WIP: Hexagons for Baby

I have a friend that is having a baby in April. I want to do a hexagon quilt for her/the baby and have just started auditioning layouts. I'm cheating and using all pre-cut hexagons. My biggest concern is that the baby's gender is unknown and this honeycomb is kind of very pink. Hopefully Europeans aren't as hung up about baby color as we are here in the US...

The original design doesn't use all the hexagons

Maybe I could make a panel for the back or even a second, smaller quilt with the leftovers?

This layout uses all but 4 background hexies. Assuming I can get two corners from one hexie that is...

Decisions, decisions. I'm also considering some other arrangements that I haven't physically laid out yet. Like diagonal stripes and clusters. Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Swoon Finish

Back in August 2014 I finished the Swoon quilt for my former labmate and his now wife. Somehow I never got around to posting about it in all the chaos.

I made 2 changes to the pattern in my final design. First, I set the center block on point. Second, I added a border made from leftover squares and strips. I'm very happy with both of my modifications, they were easy and I think look pretty good. They also make it closer to a queen size quilt which is what I think a wedding quilt should be.

The quilting, as seen from the back.

I have to admit, I'm pretty proud of this quilt. I did the quilting using a combination of my tiny machine and my mom's super nice anniversary present sewing table and machine that I will never be able to a ford until I have my own 25th wedding anniversary. But I digress. I used a variegated tan thread for the quilting which consisted of outlining the blocks and then filling in the background space with a free motion leafy vine thing.

linking to Finish it Friday at crazy mom quilts

WIP: My first kit quilt

As I mentioned in my end of 2014 planning for 2015 post, I'm making a wedding quilt for my friend using the True Colors quilt kit. As I want to make two wedding quilts in the first half of 2015, I'm getting started ASAP. So far, I have finished all the cutting.

I have never really done fussy cutting and it took me until the last 2 fabrics (out of like 7 requiring fussy cutting...) to really get a good technique. Depending on how they look when I start sewing the corner triangles on, I might end up re-cutting a fair number of them. Luckily, the kit seemed to foresee this problem and there is definitely enough spare fabric to cut out some extras. Good job kit.

The plan for this week will probably be corner triangles/HSTs and then flying geese for last.

Linking to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

A Christmas Finish

I got in a last minute finish in 2014: the trinity celtic knot wedding quilt. Originally, this quilt was supposed to be professionally quilted and sent to Germany for my friend's wedding in August. That didn't happen. If I remember correctly it was basted and marked for quilting by the time the wedding rolled around.

This was my first time using a stencil and quilt ponce. It went okay.

I didn't really start working on the quilting until earlier in December. In retrospect, I wish I had gotten a larger template because Dear God this took FOREVER! It probably took me over 30 hours just for the quilting. 

I had a lot of kitten shaped help with the quilting. This is one of my new kittens, Sonar.

Her sister, Shishkebab, was also extremely dedicated to helping me...

On Christmas Eve I frantically hand sewed on the binding and washed it 3 times with color catchers. The color catchers were definitely a good call because all 5 of them came out nice and light purple. The 3 washes were because I couldn't get the darn chalk lines off. I guess I left them on too long or something because they refused to wash out. I ended up doing a long soak with baking soda added to get them out. 

Woo its done!

It was all worth it in the end though because I was able to deliver the quilt (with label!) in person on Christmas Day and, as far as I can tell, they loved it ^_^

My first ever label! I had my mom make it on her embroidery machine.

Even though this is an old finish, I'm linking it anyway: Finish it Friday