Disappearing Baby Quilt

After making Hubby's D9P quilt top I decided that I wanted to make another version. A couple of months ago I made a bunch of bibs and burp cloths for a friend/customer. She always sends extra fabric so I don't have to worry about running out. Then she tells me to keep the fabric :)  I made many, many bibs and burps but there was still a decent amount of fabric leftover so I set it aside to make a baby quilt.  I cut the smaller scraps into 4.5" squares and set the larger pieces aside for the backing.  Because I was working with a set amount of scraps some of the original 9 patches had repeat fabrics in the block. Since I knew I was cutting the 9 patches I was just careful and kept the repeats in the corners. That way each section wouldn't have any repeat fabrics.  I really like how it is turning out.

Have you  used the disappearing 9 patch block in a project? There are so many fun variations that you can make several quilts and they won't look like they came from the same pattern.

New Year - New Start

I received a wonderful package from a fellow crafter in December last year. She knew I loved to hand embroider and she had these designs that she wasn't going to make and she thought I might like them. There was a Santa and a Snowman in the package. I did a little poll and everyone decided that I should start the Snowman first.

It's a bluework design which is basically redwork but you use blue floss instead of red.

I chose to make mine using DMC floss instead of pearl cotton. I really like pearl cotton but when I use it for back stitching it tends to look chunky and choppy to me. I'm sure I'm just using the wrong weight floss but I actually like DMC floss so I don't mind switching. 

I traced Mr. Snowman on a piece of muslin that was included in the package. I managed to get his face done while chatting with a few friends over on my YouTube channel. He's so much fun to work on so I plan on adding him into my weekly rotation.

We're Stripping This Year

I love participating in swaps of all kinds but I don't always have the time. Each year the ladies over on the TTMT (Talk To Me Tuesday) blog do some type of swap. I haven't joined in yet until this year. This year's swap is more about your own creativity. We are cutting 2.5" WOF strips from some of our fabric fabrics from our own stash. Then we send them into our creative leader and she will mix them all up and send each of us our own TTMT jelly roll. It is going to be fun to see what each person makes with their fabric strips.

I don't always have yardage in my stash but I've recently struck up a barter agreement with someone who has inherited her mom's and another quilter's stash. My part of the barter is to knit several items that are going to be fun to knit.  In return I receive some fun fabrics. These fabrics will come in handy for my charity project this year.

I grabbed some of the brighter fabrics and added in a black and white fabric. I thought that maybe someone might need a contrasting fabric for their project. I chose 10 fabrics and then cut 4 strips from each fabric.

Rolling the fabric strips up neatly is near impossible.

While I had the fabrics out I decided to go ahead and cut 1 strip from each color for myself. That way I can add to the strips that I receive.  I haven't decided on a pattern yet but it has been fun looking at different designs. I might just go ahead and do the jelly roll race since I may be the only quilter who hasn't made one yet. 

Do you participate in swaps?  Have you made a jelly roll race quilt?

First Charity Quilt Flimsy of 2019

 

I stitched together my first flimsy of 2019. Following the suggested layout for The Road Trip Quilt  by Cluck Cluck Sew I randomly chose fabrics for my first charity quilt top of 2019. As I was choosing fabrics to use in this quilt top I noticed that I was choosing fabrics geared towards a younger boy so I tried to avoid the fabrics for the older boys. A five year old may not want skulls on his quilt. Or at least his parents might not appreciate the skulls. ;)

While cutting the fabrics I was too excited to get started that I didn't pay close attention to the directional fabrics. That's okay because this quilt finishes at 36" x 40" so it's not too big of a deal to just turn the quilt so the fabrics are pointing all the same way. Once I realized my little slip (there are no mistakes, just creative challenges right?) I just made sure I flip flopped some of the fabrics so they point in a variety of directions. 

I was chatting over on RsIslandCrafts, my YouTube channel, about binding. I would like to buy a yard or two of a couple different fabrics to use on as many quilts as I can. I know white is a good neutral but it isn't necessarily good for kids' quilts. Then I thought maybe grey? I had a couple suggestions to use some stripe fabric for the bindings. Brilliant! I think I'll do a little window shopping and see what I can find online. I have several yards of solid to semi-solid fabric in a couple different colors for the backs so I should be fine for a bit with backing fabrics. JoAnn's has batting on sale quite often so I'll just grab it as I go. I used to buy one of those giant rolls of batting every few years but I don't think that is in my budget this year. 

Now I just need to come up with a fun and simple hashtag for Instagram. While I'm the only crazy person who wants to make 50 quilts this year there are a few others who would like to join me in my charity sewing.  

Are you planning any charity quilts for 2019?