Paris in the Spring Baby Quilt

Here is a pretty baby quilt I decided to name Paris in the Spring when I landed on the Eiffel Tower backing fabric for it hiding in my stash.  I started with a few pieces of Lillybelle fabric by Bari J. for Art Gallery fabrics, some aqua and pale blue solids and one little pink piece of fabric from 3 Sisters' line Paris Flea Market.  Et voilà!

I quilted it with the wavy stitch on my Bernina (otherwise known as stitch number 4) and a pale pink Aurifil 40 wt thread.  Finished dimensions are 35" by 43".

Blogger's Quilt Festival Part 2

Yay!  I was nominated in the Favorite Quilt Photographer category!!  Here is the blog post to vote for your favourites at Amy's Creative Side.  Scroll on down to Favorite Quilt Photographer and just click on my name!  Thanks so much to everyone who nominated me... meaning US!  Thanks again to my son who took the pictures.  Do you think he'll let me keep the Bella bundle if I win?  Hope so.

If you missed my entry to the Quilt Festival, look at this link!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I'm excited to be taking part in the Blogger's Quilt Festival for the first time!  Amy Ellis over at Amy's Creative Side has been organizing this for a few years now as a way for quilters on the internet to share their quilts and creativity with each other all in one place!  Head on over and scroll down to see all the lovely quilts and then click on through to see the maker's lovely blog and the story of the quilt.  Great fun, indeed.  Well, without further ado, here is my entry:

I call it Chicopee Trails. The pattern is from Pat and Nicky Lintott's book, Antique to Heirloom Jelly Roll Quilts, and the quilt in the book is called "North by Northwest" I made the quilt a different size and added two borders, but this is pretty much it.

 

The fabric I chose is from Denyse Schmidt's latest fabric line, Chicopee. (Learning the name of this line sent my husband into frequent renditions of the main character of a movie from back in the 90s) Anyways, many, many, many half square triangles later (who am I kidding? I was sick of making HSTs, and decided to add the borders to reduce the number I needed to get the size decent enough to cover a person!)

 

The background is fabric is Caroline Chambray. It has a lovely texture, a little bit like linen but not as much. The secret to the texture is different threads in the warp versus the weft, like shot cotton. I love linen in quilts but wanted to try something different. I'll probably use it again!

  

I used other Denyse Schmidt fabrics to finish off this quilt. I had a lovely stash of some Katy Jump Rope I geeked out about finding earlier this year on a trip to Hawaii. Yes, I bought all they had left on the bolt! It became the backing to this quilt, and some stripe-y Hope Valley was with orange, purple and fuchsia waiting in my stash became binding!

  

I used a piece of batting from a huge section my hubby bought me for my birthday. (Wasn't that a great idea?) He splurged and got Warm and Natural from our local quilt shop. I haven't used it for a long time, I've been buying online and trying to save pennies, but I must say I love that batting. It washes up so soft. Then I stippled it all over with Aurifil thread in 2325.

  

After washing and drying, it came out at 48" by 68". I am really in love with this quilt and sure hope you like it too! Thanks to all of those who are sharing their quilts with Amy and the rest of us. Can't wait to curl up with all of those lovely images and stories and look at them ALL!!

  

Special thanks to my 14 year old son Ethan, who took these photos of my quilt. We chose to take the pictures at Rocky Mountain National Historic Site. The name of the quilt pattern, "North by Northwest" reminded me of the trappers and traders who travelled deep into the Canadian Wilderness, looking for a Northwest Passage to the sea. Their efforts led to the establishment of fur-trading forts which later became towns and are an important part of our history.

 

We are fortunate to have archeaological remains of one of these forts nearby our home. Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site is the location of a succession of forts established by the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company starting in 1799. (And it's also kind of fun, because my husband works there and I got to go with him to work to take these pictures!)

Speaking of my husband, he sweetly came outside our house yesterday to try and help me take pictures of this quilt. Unfortunately, none of them I liked except for one:

  

Here he is resting is arms after holding them straight up with the quilt for like 15 minutes straight while I tried to get a shot! God bless him :)

ETA:  Oops, almost forgot the stats Amy asked for!

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures : 48″x 68″

Special techniques used : half square triangles

Quilted by : Me!

Best Category : Favourite Throw Quilt, Favourite Home Machine Quilted Quilt, Favourite Quilt Photographer
Entry # 389

Ruby Tuesday: Part Two

Ruby Tuesday Part One coincidentally fell on a Tuesday with Ruby fabrics, and Ruby Tuesday Part Two has also come on a Tuesday with Ruby fabrics times two! Confused yet?

I had two Ruby charm packs from Moda and so made two sweet baby girl quilts with cheery spring pinwheels. It was snowing this morning, so these quilts are as bright as it gets around here today. I stippled one, and straight line quilted the other. They are both backed with a pink flannel from Valori Wells I found at my LQS on sale. Still need to bind them! I have some solid pink from Kona that will be nice, I think.


It's neat to see the different quilty qualities that show up depending on how the quilt is quilted. YKWIM? Hope your Tuesday is terrific!

Little Apples Baby Quilt

And another baby quilt. This one I made with a charm pack of Little Apples by Aneela Hoey/Moda. The white is from my LQS, sorry, couldn't tell you the colour or anything. Stippled with a few "eyelashes" on the back I didn't notice until I was all done. I use a Bernina Stitch Regulator and sometimes the default tension is perfect at 4.0 and other times I need to set the bottom tension all the way up to 8.0 to make it look right. I'm not sure what that means. Anyways, I dove in without checking tension after pausing in the quilting for a couple of days and it was off. Hopefully it will look a bit better when washed up, because I'm too lazy to pull out the quilting. Maybe it will fall apart and I will have to anyways. It isn't too bad so we'll see.