Falling for a Puff Quilt

 
Fall is soon over us, with low sunrays and falling leaves, but nature gave us a few summery days with temperatures crawling over 20 degrees C. Perfect for taking the Puff Quilt outside for a photo session.

This is the first puff quilt I have made, and it was an interesting and fun process. It is made for a newborn baby girl, with lots of colorful and interesting puffs. The quilt is now gifted, so I can show you the finished project.

The quilt consists of 10 x 10 puffs, all made from fabrics from my stash. The intention was to make lots of focal points in the quilt, and at the same time get a very soft playmat. I raided my scrap bins for colorful, fun prints. 

 

Here you can see the gorgeous soft puffs in and angle. In addition to the puffs filled with PolyFil I added two layers of cotton batting in the quilt sandwich.

The backing is perfect for this quilt with a cute couple of teddy bears having picnic.

I was contemplating to hand-tie this quilt, but since it would probably be washed often, I settled on machine quilting in the ditch between puffs. I also added a fun striped binging in pink and grey.

The finished quilt measures  approximately 32" square.

 

Keep on  quilting!

 

 

 

 

Baby Quilt For A Very Special Girl

Finally I can show this quilt here after the baby girl is born and the quilt has been gifted!

The design is called 'Crossing Canoes', and I was fortunate enough to be able to cut out the block pieces with my Accuquilt cutter. 

25 'Crossed Canoes' blocks  makes up a quilt of 44" square, before wash and dry cycle. It is quilted by myself in a heart and loops FMQ design.  

The quilt back is very interesting, it is pieced by 11 different pieces of  'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' fabric. This quilt back may be even more popular than the front for the little baby girl!  

 

Last Quilt in 2024

 

My last quilt finish for 2024 is this cute one with tiny cars in a checkerboard design. I added a blue border which completed the quilt to a 39" square size, perfect for a small child.

A quilt finished in December must be photographed in the snow! A scrappy binding gives a nice touch to the quilt.

The backing is a fun and colorful clown print. The quilt is freemotion quilted by myself on my domestic sewing machine .

This is my sixth charity quilt for the year 2024, and number 111 all time for the children's ward at the hospital.

Keep on quilting!

Orphan blocks

 

 Last fall I made the four blocks in the Soulalong hosted by @mija.handmade. In addition to Mija's block, the three other designers were @lovesewmodern, @prairiequiltco and @corinne.sovey .

The blocks were put aside since I didn't have a project to use them in. But this year I was in need to make a baby quilt since my niece was expecting a baby girl in Septemer. I framed the blocks with a multicolored fabric from my stash. The bolden twigs in the fabric celebrate the newborn girl.

 

The backing is filled with cute bear cubs. Crosshatch quilting two inches apart and a double layer of cotton batting gives the quilt extra volume. Quilt size before wash and dry cycle was 40".

 The last picture shows the quilt after a wash&dry cycle. It really gave the quilt an extra poof and a cuddly feel. The crosshatch quilting with Aurifil thread Dove fits the design well, and the icing on the cake is the binding Duck Dance from RJR Fabrics with lots of tiny ducks.

Keep on quilting!

Caterpillar Kawandi

 A lady in my quilt guild had made a "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" quilt for one of her children a few years ago, and she ended up with quite an amount of remnants. Her kids have grown up and are not interested in caterpillars anymore, so she gave the fabrics to me for making a charity quilt to the hospital. 

The character from the well known book by Eric Carle is cherished by children worldwide.

There were a lot of fabrics in the collection with caterpillars, different types of food with holes, cutouts of holes, bright stripes, and stars. I gathered lots of novelty fabrics with animals and birds and other prints that a small child would recognize. I decided to make a Kawandi quilt, because that is the softest  and most cuddly quilt for a little kid.

I had a piece of grey gingham flannel that decided the size of the quilt.

 

Making a Kawandi quilt is the most relaxing and rewarding process I know. You start arranging the fabric from the outside working your way towards the middle. Everything is hand sewn with big stitches, I used a soft crochet thread for the hand quilting.

The quilt is so soft and cuddly! The finished size is approximately 38" x 40", perfect for a baby/small child.

This is my eleventh charity quilt for the year 2023, and number 103 all time for the children's ward at the hospital. 

Keep on quilting!

 

Golden Savannah

 On my latest quilt guild meeting I managed to get three quilt panels for free, and I knew they would be perfect for a charity quilt. Giraffes and zebras are walking on the Savannah in Africa.

Below is a detailed picture of two of the panels.

I had an idea of the quilt design ready very fast, and when a lady in my quilt guild donated this backing fabric it was 100% clear.

 

This is the resulting quilt. I kept the width of the panels, because you don't always need to cut up fabric into small pieces to make a quilt.

The warm yellow of the backing is represented in the solid yellow strips which divides the panels from the warm fall foliage. 

The black strip and the leafy border frames the quilt in a nice way.

I named the quilt Golden Savannah, where the zebras and giraffes are running wild.

Straight line quilting with the walking foot made a nice an quick finish. The binding was constructed from odd 2.5" strips of matching colors.

The finished quilt is approximately 32" x 40", a good looking, golden baby quilt.

 

This is my tenth charity quilt for the year 2023, and number 102 all time for the children's ward at the hospital. 

