Diamond Quilt

Yay for another finished baby project!  I'm definitely in the nesting stage washing dozens of onesies, a bazillion baby socks, getting the nursery in order, and working frantically to make everything I want to for these two bundles of joy.

About six months ago I posted about the Zig Zag Quilt I had made.  Sure I intended to give it as a gift, but I just couldn't part with it.  I promise I tried!!  I even had my husband pick it up from the house one day and bring it to me when I thought we were going to see the lucky recipients.  He brought me the wrong quilt.  I think that was a sign.

Now that I have TWO babies on the way, I'm grateful I already had this one made so I could focus on making just one more and focus on the many other projects on my agenda.

Sister Quilts

I decided I didn't want to make the same quilt, but something complimentary to the Zig Zag Quilt.  So I started with some adorable polka dot and neutral alphabet fabrics.  I made the same amount of Half Square Triangles as the Zig Zag Quilt.  I then played around with the squares, coming up with half a dozen different designs.  It was difficult to choose a winner!

Eventually, after some Facebook votes I settled on this diamond design.  I'm happy with my decision and love how these two quilts go together.

I backed this one with cozy flannel, just as I did the Zig Zag Quilt.

For the quilting I stuck with the same idea of just quilting in the white squares.  After playing with a few quilting designs I decided to go with the double diamond.  I love the look on the front and back.

I tried something different with the quilting.  I wanted the thread to blend in on both sides, but I was quilting on white on top, and red on the bottom.  Yikes!  So I used red for my bobbin thread and white for my main thread.  I don't know why this has never occurred to me before!  I love how it worked out!

My ever faithful helper.

 Now on to baby dresses, afghans, receiving blankets....you get the picture.

Works in Progress - 11.21

Here's a little sneak peek at a quilt I'm working on.  It will be for one of my twin baby girls.  Several months ago I finished a Zig Zag Quilt in the same color scheme.  When I found out I was having twins I decided I wanted to make a complimentary quilt to go along with the Zig Zag.  You know, complimentary, but not the same.  It's all about making sure the twins have their own identity, right?

Now to find a flannel backing and put this puppy together!

Zig Zag Quilt

Finally a finished project!!  It feels like it's been forever!  It's a pretty dang cute one too, if I might say so.

The pattern is from Cluck Cluck Sew.  Love that site.  And I decided to go with the scrappy look.  I'm tempted to make me one of these with just polka dot patterns...

The little one wanted to get in on the action.

This is a fairly simple pattern to put together, and it's a great pay off.  I decided to quilt five lines in the white, following the zig zag pattern.  It made for a cute back!!  It was also pretty quick to quilt.  Of course all of the lines aren't perfectly straight, but you'd have to stare close to see that.  So, stop staring!!

I wanted this to be extra cozy as it's going to a little one so I backed it with flannel.  So snuggly!

Remember the start of this one.  This picture is a pile of the materials I started with.  I was playing with different patterns, hues, etc.  This one is going to a family who aren't finding out the gender of their baby so I to steer clear of flower patterns and anything too girlie. 

Gotta add my label!!

It will be hard to say good bye to this one, but hopefully they'll cherish is and their little babe will get plenty of play time on it!

Guest Post at Craftbotic

Hey all!  I'm guest posting at Craftbotic today about rag quilts.  Go on over and check out Rosie's great blog!

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Hi, my name is Rosie, and I am launching a new blog called 'Craftbotic' this weekend and am very pleased to be host to wonderful crafters like Brittney! 

I jumped at the chance at Brittney's offer to guest post on my new blog. I am thrilled to be her first ever one and know that people will adore her gorgeous rag quilts.  I share a few similarities with Brittney, we both have our men in different countries, we are both new to blogging and we both are going on a giant craft learning curve.  I think Brittney might be winning on the ability front, but it's all about the fun, right?!

So what else can you find apart from another super tutorial? Well, for the rest of March there will be a party themed link-up that will run for the next 3 weeks. Please come and link up your top outfits, nibbles, decorations, gifts and theme ideas....if it is about celebrating, it is very welcome.

I hope that you will enjoy your time at Craftbotic. Join me on my journey into a wide range of new crafts, join in my book club, laugh at my attempts to get bikini fit for the summer and any of the many other random projects I seem to come up with along the way (including running 5km dressed as a superhero!). 

See you soon!

