Something new!

Hello!

Finally a new project to warrant a blog post. The crafting has been few and far between these past few months. I spent the better part of my Christmas holidays making a cover for our new down duvet. I wanted it to "feel" like a quilt which is why I chose to do a patchwork composition for the main top part of the cover. I've been collecting Amy Butler fabrics for almost a year now and I finally had a place to use them all - yes I used every last fat quarter I had for this quilt top!

I really let the design of this duvet evolve organically. In the end it turned out quite different than what I imagined it would be when I started. This was due mostly to the limiting colours of sheets for sale after all the Boxing day madness (which I avoided). By the time I showed up in the stores all the good sheet colours were well picked over. Originally I thought would like blue borders and pillow cases. However I couldn't find any blues that worked with the colours of the prints. In the end I settled for something I like a whole lot more (and might not have even considered) if I had found blue right from the start. The coordinating sheets I picked are white with a small beige geometric print. I decided to go with beige and brown as my two border colours (due to lack of blues) and because browns are really the secondary colours in these prints.

In the end I think the cover turned out looking more modern with the brown accents. I'm glad I was open enough to consider other options - I also had cut out another Amy Butler print initially as the final border but decided it was just too much pattern and opted with the brown....

I tried to plan the quilt and lay out the measurements in Illustrator before I started but in the end resorted to quick pencil sketches and my trusty calculator. I still find this the fastest way to work!

As with any good quilt photo - I asked my cat Weasel to pose for me! She didn't really get into it until I had already started shooting with her stuffed cat toy....because she got jealous!

Cat quilt

Here are some photos of my very first quilt. It was inspired by Owen & Weasel and I made it as a baby gift for my neighbours (Owen's owners) when their son Daniel was born last year.

I didn't want this quilt to be a traditional baby quilt, so I chose to use a more sophisticated colour palette of black, brown, beige and cream. I wanted it to have a "cat theme" without being too "catty" if you know what I mean....Both of Daniels parents are quite scholarly and academic - they have an entire wall of their living room covered with books! So, when I found the beige fabric with script as a pattern I thought it would be perfect. The brown I associated with coffee which was perfect because Daniel's dad was working part time for Starbucks while completing his Masters in Theology.

I was very proud of my first attempt at quilting and it inspired by second frog quilt which I have photos of a few posts below.

That's all for today. Have a happy and safe long weekend (we will be celebrating BC Day here in British Columbia on Monday)!

Jodi

Baby Quilt!

Whew! It's been almost a month since my last post. I've realized if I want to have a craft blog I need crafty projects which aren't so labor intensive. I suspect this might be why "doll" quilts have become so popular as of late.

I just finished this quilt for my friend's baby boy. I had intended this gift to be for him when he was born. As it turned out, he was one month early (I hadn't even started it yet) and then some family circumstances put all my craft projects on hold for a few months. Tonight I am delivering the quilt 1 year, 2 months and 23 days late. Luckily my friend Vicky is very understanding.

I used a combination of Amy Butler fabrics mixed in with some cute frog prints that I found on eBay. I was so happy to discover the colours were a perfect match of greens and blues. As I don't have a machine that does free motion stitching I had to improvise with stitches I could manage with my regular sewing machine. I think the stitches turned out ok but I can't wait for the day I get my own Bernina quilting machine!