karianne's baby blanket

My friend & former co-worker recently had her first baby.... a beautiful little girl with big eyes and lots of dark hair, whom they named Karianne.  I wanted to make her a baby blanket for when the weather turns cold, which it will eventually do...  (I have to keep reminding myself of that because it is 90°F here today, with a real feel of 101°F.  And I'm 36 weeks pregnant...)

 

I took Tensley to one of the playgrounds in town this morning so she could play while it was still relatively "cool" and I could get a few pictures of the blanket.  One side of the blanket is a pink & brown, paisley patterned, minky fabric and the other side is one of the pieces from Aneela Hoey's 'Posy' fabric line.  I rounded the corners on this blanket, which I really liked.  They don't match perfectly, which bothers me, but now that I have done them once, I think I will be able to do them better the next time.  I forgot to measure the blanket, but I'm thinking it was close to 40" x 50" after washing & drying.  I like the larger size because it works well for laying on the floor, can be doubled up for use in the stroller or car seat, and is large enough to be used into the later toddler years.  I also like to choose fabrics that are not super "baby-ish" for the same reason.  I think this blanket will be a good size, and still age appropriate, even when Karianne is 4 or 5. 

Not a quilty finish today, but a finish nonetheless.  And now I am finally starting on my baby boy's quilt....  We'll see if I can get the top pieced in 3 weeks or less... Wish me luck!

-V

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Katy Jones' Blogger's Choice Bundle quilt top

 
Oh hi there!  Yep, I'm back already with another finished quilt top.  I'm on a roll!  It took me about 2 months to finish the swoon quilt (which felt like for-ever!), then I finished the accidental quilt top, which really only required me to put sashing between the "coins" on that quilt...

And I had fully intended on starting on the baby's quilt next.  But then something happened...  I won Katy Jones' Blogger's Choice Bundle from the Fat Quarter Shop!  I usually don't enter giveaways because I like to see fabric in person and am finding that I enjoy the process of curating fabrics for a quilt.  However, I really loved the fabrics Katy chose for her bundle.

Katy blogs over at I'm A Ginger Monkey in case you don't already follow her blog.  Her blog was one of the first 3 or 4 that I found when I started sewing.  In fact, to win her blogger bundle, you had to guess what her fabric choices would be.  Since I've been following her for quite some time I had no problem guessing what she would use.

Once I received the fabrics, I could not resist cutting into them.  I tried to resist, I really did.  But that lasted for all of a day or two.  I almost immediately knew what pattern I wanted to use.  My sister has a really cool antique quilt that I admire every time I am at her house.  I thought that the blogger bundle fabrics would work perfectly with that pattern.  I asked her to send me a picture of her antique quilt and so she did:

From there, I estimated the size of the block and then calculated what dimensions the pieces would need to be cut at.  If I had been more patient, I could have waited until the next time I was at her house & measured the quilt block components, but I was so excited to get started I just couldn't wait!  After I calculated what size pieces I would need, I figured out how many pieces I could get out of each fat quarter.  I then decided that I wanted to add 5 fat quarters from my stash so I could make the quilt top a bit bigger and also so I could add just a little bit more variety.  I'm finding that the more fabrics I use in a quilt, the more I like the quilt.  I don't know if it is that I like the look of the quilt more or that I like the process more because I get to use more fabrics.  Maybe a little of both.

From there I cut out the fabric to make a practice block.  I wasn't sure how it was going to come out, but it actually worked!  I made just a few adjustments to my dimensions.  The block ended up being 9.5" unfinished.  I was shooting for 10" unfinished, but the math just worked better for the 9.5" block. 

I ended up doing a 6 x 8 layout, which worked perfect for having the X's not get "broken", and gave me a final quilt top of 54" x 72", which I think is a great size of quilt for me.  Yeah, that's right, I'm keeping this quilt for myself!  I just love it too much to give it away.

I finished this quilt top in about 10 "working" days, which is really fast for me since I typically only get about 2 hours of quilting time a day - and that's if I'm really lucky.  And that 10 days included making the calculations and the practice block.  I'm sure part of the reason this quilt top came together so quickly was that I never pinned a single thing.  Really the only time you would need to pin is at the end when you are joining the blocks.  Even without pinning I am pretty happy with how everything lined up.  (We have had overcast skies since yesterday, which is when I finished the top.  However, I was too excited to wait for a sunny day for pictures, so hopefully you'll forgive me for these less than stellar photos.) 
 

As much as I really want to dive in and start quilting this top, I know I need to piece my baby boy's quilt first.  So this quilt top will just have to join the queue of tops that are waiting for quilting. 

Quilt Top Stats:
Fabric: Katy Jones' Blogger's Choice Bundle for the Fat Quarter Shop (click on link above to see the names of the fabrics included in the bundle) + 5 fat quarters I pulled from my stash 
Pattern: Replica of an antique quilt my sister owns... I don't know if there is a name for this pattern....
Dimensions: 54" x 72" 
Started quilt top: August 8th, 2013
Finished quilt top: August 21st, 2013

-V

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the accidental quilt top....

I didn't set out to make this quilt top....

Originally my plan was to take the scraps left over from my Starry Christmas quilt, sew them all into strips, cut the strips to 6.5" tall & 70" long and use them on the back of that quilt.  I didn't calculate anything out, I just started sewing scraps together, figuring that I'd maybe be able to make 2 or 3 rows of strips.  Well, it turned out that I had more scraps than I thought!  Not only did I have enough scraps to sew 10 rows of strips, I ended up having a giveaway for the rest of the scraps!  In fact the entire "back" could have been strips sewn together, had I wanted to keep piecing them.  Instead, I decided to use some grey fabric from my LQS to separate the pieced strips with rows of grey.  Once I did that, I realized this quilt "back" might as well be used as a quilt top rather than making it "share time" with the Starry Christmas quilt.  I also thought about using the grey fabric as a border, but decided I preferred the look without the border.  It's kind of like a coin quilt, only the coins are giant and all different sizes!  Haha.

The quilt measures 69" x 83" after being squared it up.  Random dimensions, I know, but again, this was supposed to be the back.  The only drawback of calling this a quilt top is that it brings my total to 3 quilt tops that need a backing & need to be quilted!  And I have 2 more quilts I want to start on very soon!  I think those 3 quilt tops might just have to wait a little longer to be finished....

-V

Linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday.  
Linking up to Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday. 
Linking up to Finish It Up Friday.
Linking up to Confessions Of A Fabric Addict.
Linking up to Richard & Tanya Quilts.