I finished this and gave it to dear Dallas A. for her 40th birthday. Colors according to her kitchen, I am hoping it fits in! Simple design, quilting along the triangles to give it a bit of joosh. Backed with recycled batik and bound with a coordinating fabric. I like how it turned out, and hope she does too!
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My friend Emily B. is having a baby, and miracle of miracles, I got her baby quilt done before the bambino arrived! You will recognize this color scheme... It is similar to this post --- basically, I made them during the same couple of months, and was loving the modern, modest color vibe and decided to keep playing.
This one was actually the first inspiration, and I took my cues for the colors from the cute animal print fabric in the inner border. It is an upcycled scrap of fabric so I didn't have enough to play extensively, so I played off the colors instead and created a modern-ish vibe with diamond patterns and diamond quilting as well. (Since Emily and Matt are super cool and hip... I hope I matched their aesthetic somewhat) Outer border is soft grey flannel, binding is made of scraps from the colorful fabric bits in the quilt, and the back is a soft purple grey cotton (that used to be a curtain). I had some strips left and made her a little bonus baby-friendly coordinating bag to throw stuff in as well in case it is useful. I hope Emily, Matt and future kiddo enjoy this quilt for many years to come! I have made lots of japanese knot bags since initially playing around with the design. But am documenting this one as it was a joint effort with Katherine K., with some fun embroidery included as a going-away present for our friend Marjie F. before heading off to Peru. Basically I cut out and assembled the bag as usual, but after sewing the two sections of the lining together, I gave it to Katherine who embroidered a nice message into the inside handle. When I got it back, I sewed it up as carefully as I could around the embroidery, and bob's your uncle! And even if he is not, it was finished and Marjie will hopefully get lots of use from this little bag during her travels.
I made this little ditty for Bekkah C., one of my dear childhood friends, and her new baby son Nicolas. It's coming a little late, but as they say, better late than never... sigh. :)
So in non-typical style, I tried to keep the color palatte a bit tighter, and I like how things came out. I designed this myself, so the smaller heart fits a little wonkily into the bigger white heat, but in the end it all works out. It took me a while to figure it out, and I did rip a few seams getting it to come together, but we got there and I am happy. All upcycled fabrics, with a pebbly inner boder and soft grey flannel outer border. Made scrappy binding from some of the fabric in the quilt itself which i think looks nice. One of the corners went a little wonky as well, but that means it is homemade. :) Backed it with a soft purple grey, and quilted simply with some straightline and stitch-in-the-ditch work. I hope that Nico gets many years of warmth out of this Auntie Amy creation! A tea cozy to mark the birthday of my tea-and-honey-loving friend Emilie C. in March 2019. I love the color combo, and the teaspoons floating in a background of honey-yellow seemed especially apt. Hope it gets lots of use!
A bright and sunny table runner for my dear friend Julia S. to mark her running in a federal by-election with the NDP party in February 2019. (Yes, I know it is now August--- I have been SUPER delinquint in posting updates lately). Made a simple pattern of half square triangles with some pre-cuts gifted to me by my aunt, and created an inner border and binding with some upcycled fabric I have used in other projects (bonus marks if you can guess which ones!) The election went a different way than we wanted, but hopefully this runner serves as a happy reminder of a very hard-fought and fun campaign!
Tis the season for high school graduations! While I am WELL out of the high school scene, a dear friend's son is graduating from high school and moving on to greener pastures at Concordia University. I remember receiving a blanket when I graduated, and still have it with me almost 25 years later. I am not sure what kids want nowadays, but thought I would take a chance and hope that Francisco S. would appreciate a little non-digital, low-fi, homemade coziness as he prepares to hunker down into his university career.
As with pretty much every project I start, I have ambitions of changing it up and starting with a tight, modern, hip design. But then I dive into the depths of my fabric stash and I get swept up in the rainbow chaos of all the eye candy... and I make a rainbow-inspired quilt... again. At least I am consistent in my weakness... After succumbing to the siren call of the unicorn, I laid out 2.5 inch strips of some of my faves into color families and started sewing them all together (alternating directions to avoid slippage in the rows). After the main panel was done, I sliced out an off-centre column and reversed its direction, putting it all back together and framing all three panels in a neutral star fabric (because #unicorn) and backing it all with a soft bright teal and pink retro-patterned cotton remnant. For quilting, as usual I kept it simple, quilting the larger panels in vertical lines and the reversed column in tight horizontal lines. Nothing revolutionary but I like it. Made a scrappy batch of binding with some of the leftovers, gave it a good wash and bob's your uncle! Even though it is not very out-of-the-box for me, I still love this quilt. It came together relatively quickly but delivers some big eye candy color payoff. I hope that Francisco enjoys many years of study snuggles in this quilt! A quick and fun table runner for Susan S. as a thank you for the fabric she bestowed upon me. She is moving back to the prairies, and had collected some African fabric that she never got to use and offer to give it to me. I of course said yes, but wanted to make her a little something to say thank you.
So essentially, I cut out the elephant panels from a swath of wax batik (making sure that each person at the end of the runner had an elephant right-side-up), framed it out with some colorful fabric I got a long time ago in South Africa, and did some simple quilting to frame out the elephants. I bound it in some funky mottled orange cotton, and bob's your uncle! Hope she enjoys this reminder of some of her travels--- and thanks for the fun fabric, Susan! :) So many friends having babies... and another fun baby quilt on the blog! This time for my beautiful friend Julia S. who recently welcomed Zawadi into the world. While Julia is French, she lives in Joburg with her Zimbabwean partner, so I thought it would be fun to make her a baby quilt with some fabrics spanning the African continent, along with some more classic details. So, I dug out of my stash fabrics from South Africa, Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Ghana, and got to work!
I combined the fabrics into groups of three similar-ish colorways and made strip sets, cutting those down again into 7 inch blocks. I then arranged them into an alternating pattern (both color and direction) and bordered everything in a modern, graphic woodgrain fabric that I love. For quilting I experimented with nesting triangles cutting across the blocks, and then bound it all together with some cool fern binding I made from another favourite fabric from the stash. The design is simple and the palate is perhaps a bit 'ample', but I love this quilt: soft, colorful, funky and beautiful. I hope that Julia and Ish like it, and little Zawadi gets many years of use out if it! I gifted this to Dallas A. and Roberto C. for their impending bundle o' joy, and frankly, is one of my favourite baby quilts I have made of late. Inspired by a piece of Indonesian batik that my aunt gave to me over the holidays, I used that as the backdrop to a series of complimentary diamonds made out of primary colors. To make the diamonds I started with half square triangles of the background and navy, and then snowballed the navy with 4 different colors. From there is was just a matter of piecing them all together, sewing some narrow borders in between the squares and rows, and sandwiching it all up! I echoed the same fabrics from the diamonds in the binding, and backed it all with another piece of Indonesian cotton. Before binding, I quilted the blanket simply by echoing the diamonds, in a variegated rainbow thread. I love how this came out, and hope that the new member of our urban family enjoys this quilt for years to come!
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