Baby quilts, Christmas quilts and a little bit of Kokka

Hi peeps

You know it turns out I don't, on the grand scheme of things, blog very often. I think 2 to 3 times a month for me works out well - on that time line I've got things to show and I don't feel like it's a chore, because lets face it if it becomes a chore it just won't happen in this house.

This is a fairly photo heavy post, I've got some finishes to show! 

All of the pics have been taken with my iPhone because once I got all motivated to take them I couldn't find my camera (Him in doors if you read this from work please text and tell me where I left it!) And they aren't even taken on a super duper 4s because my network are rubbish and have told me my upgrade will get here by the 26th (I'm hoping sods law kicks in here and now that I've whinged in public about it that the upgrade turns up tomorrow!) 

Anyhoo after spending what now feels like months sitting on my butt with eyes pointed at the MANY crime dramas that Universal channel supply on a daily basis (Yes even the repeated ones, you never know I might have missed something the 1st time round!) I dragged myself into the sewing room of doom.

Quilt tops that had languished un-quilted, piles upon piles of fabric ready to be sewn into blocks, half sewn blocks - the whole lot descended on me at once...I was scared...Very scared, in fact I had to go and have a bar of chocolate to calm my nerves.

Once I returned armed with chocolate and coffee (no wine as I'm still on antibiotics :( ) I started sewing up a storm, I may even have terrorised the poor quilts into submission.

You may remember a while back I discovered photo apps on my phone, well due to the rubbish light in the northern hemisphere and my unwillingness to leave the house to find better light they have come in quite useful :) I will at some point when the sun bothers to shine take myself, Him in doors and the quilts for a walk and get some none played with photos for you ladies to have a look at if you like.

This guy was the first to get finished. All Joel Dewberry fabrics that I meandered the crap out of, just to see if I remembered how to! The binding is a Pat Bravo fabric but I don't have a clue what its called as it wasn't on the selvedge and my memory is rubbish. The quilt is 35"x43" and I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out.

Next in the parade of finished quilts is my giant quarter log cabin quilt, I've always wanted to try and make one of these blown up block quilts and this is a block I really do enjoy making.

As you can see I used some of the pre quilted backing I've got in a grey lilac colour and wanted to keep my quilting quite simple, so I ran about 1/4 of an inch off each side of the seams then echoed it once. It stopped the back looking too busy and let the top speak for its self. (Yes I do think quilts speak!)

Then I dug into my Christmas fabrics. I went with whole cloth pretty much over piecing them.

I meandered along the sides and followed the pattern across the middle.

This one had me swearing like a trooper, if my thread snapped once it snapped 40 times! I have no idea why but it was seriously annoying.

So those are my finished 4, easy and quick to do :)
My WIP that I'm about to share is proof that linen diamonds are NOT a girls best friend. People the linen fairies came out when I wasn't looking and stretched them making it totally impossible to get them to line up Grrr! Never mind though as I'm in love with the fabrics! My mum who I totally take after in this respect is for all intents and purposes rubbish at keeping Christmas gifts till Christmas. I regularly have had an early Christmas in October growing up and honestly I don't know who has more fun with it me or her! Anyway she bought me a LOAD of Echino FQ's!!!! I am Super duper happy!!!! (Hence my addiction to the exclamation mark) and had to make something for myself straight away, being fair here they were a Christmas gift so logically I needed to have made myself something before Christmas. Now those prints are big and when teamed up with Heather Ross's FFA2 I needed BIG blocks So off to Kaffe Fassett's books for inspiration I went, best to mention here I am genetically unable to follow a pattern without "tweaking" it. So Simple shapes held the answer, the bright colourful diamonds quilt grabbed my imagination and off I went chopping and changing and ending up with something that looks bugger all like Kaffe intended. I decided it wasn't wide enough so added columns
Side note a fly has just landed in my coffee, be back in a moment.
So columns yes, then I didn't like the look of the double sashing around each diamond so I scrapped it and only did one, I did it my way (theres a song in there somewhere) so that made getting them to line up harder and I still hadn't quite got the trick for sewing diamonds so I will leave it to your imagination how it looked at this point and how much seam ripping I did. Once the top was as done as I can ever face doing I started the basting only to discover that yes Sarah if you change the size of the top the backing needs to grow too *D'oh!* insert more swearing at the quilt (I'd be bankrupted if I'd had a swear jar in the room while making this!) So pieced backing it was. After all of that all the poor thing needs is it's binding put on but I think that'll take some messing with too as I went for funky corners :D
After all of that I really really like this quilt, heres a sneak peek at the top. All of the fabrics in the diamonds are from Kokka designers :D

And one of the back

 Linking this one up with Freshly Pieced w.i.p. Wednesday for the first time...like ever!

Once it's all done I promise I'll take proper photos.

As of right now some long awaited bee blocks are on my sewing table, I'm soooo behind, Sorry again girlies!

We are sewing machine shopping at the weekend so I'll let you know how that goes, any tips for can't be without freebies I should be asking the guys about?

Hope you're having a fun week and getting time to sew!