Hourglass

I've been off the radar for a week or so.  Life seems to get busier and busier.  This last week has been the best sort of busy.  My Big Girl turned 7 last weekend so we celebrated with a birthday breakfast and an afternoon teaparty.  We also had the loveliest house guest staying - Caroline from North Carolina!  Her time with us was fabulous and I confess there were tears shed on her departure.

I've a finished quilt to share today -  completed before last week's epic week, but I've been lacking in time to post on here.

I present the Hourglass Quilt, made for a certain young Baby Oliver:

I am thrilled with how this one turned out.  The hourglass blocks had always appealed to me but I was very nervous of it being a complete disaster because of the triangles and points.  There is no doubt the cutting and sewing was a challenge but I am SO pleased with how it  looks now completed :-)

I especially like the back:

It is a red gingham by Makower with a strip of fabric from the Reunion line by Moda which  features in the hourglass blocks - the binding is also made in the same print.

The quilt sandwich was stippled - I can't get enough of stippling!!

Hoping to quilt my snowball quilt this week!

Bluebell Ripple

Another friend of mine has had a baby girl.  There is definitely something in the water around here - at least 5 babies have been born to various friends through the month of April!  This little one is the only girl in the batch and this ripple blanket is for her.  Crochet is great for a fast growing project and, although I probably prefer knitting, the former is just much quicker!

The baby's name is Bluebell which pairs perfectly with her older sister's name, Daisy.  I had completely different yarn selected until I saw some Debbie Bliss Rialto DK in the four shades above - most of them are shades of bluebell flowers!  I followed the Attic 24 ripple pattern, instead of the usual one I use, as I think it provides much softer peaks and troughs in the ripple. 

Experimentation

My hourglass quilt from my last post is into the finishing stages - all quilted with most of the binding attached.  Last week I managed another quilt - completely from start to finish.  It was a bit of an experiment in both piecing and quilting.

I had wanted to try a tumbler type quilt for sometime but had no recipient in mind, let alone fabric colour or design.  A good friend of mine had her fourth child a couple of weeks ago - a beautiful baby boy, which after three little girls is a bit of a novelty - so this quilt was made for him.

The fabrics are from the 'Reunion' line by Sweetwater which I have loved since I first cast eyes on it.  The colours are bright and, despite a few floral prints, quite boyish.  I used two charm packs but did not use all the prints - the floral prints were placed towards the edges of the quilt so aren't too obvious.  I think the overall look is quite masculine though.  Moda Bakeshop had a great tutorial for a tumbler quilt as written by Crazymomquilts.

The back of the quilt is one piece and is an adorable bunting print from the 'Reunion' line:

Sorry, the picture isn't the best!  The binding is also from the 'Reunion' range and is also featured in the quilt top.

And now my favourite part - my experimental quilting!  This was a bold move and entirely out of the comfort zone.  I tried stippling with some navy thread but it just didn't look right.  I bit the bullet and tried a sort of double loopy free-motion design:

It is nowhere near perfect but I absolutely LOVE it!  I've gained a little bit of confidence to try some more experimental quilting - could get addictive ;-)