Another Baby Quilt

It seems that a lot of my friends have been having babies of late so I've been kept quite busy! Not to mention the fact that I should probably make my own one at some point - due in 2 and a half weeks so rapidly running out of time!!

This quilt is made for Jean-Luc, baby son of my friends Sarah and Xavier. Sarah and I shared a flat in London when we were students. She knitted Sophia a beautiful blanket when she was born so it seemed apt to make Jean-Luc something handmade too.

The inspiration for this charm squares quilt can be found here. I really liked the idea of separating the 5" squares with the white fabric - a great way of making prints go further or using up scraps. The fabric itself is from a bundle I bought at Fabric Rehabjust before Christmas - I LOVE the vintage zoo print! The amusing thing is that completely by accident I have made this quilt in red, white and blue and baby Jean-Luc is half French!

I stippled the quilt top, which I love doing, and the binding is a scrappy one made from the fabric leftover after I cut out the charms. It was washed and dried and I am soooooo glad I put colourcatcher in the wash as the red fabric bleeding would have been a disaster!

Maggie's Quilt

Happy New Year

I love the start of a New Year - I get quite obsessed about organisation and cleaning, although this year I'm not sure how much of it is 'nesting'! I've lots of little projects I want to finish over the next few weeks pre-baby but am not sure how much I will achieve!

The pics are of the Christmas quilt I finished just before the old year was out. The quilt top was actually finished pre-Christmas but I didn't quite get round to the basting, quilting and binding. The fabric is from the discontinued Moda line 'Figgy Pudding' by Basic Grey. I used a Charm pack and framed each square I used with 2.5" strips cut from a dessert roll of the same line. The quilting is a bit wonky in places but I was desperately trying to finish the thing! Sophia had plenty of time to cwtch under it before returning to school yesterday.

Tree Skirt

Last year I sent my husband to buy a Christmas tree - he returned with a rather short offering which must only have been a metre high! This year, seeing that we moved house in March and the living room has a 10 foot ceiling, I decided to supervise the purchase. I am happy to report that I have a 7-8 foot spruce in the bay window! Also after years of refusing to buy a Christmas tree stand and subsequent years of innovative methods of housing trees, I gave in and bought a green metal stand.

Last week, while recovering from a nasty chest infection, I made a tree skirt to cover the stand and I am very pleased with the results. I adapted the tree skirt tutorial on the Crazy mom quilts blog. Instead of making log-cabin blocks I used a 'Crazy Eight' charm pack and arranged 6x6 charms. This was basted , backed and stippled before cutting an opening in the quilt sandwich. The skirt was then bound with a complimentary fabric and applied to the base of the tree. I really love it and am pleased that I've managed to complete one Christmas sewing fabric project. There are a few UFOs floating around - I think this year's Christmas quilt is going to be a New Year quilt seeing as the matching backing fabric I ordered has been stuck in the snow post for the last week ...

Christmas Baking

I am sort of snowed in...
We had snow on Friday and again yesterday - a bit of a surprise given our coastal location. During the previous snowfall at the end of November/beginning of December I think Swansea was pretty much the only green spot in the country! The snow itself wouldn't be a problem if I didn't live on a very steep hill (see pics in previous blog entry) and wasn't nearly 34 weeks pregnant! My husband gave me strict instructions not to leave the house yesterday and today - all the snow is frozen and quite hazardous! He had to park his car at the bottom of the hill so he would actually be able to get to work!!

We've been indulging in crafting and baking in our house instead. Last week I made a batch of peppermint cream dough and made Sophia's teacher some peppermint stars as a thank you gift. These were wrapped in cellophane and decorated with a handmade knitted stocking! The pattern can be found on the Little Cotton Rabbits blog.

Yesterday Sophia and I made a gingerbread house - I've made one every year since she was born! We still have a little bit more decorating work to finish - but that can be this afternoon's activity! I hope to try some Christmas shortbread and Rosie's chocolate star recipe too!

Snow Day!

More Wedding Quilt

Here are a few more snaps of my brother's wedding quilt shot with the Hipstamatic app on my iphone. I hope to post pics of more festive projects this coming week as well as Maggie's quilt- which I MUST take to the post office!