Another baby quilt for the hospital

On Wednesday 16th of May we gave all the coverlets and little quilts made by the ladies from the Golden Lion Quilters to my friend Belinda L who works for the special care baby unit in our local hospital " The Great Western" in Swindon. We were so suprised there were 30 coverlets and 7 incubator covers. They were well received and are now on the beds of the babies who are getting ready to go home (fattening up very often, especially if they were born early).

 And this is my second addition to this good cause, an incubator cover. I used a fleece bought in Ikea for the back, but it wasn't as thick as the one I had for my pink quilt.
To make the pattern I was able to borrow a special ruler from my friend Kandy who blogs here (although not very much at the moment, she is busy with DGD).

I have used children or bright fabrics for this little quilt, and was very happy to find this batik blue in my stash. I made one long pleat and cut it in 3 portions plus some left over that I will use at some point I am sure. I think the cutting took the most time. The sewing was straight forward.

 These photos are to show you my exercises on the quilting. I used the design on the front to make the big feathers, then made some smaller ones freehand, and finally made one on each side with a double centre line. I think I prefer these best.
I use any excuse to practise quilting free motion.

And for the binding I had a yellow fat quarter, kept the selvedge on when I cut my 2" wide strips. My binding is double folded so the bit of selvedge is hidden inside. no problem.

And finally I put a label on the back with a bit of binding to frame it.

I hope the staff and children in the hospital will have some pleasure from having these quilts with them. It was a pleasure to make them.

Enjoy your sewing.

Pascale.

Iris wallhanging for my Mum

Now for something I have made, and am proud about: my Mum's Birthday present. She was born before Christmas, and as we go back to Paris around that time, she gets a second cake, with the candles, presents and family. She deserves it.

This year I wanted to give her something I made, and used the pattern I bought some time ago (ok a few years...but I knew who to use it for). It is "Iris" by Gail Lawther, and is a stained glass patchwork pattern. Go down on the web page about 2/3 of the way to find it.

http://www.hbweb.co.uk/gqpv3/pattern_packs_regular.asp

Now I can promise that the wallhanging is straight. It's just that it was folded when travelling.

I used this opportunity to practise my free motion quilting on the feathers in the borders. It doesn't look too bad on the photo.

I regret that I didn't have time to buy a bar to hang it on the wall. This being Christmas time I was pretty busy. I hope that she has found the time to hang it properly. I'll see in February when I'll be going on my own to my god-daughter's first communion.

I enjoyed this pattern, the second I've made by Gail Lawther.

Now back to this UFO list, to shorten it, and then I need to make something for my DH's Birthday.

Quilting by hand

I have not put many posts at the moment as I am enjoying some quilting by hand. It is likely to take many more hours before I have finished, so I will only show you some photos of a work in progress.

I think the final effect is worth the effort. You may remember this quilt as my jelly roll log cabin, where I asked you which design you preferred to put my blocks together. And yes it took me that long to start quilting it...

I bought a platic template for the feather pattern. I tried to make my own template with some plastic and a special cutter with 2 parallel blades, but it was too much hard work. Tell me if you ever succeeded with that.

It is a very good thing to do in front of the tv at night, but it will take me a long time.