Yippee I've Finished a Quilt!

Emma's quilt was finished (just!) before Christmas, but as it was a present I couldn’t do the grand reveal on the blog until after she’d unwrapped it again. I realise that it's unlikely that a 7 month old is reading my blog, but you can never be too careful.

It was Emma's first Christmas so I wanted to give her something special that she could keep. I think she liked it, actually her favourite bit was when I wafted her with it (we're odd). Here she is snuggling - what a cutie. 

 

I’d shown you the initial quilting before when I’d first decided to go for a zig-zag but before I'd infilled. Oh why did I ever think that the ziz-zag was a good idea? It pushed Mum’s old Frister Rossman and my sanity to the limits. As soon as I turned any corners, the thread would start looping at the back. So annoying. It was worth the challenge though because the quilting really adds to the impact of the design, bringing out the chevrons.

Here's the quilt from the back. I am in love with the gorgeous backing fabric and binding.

 

I hope it will bring Emma many years of cuddles and warmth.

Getting Quilty!

I have made a start on quilting Emma's Cot Quilt. I decided to quilt the chevrons to start, but wasn't sure what to do next - I originally thought I'd stitch in all the ditches. Then I thought to myself, why not sew an extra line offset from the first? That's where I'm at now.

I really like how it's looking. I haven't finished though. My plan now is to keep sewing offset lines, but only on the lighter coloured chevrons. That way the brighter chevrons should stick out (as they aren't quilted) from the lighter chevrons (which are).

That's the plan!

Half Square Triangle Layouts

I've finally finished trimming my half square triangles (hst), so I'm ready to start sewing them together. Yay! I've spent most of this afternoon trying a few different layouts in my design space (aka the lounge floor). Each hst is made up of one 'dark' and one 'light' fabric, unfortunately I think my fabric choices were a bit too similar so it lacks a bit of contrast! When I started these blocks I had in mind that I'd do chevrons. First I tried keeping the chevrons the same fabric right across the quilt. It looks quite nice in this photo, but just didn't really work in real life. Too bold.

Then I tried pairing the 'dark' fabrics, so the blues together, the pinks together, the greens together. This didn't work as I didn't have a pair for all the fabrics. Hmm.

I then gave up on the hst idea and tried pinwheels. I wasn't happy with this either. It looks too confused, again because the contrast between the 'dark' and 'light' fabrics isn't bold enough.

 

I then had one more go with the chevrons, using a random layout of all the 'darks' and all the 'lights' for each chevron. I think I'm happiest with this pattern, what do you think?

 

 

I think I've learnt a lesson here from this quilt - contrast, contrast, contrast! I'm not giving up though, I will carefully choose a binding fabric and hopefully that will make the colours in the final quilt really pop.