Emily's Quilt Finished!

I finished this quilt a couple of weeks ago but, being a Christmas present for a gorgeous little girl, had to wait until I'd given it until I could share it.  So here it is: Emily's Quilt!

I wanted this to be a definitely girly quilt, but not too pink and fluffy.  The recipient is only fifteen months old, so who knows what colours she will like!  The ladies at my local fabric shop, Coles, were very helpful (and patient!) pulling bolts of fabric out to help me find the right background fabric to go with the selection of fat quarters I'd pulled from the racks.  In the end I went for a dashwood studios cream polkadot fabric for the background, which brought the mixture of accent fabrics together well.

My plan was to keep the design for this quilt fairly simple.  I used six patterned fat quarters, and 1.5m of the cream polkadot background fabric, cutting them into 6.5 inch squares (to be 6 inches finished), and laying them out alternately in a 9x11 grid.

For five of the squares towards the bottom left, I replaced the simple square blocks with Emily's name.  This was my first attempt at piecing letters - I spent a long while figuring out how to do it, and I'm so pleased with the result.  It's now inspired me to try making a whole alphabet quilt, I just need to find the right fabric...

I pieced the backing from some big flowery fabric from my stash (I love it!), and quilted it with orange peel quilting in the same way I quilted my wall hanging.  I finished it off by binding in a deep purple fabric.  The finished quilt is around 54" x 66", a nice size for snuggling.

Linking up to Crazymomquilts, and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Jack Attack quilt top finished!

Whew! I think that this is the most mentally intensive quilt top I've made to date.  Normally I can can just relax whilst patchworking, watch a bit of TV, and have a generally chilled evening.  Not so here - this one required a lot of focus and, yes, one trip back to the (online) fabric store to rebuy when I cut a couple of my diagonals the wrong way round.

But, it's done!

The pattern for the union jack part of this quilt top was a quiltalong over at Lily's quilts a couple of years ago, but I've just got around to my version.  It's a present for some very special friends who have just emigrated from the UK to Canada, so I hope they like their union-flag-and-maple-leaf quilt :) I was hoping to be able to post it to them in time for Christmas but I don't think I'll have it basted and quilted by the last posting day to Canada (Monday!), so it'll have to be slightly belated.

The patterned fabric is Emily Herrick's Rustique, bought from both eclectic maker and plush addict, with Moda Bella Solids in bleached white for the background.  But oh my, I don't think I can say enough good things about Rustique.  The colours are deep and gorgeous, and perfect for this project - I wanted to nod towards the red, white and blue of the union flag but felt that to actually use those colours rigidly would make a very stark quilt.  The quality of the fabric is beautiful - it has a really solid feel but is gorgeously soft.

I ummed and ahhed for a while over how to do the maple leaves.  My initial thought was to do fusible applique, but I wasn't keen on the idea of having raw edges.  However, as soon as I stumbled across this tutorial at Crazy Old Ladies Quilts I was sold.  Granted, it was a bit more fiddly to do maple leaves than petals, and you can see in the photo below that there are a few creases, but overall I'm really pleased with how they turned out.  Currently they are just ironed on, but I'm going to sew round the edges while I'm quilting it.

Oh so pretty! I can't wait until this is quilted and winging it's way to Canada.  Happy Christmas to my lovely friends across the ocean!

Linking up to Crazymomquilts for finish it up Friday, Confessions of a fabric addict and Richard and Tanya Quilts.

Soaping up - The Handmade Soap Book

A couple of years ago I bought this book on making handmade soap, as I really fancied having a go.  For one reason and another, I never got around to actually having a go until a couple of weeks ago, and there are now three batches of soap curing in the garage.

It was easier than I expected to make the soap, and compared to the quickness and hurry which sometimes accompanies my sewing, it was incredibly chilled out and relaxed.  Because you have to let your fats and sodium hydroxide cool to the right temperature, wait for the soap to thicken and let it cure for four weeks, it's not a craft which you can rush.

So far, I have made honey, cinnamon and almond soap, grapefruit soap and pink lavender and lime soap.  They all smell fantastic and I can't wait for them to be ready to use!

The book was really good.  I found the instructions clear and readable, and the recipes easy to follow.  The pictures are enticing, and there is a lot of great information about different ingredients in the front of the book for if you want to come up with your own recipes.  However, the recipes given are so delicious that I think they will keep me going for a little while until I'm really confident I know what I'm doing.

In a previous life I was a chemist but I now work at a desk job, so there was something a bit fun about turning the kitchen into a mini chemistry lab for the evening.  But that's just the geek in me coming out!  There is no need to have any sort of experience in to do this; it's just important to follow the instructions carefully, and make sure to clean up properly afterwards.

It's a bit (very!) addictive, and I'm already planning my next batch: maybe cucumber soap, vanilla soap, or goat's milk and ylang-ylang.... hmm....

Linking up to Anything Goes Monday over at Stitch by Stitch.

Rainbow Quilt DONE!

It's done it's done, my rainbow quilt is done!

I am so pleased with how this has turned out!  It's a bit wrinkly at the moment as I left it in the tumble dryer slightly long and the creases set, but they'll come out next time it gets washed (which, given it's my son's quilt I'm sure won't be long).

I quilted it in zig-zags, and have bound it in scraps of the green, blue, indigo and violet fabric.

This was going to be one of his Christmas presents, but I've already got him a few other presents and he's too little to really understand the idea of Christmas anyway, so I've decided to give it to him early.  I think a few games of hide and seek and a bit of tent building will be the order of the day!

Linking up to Crazymomquilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Freedom Fridays and TGIFF.