Mollies Quilt

 

So I went with this idea, I've done most of it because lets face it flying geese aren't hard or time consuming.

More Word mock ups...

These are actually the blocks that I've made, I wanted to get a rough idea of the layout and I find it helpful to do it this way.

The background is left overs from Swarm that was on Caroline's Quilt, its all the pattern white and some different solid whites that I had in my stash.

I haven't made her name yet and I'm not sure if I like it more with the name or without... I guess I'll have to stare at it some more

Other Nieces Quilt

So as anyone that has or is around children knows you cant do one without the other, so I've been thinking about my other niece Mollie and what kind of quilt she might like.
I aways get so nervous when picking quilt design's for other people, just because I like it doesn't mean the intended receiver will.

I'm trying to channel my inner 11 year old and have come up with a few..

She is obviously not going through a colour sucks faze.. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with the top left corner and possibly something horse related on the other side because she is obsessed.

I went to the oracle that is Google and found some inspo

Whimsical Horse

This one is stunning, its Foundation Paper Piecing which I don't love but I love my niece. I'm not sure if its a bit to grown up for her though. There's lots of different horses on this website so they are a possibility... if I decide to go for FPP... which (I don't know if I've mentioned) I hate.
Most of the horse quilts that I've seen have been FPP, I might have to brave the technique. 

The one on the left also came up which I kinda like but not quite so I did a super quick thing in Microsoft Word (still the only thing I know how to use) and came up with the idea on the right, I didn't like that all the horses heads where the same on the original so I found some other options online and stuck them in. I also didn't want it all to be horse heads so put some sawtooth blocks in there. This one is applique which I think I hate more than FPP. If I choose this one I'm going to have to do a tester block to see how much I hate doing it.

Who knows, I'll get one side done and then think about it some more

Better (sort of) pictures of Willows quilt

So here she is, Willows quilt

She's longer than the place I had to hang it so its not the best picture but you get the idea

 

Up close of the hand quilting that almost sent me over the edge.

I hope she likes it, she is going through a "colour is evil" stage right now and her bedroom is pure white but I started this ages ago so nothing I can do to change it!

 

Willows

 So I finished quilting and I hope never to be that crazy again!

 

It does look good with the quilting - thank god! its given it a nice texture and there is no way I would have the patience to do this on my machine

I squared it up today and once again I will say having lines in the actual quilt makes the whole thing so much easier.

I just have to figure out the binding and then I can tick another quilt off the list, Horray!!!

I also made these cute little care instructions to go in with Caroline's quilt - she's the type who would want to know and not just guess

Working on Willows WIP

I started this one maybe a year and bit ago - this is the quilt I got the HST for Carolines quilt from.
Its obviously HST and I backed it with fleece (a first for me). I also wrote her name with fabric blocks (that I actually brought the pattern for)

It was meant to be for my niece last Christmas (or even maybe the one before).
I got super far with it but I chose for some god forsaken reason to hand quilt it - if I'm remembering righty is was because it is super bulky and I had trouble getting though my machine.

I'm on the finial corner of quilting and its about damn time!

 

Boring task alert

Unpicking the my awful Christmas Tree quilt...

I have no clue what I'm going to do with these bits but I know I was never going to use it whilst it was a whole quilt, you never know these random bits might come in useful

Yea baby!

 I'm on fire! Not only is the back of the quilt assembled the whole thing is finished!!

Here's my Swarm.

I really like this quilt, the points where super annoying to line up but I think it looks really good.

I choose to do different white prints rather than just one print or solid fabric, in person it adds a nice detail without making the quilt too busy looking - something I'm definitely going to keep in mind for future quilts

Next was basting the whole thing togethers, not my favourite step. I don't have space in my room so I need to do it at the dining room table and I have to wait for my family to be out so they don't get in the way - which took a couple of days!

I used both spray and pins to baste it together which is lucky because I didn't have enough pins to secure it properly - they are being used in a different project.

I choose to do simple diagonal line quilting because its quick and I really didn't want to slow myself down by making it over complicated - not that I can do complicated quilting, I really don't have the patients for it.

Squaring it all up was really easy because it already had built in lines I could use as guides so I managed to square it up and sew on the binding all in one afternoon - like I said I am on FIRE!

Its currently 9pm and chucking it down raining so there's no chance I can get a decent picture, hopefully it stops raining and I can get one tomorrow.

The thing I love most about this quilt?..... it cost nothing. Everything I used I already had.

The HST where left over from another quilt (which is the next thing I want to finish), the back was a quilt top I had to finish putting together, I frankensteined the batting out of bits I had left over from other projects, the binding was fabric from my stash... I spend zero pounds on this whole thing. 

Edit: Finished!