Conor's Quilt

I think I need to start actually naming my quilts and not just calling them after the person I gift them to, but I'm not starting today :) I made this quilt back in March/April time, for a little boy who just turned 3 last week! Conor loves all things farm, including tractors and has his own little one to 'drive' around just like his grandad.

When I saw Oink-A-Doodle-Moo by Jenn Ski, I knew it was the one for him. I bought my first ever layer cake, and set about sorting the fabrics and pairing them off.

I decided to sew them into giant HSTs, using the no-loss method.  One blender and one print to make up each one. Then layout deciding took a few days, and the whole of my bed.

Realising I want the blenders as diamonds, but feeling a bit messy.

Till I found the perfect one!

Paired blenders in each diamond, much more cohesive and still crazy colourful!

From this point the quilt was easy to sew together. And I had a lot of fun making the back. I used the end of the green Ikea sheet that has been in almost all of my first ten quilts, some leftover blocks (that ended up too small because the rotary cutter got carried away by itself - totally the rotary cutter's fault) and a lovely soft deep orange fabric.

Please excuse my jumper in the top right of these, running up and down
stairs was hot work!

Then came the marathon basting day, when we moved all the furniture in our dining room.

I've slowly been adding more and more quilting to my projects as I've along. I quilted all the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines on this one - with a line of stitching a ¼" on either side of the seams. It turned out so soft and beautiful to touch.

I bound it in a sort of denim blue solid, and then put it through the wash!

I don't think that if left to my own devices I would ever have put this amount of colours and prints and patterns into one quilt, but I love how this turned out. It feels to me like it's right on the edge of crazy, and exactly suited to an exuberant 3 year old.

This one's been really hard to keep under my hat for so long, so I'm really glad to send it out today. It was very cheerful to work on during the sometimes grey and dreary spring.

Hoping to be back again in a few more days, with yet another finished hidden quilt. Have a great weekend!!

Up the Dubs!

In some ways this post is perfectly timed, in most other ways it's long overdue!

A college friend of mine had her second boy this summer, a total dote. Not having been into quilting when her first boy arrived, I decided that I needed to celebrate Ciarán's arrival with quilts for both boys!

Ciarán, the newbie, actually surprised me by being a boy. I was convinced he'd be a girl and so after his arrival I set about making a quilt using Tsuru ...and old lace in both cerulean and indigo. Originally I was gung-ho about a whole cloth quilt in just the cerulean, but sitting on the couch one night I sketched out a quilt plan and knew it was the one!

I set about finding all the navy I had in my stash and used the white with pale blue polka dot cotton as my 'white' and backing!

I really love this quilt, which I think I might say about all my quilts. This one is the twin of the St Louis 16 Patch I shared in my last post.

They're both 36" square, and have the same polka dot blue backing, which is then doubled over and brought around as the binding.

I added an embroidered label to the back. Happily this whole quilt is made in the Dublin colours, and having a Dub for a Mammy I'm hoping this colour scheme is going to suit Ciarán down to the ground. He certainly picked an excellent summer to come along!

Which I've just realised is upside down in this picture :-o, but reads,
Made for Ciarán 2013 By AOH'

I plan to show you all Conor's quilt in the next couple of days!

I'd like to say sorry to anyone who wrote me a comment on the last post, this trip to Ireland has been more manic than I was expecting and the only decent computer here is refusing to recognise my USB stick. Right now, I'm bashing this out on an ancient desktop that has been here more than a decade and runs about as slow as a dead snail. I do plan to answer/send a couple of emails a day this week so hopefully I won't be so badly behind next Monday!

However, I am going to have a bit of a routine for the rest of this week so I should be able to start getting you all caught up on the finished projects I've been hoarding since Easter (there's not that many, just 3 more)! I'm even hoping to get the sewing machine out here so I can be making some things.

I'd been really looking forward to partaking in Selfish Sewing Week co-hosted over at Made with Moxie and Imagine Gnats. However, all my planned projects are in DC and I'm now staying in Ireland for a few more weeks where I can be a useful taxi service for a bit. I am still looking forward to browsing the linky, however, and gaining some selfish sewing inspiration for the future!!