Tuesday 11 August 2009

Three babies and a wedding



This child's quilt is the last of my funglies started last summer as a challenge from Tonya and Bonnie to use up our fun and ugly fabrics in a liberated way. I chose the framed nine-patch as my pattern, and made three tops: one 60 by 80 which has been donated to Mennonite Central Committee as a relief quilt, a little pink and blue one (see post below) given to a new baby, and this one from juvenile novelties which I backed with flannelette and tied.



Here are two baby quilts for the children's hospital, meant for boys. The single Irish chain at left is made entirely from scraps, and it is machine quilted in diagnoal lines to a flannelette backing, and bound in navy. The one at the right is the Chimneys and Cornerstones blocks in blues and greens and tone on tone whites from my stash. It has a fun Michael Miller print called Clown Check in the sashings, binding and backing, and was (inexpertly) machine quilted by me. I'm much more comfortable with hand quilting, and I've whined here before how the feed dogs don't drop on my old Elna SP, so this one is done in straight lines (with just a few puckers here or there.) I figure I won't get better unless I practise, and these small quilts are great for that.
And here's that wedding quilt, all handquilted


Yvonne was touched by all your kind comments from my post a few weeks back and she deserves all the credit for putting this quilt together. We hung it from the balcony in her house on the weekend to get a good look at it. For the record, this pattern is called "Melon Patch", found in a book about antique quilts. She has three weeks to get the binding on, not a small task considering the weather has finally turned warm here and it's not the best time to sit around hand sewing binding on with a queen-sized quilt on your lap.

9 comments:

Vicki W said...

I love that wedding quilt!!

Donna said...

My sewing machine doesn't drop its feed dogs either -- I set my stitch length as short as I possibl can (so the feed dogs are mostly just moving up and down with little front to back motion) and free motion away... It took a while to figure out, but truthfully I think that was the machine quilting, not the feed dogs! You might want to try it -- I've had no problems over the years... :-)

Tonya Ricucci said...

all wonderful quilts. I discovered the same thing - wrong time of year to have a big quilt on my lap!

Quiltdivajulie said...

I saw a tip in a magazine recently from a hand quilter - but it would work for binding, too... set a tv tray table over your lap and let the bulk of the quilt rest on the tv tray (allowing a bit of air to pass between your legs and the quilt).

Worth a try!

Rosalyn Manesse said...

Inspires me to make more donation quilts! And the big quilt is so wonderful and old-fashioned.

Sharon said...

All your quilts look so good. . . they're sure to make some children very happy. I love the fungly - it's fun - but my favorite is the Chimneys and Cornerstones. I love that pattern and I love blues and greens together.

Congrats to your friend on her wonderful wedding quilt. It's beautiful. When I lived in Southern California, I hand-quilted with the quilt on the dining room table to keep the thing off me. It also helped to have the A/C blowing under the table onto me! Maybe that would work for her with the binding?

jmb_craftypickle said...

What fantastic quilts!! That wedding quilt is just gorgeous. The fugly one is very fun too. I love the color in it.

Anonymous said...

Love the wedding quilt. When I'm working on quilts in the heat of the desert in summer, I use a TV tray to hold up the portion of the quilt I'm not working on to keep it off my lap. Then I put a small fan on the floor to blow on my legs.

~Erin

Myra said...

I am sure all those baby quilts will be well appreciated Brenda! 8-)
Gorgeous wedding quilt!

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