nice by Sandy Gervais for Moda charm squares.  The quilting is simple, just a few straight lines.  The more straight line quilting I do the more I realize I’m a stippling kind of girl.  But I do like this runner, and it’s patriotic with the red, white, and blue.

A few weeks ago I finished up the Baby Blues quilt for my good friend.  We went to their house for dinner and she opened here present and loved it!   Yay…always a good feeling!!!

I love the colors, and I really liked how it turned out.

I marked this quilt for straight line quilting, and I have to honestly say that I’m not sold on marking my quilts prior to quilting.  I also used flannel for the backing, and while it is soft and cozy I’m not sold on it either.  If you use flannel, PREWASH it!!!  Even if you don’t prewash your fabrics, ALWAYS prewash your flannel.  Flannel shrinks so much more than regular quilting fabric, and the weave is bigger.  Once you wash it and it shrinks, it shrinks the weave, which makes the quilting stitches much more secure.

Spring Flowers is done!   And I LOVE it!!!!!!  For starters I used Camille’s Baby Mine pattern.  The pattern is a great deal because you get 2 patterns for the price of 1–a girl quilt and a boy quilt.  I wasn’t 100% sold on the flower applique pieces that go with the girl quilt.  So I hunted through my library of patterns and found one that I love…it’s called French Roses by Heather French.  Some day I’m going to make an entire quilt of French Roses (I even have the fabric for it), but since that’s down the road I figured I give the French Roses a whirl by substituting these flowers for the ones that came with the Baby Mine pattern.

The French Roses pattern  uses the soft edge applique technique, which I thought is perfect for a baby girl’s quilt.  I’m certainly in love with soft edge applique!

I’m so glad I made this modification.  I think the French Roses flowers are softer, more feminine, and just downright adorable.

The quilt measured 40 x 50 prior to washing and measures 37 1/2 x 47 1/2 after washing…perfect size for a baby.

Front

Back

Polka dot binding matches the inner border

Label: I used a piece of muslin, cut the edges with pinking shears, wrote on it, then soft edge appliqued it to the quilt

Fabric: Butterfly Fling by Me & My Sisters Design for Moda, the white is a white on white design with butterflies, the polka dots and some of the fabrics in the flowers are from my stash.

Side note: I started working on an improv project tonight.  I got everything out and set up (machine, ironing board, started cutting fabric etc.), then went to sew, and my sewing machine won’t sew! Grrrrrrr!  So I’m bringing it in tomorrow to get serviced, because one can’t have a non working sewing machine when one NEEDS to sew!

I haven’t posted much about the Spring Flowers quilt, but it’s now pieced, quilted, and bound.  I had a date with the quilt tonight to finish the binding, and I had success!  It’s such a great feeling to finish the binding!  I still have to bury all the threads, then label it, then wash it, and then I can send it to its new home.

The colors in this quilt certainly remind me of spring, and I can’t wait for the new mama to open up this quilt for her baby girl!

When I finish this quilt up I’ll post about the changes I made to the pattern.

My next project is a baby quilt for my cousin’s first baby.  She’s having a girl and is due Feb. 11.  I’m so excited to work on a baby quilt!  I’ve been working on such big quilts lately that it’s going to be nice to work with one that is relatively small…quick to piece, quick to quilt, and quick to finish.  Baby quilts are so satisfying!

One of my favorite fabric lines is Butterfly Fling by Me & My Sisters Design for Moda.  This is the line I made my very first quilt (other than the wall hanging I made in my beginning quilting class).  This fabric is so fun and cute and it’s not babyish.

The pattern is Baby Mine by Camille Roskelley.  This pattern is a great deal because you get 2 patterns…one for a girl quilt and one for a boy quilt.

My daughter’s preschool is having a silent auction, and I volunteered to make a baby quilt.  I love baby quilts, because they are quick to make and oh so satisfying.

I chose 2 charm packs of Sultry by Basic Grey for Moda and set them 8 x 10.

No matter how many quilts I do and new styles I try, I absolutely love the simplicity of the 5 inch squares.  It’s probably quiltmaking at its simplest, but I’m so drawn to these quilts.

The post wash measurements are 33 x 42.

The back of the quilt is white muslin, and I quilted with Sulky Blendables Vintage Rose (#4030) thread.

Rachel of PS I Quilt had a tutorial for raw edge applique at the Moda Bake Shop.  Then when The Quilt Shoppe had a coupon, I used the coupon to buy the Scuffily kit in the Snippets line.

The kit came with a layer cake, charm pack, and a jelly roll.

The concept is simple: layer cake, top with charm, top with 2.5″ square (cut from jelly roll strip), and this is an easy quilt to piece.  This was my first attempt at raw edge applique and I really like the fuzzy raw edges.  It’s so darn soft!!!

The backing fabric is from my stash, but it certainly looks like it’s part of the line.  I decided to straight line quilt this one, and straight line quilting was not nearly as enjoyable as an all over meander or stipple, but it did get the job done relatively quickly, and after washing it, I really really like it.

The binding is scrappy…I chose 7 strips from the jelly roll.  This was my first scrappy binding, and I love how it goes with the scrappy feel of the quilt.

Note: the kit calls for using 36 layer cake squares, but I went ahead and used all 42–making the quilt longer.  Since the charm pack came with 40 charms, I ended up using 2 5 x 5 squares from my stash and I also threw in some of that stash fabric for the 2.5 x 2.5 squares for good measure.

Post wash measurement is 54 x 64.