Little Black Book Quilt - Work in Progress

It's not often I get the time to work on something for myself so I am making this gorgeous black and white double bed quilt for my nephew. He's 18 so I get that quilts aren't really that cool so I'm hoping this will change his mind - a little anyway.

Fabrics are Shades of Black by Me and My Sister Designs for Moda Fabrics. I bought 2 layer cakes plus some white solid to make this quilt. Pattern is from Me and My Sisters Designs and is available to purchase here. I have added extra rows and blocks to this pattern to make it into a generous double bed size.

The pattern says fast, fun and easy but for me there was a lot of cutting and sewing in this one so I wouldn't say it was fast.

Unfinished blocks are rectangle shaped and come out at 4.5" x 8.5" and for a generous double size quilt there are a lot of them (a total of 144 blocks to be specific !!)

I am very happy with the final result and love the black and white with a touch of grey.

I added a 6 inch border utilising one of the grey prints from the range and plan to have this quilted by my wonderful longarm quilter over the next few weeks. I have decided to back this one with Script Britton Nummer Fabric for IKEA by Emma Jones.

I can't wait to share the finished quilt with you all (and my nephew of course).

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WiP Wednesday! 

Till next time - happy sewing ...

A Raggy Quilt

I've seen so many of these cute rag quilts around for babies that I couldn't help myself I just had to make one. As the weather is getting cooler these snuggly quilts are perfect. I have seen them made with cotton or flannel and inside made with flannel or cotton batting. Minky is not a good choice as it doesn't fray so you don't get the raggy look.

For me I decided to go with cotton front and back and batting all over which I already had in my stash. I had some left over stackers from the Riley Blake collection "Alphabet Soup" so decided they would be the perfect size at 10 inches square. I used 40 squares in total - 20 on the front and 20 on the back. I cut my cotton batting pieces at 9 inches.

It was simple just take one square, a piece of batting and another square to make a quilt sandwich and sew an "X" across to hold in place. Stitch all completed squares together in rows using a 1/2 inch seam allowance and stitch all the way around the completed quilt with a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Then I snipped 1/4 inch along the seams, popped it in the wash and it ragged up nicely. So nice in fact I'm making more !!! I love these and so do my customers. This rag quilt is available for sale in my Madeit store here.

Till next time - happy sewing ...

"Peak Hour" quilt

When Peak Hour Fabric by Kelly Wulfsohn for Riley Blake came out I was first in line to get myself a layer cake and a couple of yards of the Peak Hour traffic main fabric and I'm so glad I did. How cool is this fabric!

I was asked by a friend to make her little boy a single bed quilt and he loves anything car related - so this fabric hit the nail on the head. I really wanted to highlight the main fabric so that's exactly what I did. I decided to simply put a large piece of the main fabric in the centre and border with the layer cake blocks and I couldn't have been more happy with the result.

 

This quilt came together nice and quick I just had to be very careful with the measurements (which I'm not always that precise with - if truth be told...) to be sure the layer cakes stayed complete around the edges.

So what do you think?

Another Double Slice layer cake quilt

Yes that's right. No sooner after making my first custom made quilt I was asked to make another. This time for a little girl. Her mum had seen my pictures of the Bungle Jungle quilt I had made and wanted one similar in girl fabric but not too pink and left the decision up to me.

I immediately thought of Alphabet Soup by Zoe Pearn for Riley Blake Designs. She had both a boy and girl range that were both super cute so I couldn't resist getting the girl range for this quilt.

So it was time for a lot of cutting and piecing. Sometimes I feel a bit said cutting up a layer cake - all that beautiful fabric being cut into little pieces....

I also made myself a design wall to layout all the squares to make sure I was happy with the overall design before sewing. There is tonnes of information out there about making design walls but mine is simply a piece of cotton batting hung up over my sewing room door with coat hangers - pretty simple huh - but does the job!

 

And the final result a beautiful double bed quilt and matching pillowcase for a special little girl.