Two Baby Quilts

Last Weekend we visited our friends Björn and Sandra with their kids Justus and Iris at their new built house in Wesel. They were really good hosts (as always). We ate way too much pizza and played games until long into the night (as always). Several of our friends have bought or even built houses recently. We liked Björns and Sandras best so far. The proportions and dimensions of the rooms were very thought-out. Moreover the house was built with materials and techniques that it uses only about 70% of the energy a conventionally built house needs.

In contrast to my previous post I like to sew baby quilts as long as I can give them away. I have not written about it yet but I have been queen bee for sew.quilt.give in august. Due to customs duty I have to wait quite a long time for the blocks to arrive. Since patience is not one of my stronger streaks I decided to make baby quilts for Justus and Iris using the same pineapple log cabin block tutorial as for the quilting bee.

I used mostly scraps from other projects. 

Quilt for Iris

Quilt for Justus

I was in a hurry and thus opted for straight line quilting. I like the way it turned out.

Placemats

As you might know I'm currently working on my first quilt. The problem with a project such as this is that it requires the use of several techniques otherwise not needed.

So I searched the internet for tutorials and found many. Almost all of them suggested to make sample pieces to practice the particular technique. 

Well, I don't like to make something without a use but to practice (or decorate for that matter) so I went looking for alternatives. I found a lot of mini-quilts (-> decoration problem) or baby-quilts (-> too much work for something that might not turn out well) until I stumbled upon quilted placemats. They were perfect for my purpose: small enough to avoid too much work, large enough to practice techiques and with a proper use!

Ever since I bought Elizabeth Hartman's book "The Practical Guide to Patchwork" the "Batch of Brownies" pattern had caught my eye. I figured that it would be easy to adopt the size of the blocks to make a placemat (and it was; just keep the seam allowances in mind that you have to add for every cut made).

I had already "Kitchen Stories" by Hoodie in my stack, one of those fabrics bought for the looks without any purpose in mind. I combined it with a curry solid I cannot remember the name of.

So this was the first project I used following techniques:

• making a quilt sandwich
• straight-line quilting
• FMQ (free-motion quilting)
• binding a quilt (I still have to practice the corners, they did not turn out well)

All in all it was a good project for practice an now we have some new placemats.
Actually I made these a few weeks ago and by now I have quilted my Quilt N°1:

 And now I have to use my placemats for the first time. I'm starving!

Yay

Sewing for birthdays II

How does it happen that nearly all birthdays in our families accumulate in two months?

Tino's sister Maike also has her birthday in august. Her colours are rose and brown and she loves Paris. Hence the new Paris fabric by Westfalenstoffe was just the perfect choice for her. I added two other fabrics in rose and brown also by Westfalenstoffe of the classic line. This line is produced for over 75 years and it still has a modern feel to it (e.g. compare it to summerville).

For the pattern I modified this fabulous lunch-bag-pattern by wonderful Ayumi of Pink Penguin. 

I will not re-write this tutorial but I can say a few words about the modifications I made. First of all I started with larger rectangles around 12"x16" (30cm x 40cm) and adjusted the other sizes accordingly. 

For the handles I made 4 fabric strips the same way as for handles in the tutorial by Ayumi. I also made them long enough to be also fastened at the bottom of the rim (I figured that would make them more stable). It's a bit awkward to sew with the wooden handle connected to the rim. You have to do a lot of adjusting and pushing of the fabric. In most steps a zipper foot is very helpfull.

 Tino bought Maike two fluffy toy guinea pigs by Steiff. Don't they look adorable?