Pink and Gray Baby Quilt

Recently a return customer asked for a pink and gray baby quilt. I love wearing pink and gray but had never made a quilt with this combination.

I was lucky to find this adorable pink, gray and white fabric with animal babies and their moms at Seacoast Sewing and Quilting in Biddeford, Maine. I picked the remaining fabrics to coordinate with the print.

Hand quilting done:

• Outlined the larger animals
• 1/4" lines outside each seam
• Stitched through the checker boxes

Finishing a Quilt -- Delectable Mountain Quilt

Center of quilt

This lovely quilt arrived as a partially finished top with extra fabric, directions, a template, and the finished size desired.

To achieve the size, I needed to make and add 6 strips of the delectable mountain rows before the plain white borders.  Considering different machines and people made this top, the assembly went smoothly.

I picked a soft pink double wide backing fabric so there would be no seam.

Hand Quilting:

• White thread used on 1/4" echo around each white mountain.
• Pink thread used for 1/4" echo around each pink mountain, four feathered hearts in the white center, a heart in each small white square, a large feathered motif in the four corners and a continuous swirl around the border.
• 42 hours of hand quilting

Binding:

• Made a double binding starting with 3" wide medium pink fabric ironed in half.

Side view

And with the Hand Quilting...

Pink and yellow appliqued 1930's butterflies with hand quilting

Baby quilting from earlier post completed.
Hand quilting included one echo line, using matching thread, inside and outside each butterfly and 2" cross hatching in each plain square.
Binded with matching yellow fabric.

Vintage buttons

My trusty 1980 sewing machine and buttons to sort.

This is about one-third of the buttons I needed to sort.

While in NY I visited a well organized and lovely estate sale. I am always looking for vintage sewing supplies, fabric, buttons, lace, thread -- really anything to do with sewing or quilting.  So I was thrilled to find a bag of buttons.

Most of the buttons I use for projects or sell at my booth at Antiques USA in Arundel, Maine.

2015 Annual Genesee Valley QuiltFest

June 5, 2015

Each time I visit Rochester NY there seems to be quilt related events to check out:  interesting quilt shops, quilt shop hops.  This visit I was fortunate to attend the Annual Genesee Valley QuiltFest at RIT. So many beautiful, well made vintage, new, pieced, appliqued, and art quilts.  It took us 4 hours to see all the quilts and visit all the vendors.

Applique butterfly baby quilt

 Sandwiching baby quilt

Pattern:

In my continuing search for vintage quilt patterns and applique pieces, I find interesting design and color choice inspiration for quilts.

I made a plastic template from a vintage fabric butterfly I had found years ago.

Sandwiching

My sandwiching method includes: washing and drying the hard wood floor; taping the backing fabric to the floor; smoothing the batting on the backing fabric; smoothing the quilt top and safety pinning in place.

Quilting Plan:

Hand quilting with matching thread

Butterflies:  outline and 1/4" echo in muslin, 1/4" inside the butterfly

Yellow squares:  2" crosshatching in yellow thread

Border:  2" piano keys around quilt

Craft of the week - Clothes pin bag

I have always enjoyed hanging my laundry outside to dry.  After my last clothespin bag could no longer be used,  I couldn't find a sturdy one locally.  

I made this one with a plate mounted rope hook, 4 recycled buttons, a heavy cotton/linen dish towel and some quilting thread.

Vintage Amish Wool Wall Hanging

Adding quilting lines

Vintage Unfinished Project

When I received this project, it was sandwiched with a lovely vintage beige cotton backing, soft batting  and the heart quilting lines marked with one third quilted.  The rest of the project was not marked for quilting. 

Deciding on the type of additional quilting to add.

I added feathered scrolls to the large open spaces and cross hatching to the black inside border.  I repeated that design element into the empty pink area.  One inch cross hatching inside the feathered heart and two inch cross hatching outside the heart.

Quilting and finishing

Hand quilting done with black thread throughout.  This is traditional for Amish projects of this time.

Binding done with black wool.  Front of double binding sewn by machine with the back sewed by hand.  

A sleeve was made from the excess vintage cotton backing.  One edge sewn into the top of binding and bottom hand sewn in place.

Wool

Don't let wool intimidate!  This was my first wool project and it was a joy to work.  It was soft and quite easy to manipulate.  I would welcome another wool project!

Off to its home

This project is back to its owner in Scarborough, Maine.

Completed with black wool binding and sleeve

Wall hanging with echo quilting

 Wall hanging in process

One of my favorite customers mailed me this small top to quilt.  She often requests that 'I do my thing' with the quilting design.  Both of us love echo quilting so I include echo quilting lines in most of her projects.

As with all my projects, I start quilting in the center of the piece.  I outlined the women and their dresses in matching colored thread.  The square surrounding them is quilted with matching gold, black and tan thread using the fabric designs to determine the quilting lines.   

The echo quilting was done in the beige crescents. using beige thread and in the rust and black fabrics next to the crescents.

Using thread to match the fabrics gives the illusion of movement in the piece without the distraction of another color in the thread.

This project was sent back to its owner for binding.