I Spy a Couple of Baby Quilts

I fell in love with the idea of "I-spy" (or "eye-spy"?) quilts several years ago, but my daughters were two big for this kind of games by the time, so I just admired the various interpretations on Pinterest. Now I have two little nieces (on different sides of the family), and I just had to make this play-quilts for both of them.

The problem was that I don't normally use novelty fabrics in my quilt art, but I needed quite a lot of them to make the idea work. So, I rounded up whatever remnants I had from previous kids' projects and then started to buy fat quaters of this or that until I had about 42 non-repeating things to name. There I had to stop collecting and start working before the girls grow too big - they are turning two, which is the perfect age to start naming pictures and looking for them.

My novelty fabrics were cut into 5'' squares (some of them came from a charm pack) and, obviously, I had to add something to bring the quilts to about lap size. I chose a Fossil Fern layer cake and some white to tie the whole riot of colours together. I chose two simple traditional patterns - square in a square and Irish chain, to make it quick, but not too repetitive.

The first one I had to finish very fast, because a friend was flying to Moscow and could take it with her (which is much safer than posting), so I don't even have good photos of it. I quilted it in loose zigzags on the diagonal, which worked great, as I was able to the quilting in less than a day.

The 60" backing was a godsend too, as I didn't need to piece anything, and it made a perfect binding, too.

I even inserted my new label (I know my niece couldn't care less, but it just fitted in ;)) I just realised haven't shown the labels here on the blog, so I'll make a little post about them.

With the second quilt I wasn't in that much hurry, as my second niece is just 15 minutes' walk away from me, and the quilt can wait till Christmas, but I still finished it while I was on the same wavelength. This one is Irish chain for my Irish niece.

I was able to use up the offcuts of the Fossil Fern fabrics for the squares and more white for the background, and I ended up with some extra blocks that I put together into a little cushion.

This one was quilted in "orange peel" grid, and this is the first time I ever quilted a pre-marked grid, as I normally do it freehand.

And I was also able to have proper photo session, with the cat helping along as best he could.

Same fun backing/binding fabric, and a label, too.

Linking up to Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina Marie

Can I get a Whoop Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Baby Butterflies

I was very good this summer and got out several UFO projects to turn into baby quilts. Here is a glimpse of my design wall at the peak of activity:

The blue and white had been packed away as a top for about four years, now it's finished and donated to a charity (Heart Children Ireland). I didn't even take photos of it finished, but I really like it.

The buttefly blocks for a long time were my go-to samples for the curve piecing workshop, the orange one features in the curve-piecing tutorial here on the blog. Now the time has come to put them to good use, so I made them into another baby quilt (just in time for a little baby girl born last week).

I used some of the butterfly fabrics to make an improv curve-pieced border (as the corner blocks have actually also been used for a workshop demo).

 As I like bed quilts to be soft, I did very little quilting, a couple of lines in the wings in matching threads...

... and overall loops with tiny stylised butterflies in white.

(Not sure you can actually see the quilting as everything is so bright and busy)