Baby quilts

Welcome!  It has been a while since I wrote a blog post, I've been on a bit of a mission to try to finish lots of my WIPs.  I've made some progress, so watch out for future posts about my Fancy Forest quilt, Community Sampler, birthday stitchers swap and more...

I've also finished a couple of baby quilts recently, including another blue and grey HST quilt. I've made a number of HST baby quilts in the past, so decided to shake it up a bit this time with a different arrangement plus I added a sandy brown colour too (from Observer by April Rhodes for Art Gallery fabrics).  

Most of the fabrics that I used were from Saira at Olive and Flo Handcraft and included Add it up (Shibori) by Cotton and Steel, Nightfall by Maureen Cracknell, Observer by April Rhodes and Blithe by Katarina Roccella.  

Saira has a section on her website for quilt backing fabrics - the perfect place to find interesting prints at low prices - I chose one of Sharon Holland's Tapestry fabrics called Mudcloth.  

 Finally, I used Shale waving grass by Elizabeth Hartmann for the binding.  

A HST baby quilt like this is such a quick and satisfying project.  I like to use the 8 at a time method for sewing my HSTs, which is so fast and you have the 64 triangles you need in no time.  I use my Bloc Loc ruler to trim the HSTs, a tedious job but so worth the effort!  I use 50wt Aurifil thread both for the piecing and the quilting.  

The second baby quilt I made is for a little girl that arrived yesterday.  I love having an opportunity to sew for girls (my boys have a quilt each but don't really see the need for me to make them anything else!) and I had my eye on a pattern by Bonnie Hunter called Patches and Pinwheels.  Jennifer Chon made a version of this pattern for Lecien fabrics in 2016 to showcase the Retro 30s Child Smile fabrics and I just love how it looks like spinning windmills.  I still have a pretty large stash of Lecien fabrics from making my Happy Flower quilt, so decided to use them to make a similar quilt to Jennifer.  

Despite it looking like the blocks are set on-point, its actually a very simple design - horizontal rows of alternating 16 patches and pinwheels.  I got a bit carried away strip piecing fabric to make my 16 patches, so I'll have to make a second quilt to use up my piles of spare blocks! 

I thought I would try my hand at matchstick straight line quilting (well maybe not matchstick, but much denser than I would usually use).  A baby quilt is the perfect place to practice, although I'm not sure I'd have the patience to quilt a full size quilt like this!  My walking foot came with a sewing guide - although it is completely useless because it seems to be positioned in the wrong place.  I fashioned my own using a paperclip and a bit of washi tape - worked a treat! 

So that's it for the baby quilts.  Now back to a much larger project - my Fancy Forest quilt.  Each quadrant is bigger than these quilts, I'm slightly dreading the final assembly, not to mention attempting to quilt the thing...