Chevron and Cherries.

I'm going nuts not knowing if I'm going to have a niece or nephew come September. Luckily, my sister is kind of streamlining things- if it's a boy, the baby's room will be green and gray, if it's a girl: orange and gray. She's decided that it's definitely a girl, and my brother-in-law is for sure that it's a boy. I sort of split the difference and went with gray front, girly back, and green binding. Ha!

I bought an issue of Quilty on a whim at Michael's a while ago. There are several quilts in the magazine that I intend to make, but one in particular caught my eye: Chevron. I thought that it would look great in white and gray patterns. I went through my fabric collection and found a bunch of gray, gray print, and black and white print that I thought would work, and luckily, I had enough for a baby sized quilt. Aside: I love having a fabric stash big enough to be able to do things like this. This is my first time actually using a quilt pattern. It's nice to not have to figure out measurements on your own.

Here's the back: it's cherry-printed quilter's flannel.

I quilted it really simply with straight lines. This is what the pattern suggested and I decided to roll with it.

For the binding, I pieced a light green and a dark green together randomly. I also made actual bias-binding this time because it's for a baby, and I'm hoping it will get used and spit up on and washed a lot.

Now I just need to make a label and mail it off!

And another quilt.

Last week, a friend of mine was over, and we were hanging out in the living room, where I have a ladder-style quilt rack for my growing collection. He was like, "Where'd you get those quilts, your grandma?" Oh.... sadface. Whatever, quilting is cool. Especially when it's giant houndstooths. Houndsteeth? 

This one is lap-sized, and it was an accident. I was making new pillows for my living room, and I thought, wouldn't it be cool if one of them was quilty? So I decided on houndstooth, cut out the pieces, got them all sewn together, and realized that just one houndstooth was about 20" square. This was too big for a pillow.

So I thought, eh, what the heck, let's make a quilt. I had exactly enough of the brown patterned fabric to make 9 houndstooths, so I put them in the middle and made it really punchy and graphic. Found this perfect fabric for the back: it's tiny houndstooths!

This was only the second free-motion quilt I've made. I did a paisley pattern. It's a little hard to see because I did white thread on white fabric. I think it hides mistakes better. 

I think if I did it again, I'd do a colored binding to make it a little more fun. Houndstooth is kind of an old man print, but a fun colored binding would make it younger. This is not a huge problem for me, since I apparently only have old people hobbies. At least I end up with useful things, right? It's just a bonus that they're pretty.

New Fixation: Quilting.

Not that I will ever not love knitting best... but I cannot get enough of modern quilts. I can't wait to get home from work most days so I can hang out in my sewing room and quilt. I think I've read every modern quilting blog out there. I am in love. Here's a modern baby quilt I made this past weekend.

It's "improvisationally pieced", which means I just made random, not-straight strips and sewed them together in a manner I found pleasing. The only patterned fabric is the orange polka dot one; the rest, including the back, is all solids. It's more modern that way, dontchathink?

Mostly, I made this quilt because a) I wanted a quick, instant-gratification project, and b) because I'm trying to get better at free-motion quilting. I did a pebble pattern for most of this one, and I love it. I did some triangles coming out of each side just to break it up a bit.

The back:

Baby quilts are so satisfyingly quick. I wish I knew a dozen babies. But I only know one, and hopefully I can get this quilt to them before they read this post. If not, surprise! There's a quilt coming your way!