Rosie xx

Emma Quilt Top

**Update: This quilt has now been finished!  Check it out at this post.**

Here's a quilt top for a baby quilt I've been working on.  I gave a sneak peak of the beginning of this quilt in this post.  It's another pattern from the adorable book 3 Times the Charm!  (I promise I'm not biased because of it's name.) This quilt is for a little boy so I didn't want anything to feminine and I thought this pattern fit the bill.


Some of the prints are from the Farm Yard Friends line that I ADORE!  I found some at at Craft Town Fabrics and ordered some of the prints my local shop didn't have.  I figure it's always good to have boy friendly prints on hand, right?  I wish I could find more of the green nursery rhyme print, and the grey "Crawl, Slow, Slide" print, but so far I haven't had any luck.

This top has been done for a few weeks, but I didn't have any batting to finish it.  But thanks to my hubby I was able to have a day this weekend to run errands without our little one.  It's amazing how much more I can accomplish and in less time when I'm not carting her around!


I was able to get it basted today, and even started to quilt it.  I was probably about 1/6th of the way done with the quilting when I realized something was wrong with my tension - ARGH!  Over half of what I did needs to be unpicked.  I didn't have the heart to do it right then, and my little one needed some attention so it's left to be fixed and finished another day!

Charlotte Baby Quilt

I'm loving quilting, but I'm having a hard time justifying the cost.  I mean, how many blankets do we need?  However, if I make quilts as gifts, then it's okay, right?  :)  So my second completed quilt was a little baby quilt that I mailed off to a friend for her little girl.  It was much harder than I thought it would be to give it away!

The pattern is "Charlotte" from Three Times the Charm which you can find here or Amazon.   (It's cheaper shipping through Amazon.)  I added another row to make it a little larger.  The pattern calls for the octagons to be a neutral color, and the in between space to be the patterned material.  I decided I wanted to change it up a little and swapped it.

This is only my second time doing free-motion quilting, and I decided to try a different pattern.  I did a modified dogwood pattern.  You can find directions for it here at Oh, Fransson!  I didn't want the lines between, so that is where the modification came in.  I would leave one section of the flower open then more on to the next one.  Once I made it through the whole thing I made my way back to the beginning by closing up each section.  It worked great!

I hope my friend and her little girl enjoy it!

Log Cabin Quilt - The Beginning

A few months ago I found some fabric I loved at my local quilt shop, Village Dry Goods.  I loved it's mellow colors.  I left it on my work table so I could constantly be thinking of what to do with it.  I didn't want anything too busy.  Then I found this Monaco Log Cabin quilt on Maiden Hair Fern.  I LOVED it!!  I loved the use of the white sashes to give is a less scrappy look.  So I went to work on my quilt top.

I initially just planned on making it a 3x3 throw size.  The squares are large - 16 inches - so it would be roughly 4 ft by 4 ft.  But once I got this far I started thinking that it would be a shame if I put all of this work into it and didn't make it at least twin sized.  So I've six more squares to make it 3x5 and will soon add two borders.  Hopefully this isn't too ambitious for my second quilt!

Christmas Rag Quilts

About two years ago I had a brilliant idea.  I was going to make Christmas rag quilts for each of my siblings families and one for my parents.  That's seven rag quilts.  It was during the beginning of my sewing experience so basic rag quilts were the extent of my skill.  Great idea, right?

Here they all are!  The four on top have actually been
"ragged" and washed.  They're throw size, about 4 ft x 4ft.

I bought the material (oh how quickly the cost added up!) and went to work.  I loved it and had so much fun at first!  Then the problems started.  I was pregnant and something - the smell of my sewing room, the heat upstairs, the smell of the material - was making me nauseous.  I tried to push through, but it wasn't happening.  So they got put on hold for a while.

I started working on them again during my second and third trimester and things went much better!  But then my baby came and time grew short.  I'd work on them here and there, but they still didn't make it done for the next Christmas.

Here's one of my favorites.

Here we are three Christmas' later, and they're all sewn together!  Yay!  I have four of them "ragged," and  I'm slowly working on the other three.  They've actually been sewn together for months, but I've had a hard time finding the motivation to rag all of them.  Any volunteers?

And another favorite.

My sibs may actually get them as presents this year. :)  Now I just have two problems.  1) I want one.  2) How do I decide who I give which one?  I need to decide quick, because I need to get one in the mail!