First Quarter Report 2011.

I can hardly believe that the first 3 months of 2011 are almost over. I've finished a total of 8 quilts during this period - 4 lap quilts, 2 incubator covers (36" square) and 2 preemies (16" x 20"). This has utilised 24.5 metres of fabric. I bought 2 metres of fabric, but was also given approx 9 metres. My net reduction of stash was therefore 13.5 metres.

Here are the last couple of preemie quilts that were finished just before the first quarter deadline! They utilised the leftovers from the Chinese Coin units from the HeartStrings group. These are quite cute and I had a bit of fun on the quilting by trying out some thin border ideas from the Pajama Quilter's DVD :)

SBChallenge - Quilt 18 finished.

Here is the Bargello Trip around the World incubator cover finished. This is definately not the prettiest quilt I've ever made, truth told it is probably one of ugliest!! So I backed it with a pretty print and if the Special Care Baby Unit staff don't like it, they can let the reverse show instead.

I just did simple wavy quilting around the 'trips' on this one, and tried to emphasise the heart shape that appeared in the centre. I figured done was better than perfect :)

HeartStrings Chinese Coins progress ...

Here's the top all sewn together. I need to trim the sides level as I just centred each row as I added it. I used a strange dusty pink (almost) solid for the background fabric and although it is an odd colour, I think it will look quite pretty when it's finished.

I've just got a few small pieces of the coins left to turn into a couple of preemie quilts :)

HeartStrings Chinese Coins ...

Back in February 2010, just before I started this blog, I took custody of the remaining Chinese Coin units from the HeartStrings online quilt group. I made 3 donation quilts before taking a break from them (original quilt here). Today I started working on getting the final pieces into another quilt.

I took a picture of the pieces roughly sorted into piles before I started. I'm going to do a strippy row design, utilising just 3 string heart blocks, like the ones in the original quilt, on one row only. It should go together fairly quickly as most of the fiddly piecing is already done :)

Almost forgot to show you SBChallenge quilt number 17 finished!

SBChallenge - Flimsey 17 quilting ...

This one was a tricky one to decide what quilting design to use. I originally wanted something with curves to take away from the square look, but nothing too complicated to quilt. What developed was a very angular design! It does make a nice cubist texture on the backing fabric.

Here's a picture of quilt number 16 finished.

Once number 17 is bound they can both be washed, labelled and made ready to go to their new owners in the local nursing home :)

SBChallenge - Flimsey 16 quilting ...

Here's the quilting I've done on the Mountain Majesties top. The spirals are where all the little triangles meet together in the corners of the blocks. This was inspired by quilting patterns by Patsy Thompson, but put together in my own variation :)

(Another version of this quilt with the same quilting pattern is shown in my blog header.)

SBChallenge - Flimsies 17 and 18 ...

I've been a bit remiss with blog updates. Not only have I finished flimsey 17, the Scrappy Bargello, but I've made the blocks for Flimsey 18, the Scrappy Trips, too.

I think Bonnie Hunter was right when she said that any fabric (even the uglies) will look good in a Bargello! You do need some definate darks and lights to stand out from the mediums and I think the smaller size of the pieces helps a lot too!

I used 3.5" pieces for the Scrappy Trips and it does not work as well ... but as an incubator cover that will get washed to death in a Special Care Baby Unit I'm sure it will be fine. I plan to get this one finished to flimsey stage today and start basting and quilting the lap-sized flimsies this week :)