Keep on quilting!

 

 

 

 

Elroy Quilt

 Earlier this year I was lucky to be chosen for pattern testing of the Elroy Quilt by Megan of Modern Moon Quilt Studio. I chose to make only four blocks which is perfect for a baby quilt. The simple reason for this was that my nephew and his wife were expecting a baby boy. Now the baby is here and I have sent the quilt to the new owner.

The pattern is a modern geometric design. I used batiks from Island Batik for the front. I love the bright and bold colors!

I quilted it with FMQ in a flame design on my domestic sewing machine using variegated Aurifil thread in color #4652.
 

 The backing is a fun print with birds and leaves, called Birchtree Lane from Connecting Threads. It is a great fabric for the baby boy to focus on when he gets a little bit older.

The quilt went through a wash/dryer cycle which made it nice and cuddly. Perfect for a newborn baby boy!

Keep quilting!

The Missing U

 A new month and a new charity quilt. This time a very colorful one. I made my own version of The quilt The Missing U by Cheryl Arkinson from the book Sunday Morning Quilts, co-authored with Amanda Jean Nyberg.

 I took a deep dive in my scrap bins and made nine blocks of each color slab, the blocks finished at 12". Added narrow white sashing and dark blue corner stones.

The individual blocks were quilted with walking foot in matching Aurifil threads, and the sashing was hand quilted with big stitches in a white cotton crochet thread.

 The quilt finished at 38" square. Backing is a a cute Disney Princess fabric. Striped binding for the win!

 A detail picture of the quilting.

This is my fourth charity quilt for the year 2023, and number 96 all time for the children's ward at the hospital. 

 

Cars Quilt

 

The sewing and quilting year started with this small children's quilt for the hospital. The starting point was the Disney Cars fabric that I cut into blocks, and then I added blocks in a dark red solid and a red gingham.

The backing is a red flannel with multicolored stripes. The blue binding completed the quilt. Finished size is 36" x 42".

 

This is my first charity quilt for the year 2023, and number 93 all time for the children's ward at the hospital.

Keep on quilting!

 

 

Kawandi Quilt

 

Kawandi quilts seem to be one of the hottest projects around these days. I jumped on this wagon and made a charity quilt for the children's ward at my local hospital.

There are lots of interesting fabrics in this quilt, colorful prints with animals and many recognizable objects. This will be perfect for a little child.

Kawandi quilts are 100% handsewn and are sewn from the outside in. The first row of the project with fabric pieces of different sizes. 

The starting point of this quilt was the softest  piece of a flannel backing from my stash. With a thin cotton backing I started stitching.

A detailed picture of the process. Since you sew through three layers, the project is being quilted as you go (QAYG). I used a white cotton crochet yarn for the big stitching.

I made a little test project first of 6"x9" to get acquainted with the technique.

My big Kawandi quilt measures 28"x41" and is the softest and most cuddly quilt I have ever made! It is the most relaxing and rewarding quilting technique I have ever tried.

This is my twelfth charity quilt for the year 2022, and number 91 all time for the children's ward at the hospital.

Keep on quilting!

 

Scrappy Strings

 

 

 Making quilts implies that there will be leftover fabrics. Colorful strings make interesting new scrappy masterpieces.

For this quilt I dug into my bins for novelty prints and bright fabrics. Each string block was 6.5" unfinished.

I added a grey border around the blocks, assembled some frankenbatting and pieced a backing from duvet covers.

I decided it was time for some FMQ practice, this time swirls in silver colored thread. To finish it off I pieced together leftover binding pieces from other projects. Finished size for this baby quilt is 40" squared.

The backing consists of a flannel duvet cover I have used on several projects, plus an added strip to make it big enough. This is a cozy and warm backing.

This is my tenth charity quilt for the year 2022, and number 89 all time for the children's ward at the hospital.

Keep on quilting!

 

 

 

Morning Star

 

 My latest finish is this baby quilt for a little girl. Amy Smart of @diaryofaquilter designed this, and the tutorial can be found on her blog.

Finished size is 40" square. A colorful, scrappy quilt.

Keep on quilting!

 

Baby Quilt

We've had lots of snow this winter, but finally there was a bright day to show off the latest baby quilt on the wall of my deck.

 This quilt is destined for a little baby girl. I searched my stash for good looking fussy cuts, and here I have assembled 16 of them cut to 2.5" squares. Solid frames in bright colors were added around the animals and teddy bears, and in the end the frames were surrounded with a soft flannel fabric.

 The main quilting was done with the walking foot, a fancy zig-zag and straight lines. The backing is a cute double gauze with lots of bunnies.

 

 There are many recognizable animals and other objects in the squares. I also added some hand quilting around the fussy cuts.

 Fussy cuts are fun, what about a zebra in a suit?

All fabrics in this quilt is from my stash and scraps, that's a win-win situation.

Keep on quilting!

Snoopy Among the Cacti

This is my latest charity quilt; a fast make using a tutorial from Just Get it Done Quilts. A cute print with Snoopy among the cacti is the focal fabric for the quilt measuring 40" square. The backing is perfect for the quilt.

This is my fourteenth charity quilt for the year 2021, and number 78 all time for the children's ward at the hospital.

Keep on quilting!