Stella's blocks

I'm starting to wonder if I'm ever going to get to actually sew anything for this customer. I've spent so many hours tearing apart baby clothes and cutting them and then ironing on interfacing and cutting again. But at last, I have two of the three cut. I just hope the customer likes what I've done.

One of the pieces we started with is a blanket - or was. I haven't cut it to size yet, just laid it in the middle so the name shows. Not sure what is going to happen with it but I like the lettering. 

Hazel's Quilt - lots of pieces

It took a couple tries and a couple visits with the customer but I think we are on the right track with Hazel's design. The hex will have an ivory sashing on all sides. They aren't very big so we need quite a few of them to make a nice sized quilt for Hazel.

It took a little more time to get the garments torn apart and then fused to the backing material.

Here are a few pictures of the pieces that have been finished - just lots of pieces laying next to each other. Nothing has been sewn together yet. Once I get more fusing, I'll make more pieces and then hook up with the customer to arrange them.

This is going to be a wild and crazy quilt - lots of fun colors and patterns :)

The three girls' quitls

This weekend I got to meet a new customer who would like to take a pile of special garments that her two girls wore as youngsters and make quilts for both of them and one for herself.

With three quilts on the design board, it is an interesting task to keep all the ideas and garments straight. But, Mom is very organized, practical and very consistent. She is also very visual and asked if I could produce some samples of the initial quilt ideas she had. Fortunately, we agreed to use scraps so we didn't deplete the special garments. The result of the samples was quite interesting - to me. Mom was able to make decisions on the quilts for the two girls and the sample for her was what she asked for but not what she wanted. So I'll make a new set of samples now that we know more about what she wants.

For Stella, we are going to do simple 4" x 4" blocks on point. Her quilt will lean to the aqua and blue colors. It will have two borders - inner probably about 2" and the outer one 4" or 6".

Here are the "special" garments that Mom pulled out just for Stella.

And the ones I pulled that I thought would make Stella's quilt the calm, mature theme that we are looking for.

And here are the "special garments for Hazel. Not as many - second child, you know - but enough to start the theme for her quilt. She is the "rock star" who likes all bright colors and doesn't mind a little chaos. Her quilt will be hex's - probably 3" - 4" across. Some of them will be solid - to take in a special pattern or saying and others will have six triangles to make the Hex.

Here's the possibilities for the rest of Hazel's quilt.

Of course, both quilts will have some of each other's garments and there will still be enough left to make Mom's quilt.

After the first of the year, we'll get together again to make final decision about who gets what garments and to finalize the design for Mom's quilt.

Baby A's quilt top done

 This weekend, we got together to make decisions on the final border, backing and binding for Baby A's quilt. Even with a lot of on-line research, Mom still hadn't found just the right piece of material for the back. The intent was to have an outline of the world - to represent how many places Baby A has been and will get to travel to.



Instead, we ended up with a piece with all the letters of the alphabet - in lots of different colors.

There wasn't enough of this material to allow for a second border but rather than look for another piece, we decided to keep the quilt top a little smaller.

When it came to the binding, we picked 5 of the colors that are shared between the front and back - all solids. I'll piece the colors together to make a scrappy binding that will be a great way for someone to learn their colors.

 

Next, we take the finished quilt to The Quilting Loft to pick out a quilting pattern.

Baby A's pieced topFirst

Boy! What a difference an afternoon of sewing makes. Baby A's top is all together and one of the borders is on it.

After offering a rather symmetrical layout, I asked Michael to take a crack at it. His layout was much more driven by the need to make the odd sized pieces look like they were a part of the design so he put two black blocks together on opposite sides of the doubles. 

In the end, Mom liked the first layout better so that's what happened. And, we used the black backing material for the first border - it's 3". 

Rows are all done and sewn together

First border is on

Next we'll get together to pick out the second border, backing and binding material. 

Just a couple more steps before handing it over to the quilter - might happen before Christmas if we stay focused.

Baby A's blocks are done

We added a few more garments to the pile and now have enough blocks for a twin sized quilt - with a little border of course. There won't be any sashing - decided the backing created enough of a space between the special pieces to give the quilt some order. And, we will have two borders: a 3" border from the black backing material and then a 6" border of something groovy we find that pulls everything together.

Now, we are trying to decide on the lay out. The three odd sized pieces are going to go on black background - each on its own separate block. They will form the middle rows - Happy baby in the middle, mom on the right and dad on the left. Then all the other blocks will be arranged around this center.

The current layout is rather symmetrical but that felt like the way to go on this quilt. We'll see how Mom likes it.

Baby A's blocks are coming together

All the fussy cuts from the garments I have are now top-stitched onto backing pieces. There are 38 of these plus the 3 odd sized pieces which went on 4 backing blocks. A twin quilt is 54" x 90". The finished blocks will be 8" squares. So we need 9 rows of 6 blocks each = 54 blocks. That means there are 12 blanks. But that won't last long, mom is looking for a few more garments so there aren't so many blanks.

Here are just a couple of the blocks - so cute.

I laid the blocks out on the spare bed to see how they are going to look together and came up with this arrangement - not that this is what we will end up with but it is a very sweet quilt.

If we don't use sashing, the pieces top will need 9" border to make a twin sized quilt. A bit big for a border but not unreasonable. If we add an inch border between each block and around the outside of the pieced top the border would be just 2 inches. If we used the same material for the sashing and the border, the borders would be 3 inches. 

I'll meet with Mom and get a decision - and pick up the last of the garments to make the rest of the blocks.