Fussy Cut Doll Quilt

My little girl turned three today. We had a lovely day with some of our closest friends, lots of strawberries and homemade sushi for tea. And cake :o)

The doll quilt I made for her new doll was very well received - it's made using fussy cut pictures from Heather Ross's Nursery Versery, and a bunch of other 'background' fabrics (Oakshott cottons, some other HR prints and a few others). I ended up paper piecing the blocks to make it easier to keep the fussy cut pictures in the middle of the blocks - and to avoid too many bias edges. It's simply quilted in the ditch along the diagonals to keep it soft.

The back is the same fabric as the pillow (also from Nursery Versery) and the binding is a fabulous stripe I picked up from Sew Me a Song a while ago. It fits my mum's old doll bed perfectly - and looks right at home at the end of my wee one's toddler bed :o)

Apologies for the night time photo!

If any one is interested I might write up a little tutorial and share the templates?

Oh, you can also catch me rambling about my Bernina 440QE over on Rebecca's blog ;o)
xx Jess

WIP Wednesday - A Children at Play Week!

I had a major finish this week - my first bigger-than-a-baby-quilt (its about 80" square) and I'm really proud of it! You can check out my blog post for it here.

Once I'd finished that one, I started cutting into my Children at Play by Sarah Jane. I have been busting to get into these fabrics for a few months - but other projects seemed to take priority somehow, and I was trying to decide what to make with them (I got a bit over-enthusiastic and ordered nearly every print in the girl' Children at Play range, as well as quite a few of the 'boy' ones - they are Just. So. Cute). After having heaps of fun with my wonky log cabins for my Autumn Forest quilt I thought I'd keep a good thing going and make some more - well, lots more...

So this week I've made three doll quilt tops, each around 21" square (ish):

And a whole bunch of blocks destined to become a big quilt. The size of these varies a LOT, so they'll all have a white set of logs around the edge before I join them together...

The light pink behind them is my new design wall :-) - although when I went to get felt to do it, the only colour choices were black or light pink, so I went with pink... which makes some of the edges of these blocks disappear (its nearly exactly the same shade of pink).

I'm also going to make a matching pillow case for the quilt, and some tiny doll pillows to go with the doll quilts. I think I'll be well and truly sick of pink by the time I finish these (not my favorite colour! I am so hoping my daughter grow up to love blue and green like I do...)

Other long term WIPs:

1. Excuse the TERRIBLE photo - this is my 1001 Peeps quilt top which is finished (took a LONG time to get this one done - I worked on it very sporadically). I'm just trying to decide how to quilt it - possibly FMQ some largish stars, and then echo quilt around them.... not sure though (ideas would be appreciated :) )

2. Pop garden baby quilt - this has been sitting in my UFO pile for ages. I should probably finish it as its small and will be a quick finish.

3. Fandango baby quilt - when I pulled this one out to photograph it I fell in love with it again, so I might actually get it finished sometime soon as well... excuse the extreme wrinkling, for some reason I had literally shoved it in a bag?!

I am also intending to do the Charmed Prints quilt along (still trying to decide on what fabrics to use) and I am also going to start the Modern BOM over at Sew mama sew - possibly using some my Echo I got last week (SO in love with that fabric!!)

This weeks stats:

Finished: 1!
New Projects: 4? although 3 are doll quilts which are nearly done so not sure they count...
Currently in progress: 4 (7 counting doll quilts)
Wanting-to-start-but-not-enough-time stage: 2

happy sewing!
Jess

1001 Peeps Doll Quilt

I have been slowly (very slowly) working on a quilt for my daughter using 1001 Peeps by Lizzy House, with Kate Conklin's Fussy Framed Fairytales quilt pattern. I started and finished about four quilts after starting it, but have begun again and am determined to finish it before I start anything else!

I had a few big scraps left over from the fabric and when I saw the doll quilt contest on SewMamaSew, I thought these would be perfect for a doll quilt. I had just received my copy of Block Party (another story all together - but how much inspiration can one book hold? I LOVE it!!) and I was desperate to give a scrappy log cabin block a go - and how much fun is improv piecing? I'm addicted! So Zoe now has a completed doll quilt (but no big quilt...) and I really love it (she does too :) )

I was going to make a few blocks and join them, but got carried away - this is about 20" square.

I had so much fun quilting this - I've decided doll quilts are the perfect way to be a bit more experimental with my quilting - its so much easier to move the quilt around (and doesn't require scrunching metres of quilt up to fit it in!). I quilted this using a variegated pink/purple thread, and spiralled outward from the centre square. I love how it looks, and I'll be attempting it on my big wonky log cabin quilt I am planning...

I'm hoping to have some WIP pics of the big 1001 Peeps quilt up soon (I am really in a purple place with fabric at the moment!)

happy stitching,
Jess