Superfast

I was planning on dubbing this the 'Superfast baby quilt' because I decided on a Tuesday that I was going to make a 'superfast' baby quilt for a baby shower that I would be attending on the upcoming Saturday. 

Fabrics & pattern selected on Tuesday

Cutting & piecing on Wednesday / Thursday

Quilt top finished on Friday

Luckily on Friday I determined that the baby shower was actually set for the following Saturday, not the very next day like I'd originally thought. Whew. Getting this quilted and bound in less than a day was really not going to happen. Especially once I started the actual quilting.
I used a pantograph I found through Urban Elementz and made sure it was a fairly simple pattern since this would be only my second time using a panto and first time on something that mattered.

Man was this a lesson in patience that I'm not sure I've successfully learned.
Starting out, I tried to give myself the benefit of the doubt but after four rows I was really bugged by how messy it looked. Like my drawings in kindergarten. Someone has to tell you its a flower for you to maybe recognize it.

So I thought, you know what, I bet I could freehand this better. Nope. Okay. I'm going to ripe it ALL out. Yeah, not so much. After ripping out my free hand attempt I was not even interested in trying to rip out the panto part. Plus seeing the repetitiveness of the pattern kind of hid the flaws a bit I think. 

Back

So I loaded it back on and started the panto again. I eventually did finish it, but it wasn't pretty. I used minky for the back and a fairly fluffy batting and I couldn't get the quilt top to lay flat. I got so many pleats & puckers on the borders it drove me crazy. I was sick of ripping out stitching so I said to heck with it and forged ahead. 

I went for a scrappy binding & decided to hand stitch it on because I wanted to be proud of at least a part of this quilt and spending some time under it made me appreciate it more than I think I would have otherwise.

Quilt Stats:
Size: 36" square(ish)
Pattern: Cluck Cluck Sew Seville
Fabric: 5 Fat quarters from my stash, 3 of which came from Stampin' Up's Twitterpated line & Joann's Minky-like fabric for the backing
Batting: Quilters Dream Puff
Thread: So Fine #50 401 - Snow

Dani's Quilt

I finally got around to re-quilting my niece's quilt. 

Before

I took off the original borders and added slightly larger ones because they weren't in great condition after I took the original quilt apart. 

I did some continuous curves in the colored sections and then free hand feathers in the white & borders. 

After

I was hoping that I could bring out a sort of pinwheel effect. Not sure if that came across or not. 

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As I got towards the end, the yellow border was too big and I ended up getting some bunching happening. Not quite sure how to prevent that. Probably need to pay closer attention when adding borders to a quilt. This one is not remotely square since I didn't think 1/4" seams mattered back when I made the top almost 11 years ago.

Puckers, boo. 

This border turned out nicer I think.

Free hand feathers, not too shabby.

Back

 I did a newly learned technique on this one for the binding. Glue basting & ladder stitch. Holy cow was that cool. No pin sticks or aching hands and the binding looks beautiful. Looking forward to trying it on many more quilts to come.

Bound & washed

I like the wrinklyness. I hope my niece does too. She's not quite 3 yet so I'm guessing she won't have too strong of an opinion at this point. :)

Ready to go

Quilt Stats: 

Size: 42" x 31"

Pattern: Hour Glass Crib quilt from Fons & Porter's For the Love of Quilting Magazine

Fabric: purchased from local quilt shop 11 years ago

Batting: Quilter's Dream Puff

Thread: So Fine #50 401 - Snow 

Mom & Dad's Native American inspired quilt - done!

Overall I'm really please with how this quilt turned out. It's always so neat to see how quilting transforms a quilt top into something even better. I wished I could have done the curved quilting in the lighter tan areas but I didn't have a ruler big enough to span that section and free-handing it was a mess. 

Did some swirls in the light brown section, didn't turn out too bad I think. My favorite parts are in the dark brown section which I can't photograph very well.

 Even the back looks pretty neat. So they have a reversible quilt if they ever feel like it. :)

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Quilt stats:
Size: Queen 86" x 93"
Fabric: Various from local quilt shops & online (Stonehenge, Batik, Michael Miller - Kokopelli)
Batting: Quilter's Dream Puff 
Thread: So Fine #50 in 403-Putty, 424-Chocolate & 425-Brown Sugar
Pattern: Made up by me from a needlepoint design my mom did