Chevron Baby Boy Quilts

Bold colors aren't my usual palette.

But I had a fun time picking these fabrics out for two baby quilts for either boys or girls. I only knew there were going to be two! I struggled with waiting until after they were born to find the perfect fabric, but finally because of the time two quilts would take, I went with brights and would then make the backing gender specific.

I cut them into strips.

I found a simple pattern for a chevron design...much easier than using half-square triangles. I sewed a white strip with a colored strip and then cut them into squares.

It's all in the layout.

Sew the blocks together diagonally and then sew the rows together.

First one down (above), one to go (below).

Square it up.

Made the quilt sandwich with boy-themed fabric (at this point the twins had arrived) and then started machine quilting along the seams.

I got these Clover Wonder Clips for Christmas. They are perfect for binding instead of using pins because of the fabric thickness.

Love how they turned out!

Spring Flowers 2015

Spring flowers - a picture post

Half Square Triangles Baby Girl Quilt

I'm finally posting on a baby girl quilt I made last year. The baby was born and the gift has been given.

I had so much fun picking out the fabrics. 

It was my first quilt made out of all half square triangles. I cut the squares and then randomly sewed them together with a diagonal seam and then cut them in half.

I got a new quilting tool to help with squaring them up. I love it. So much easier to trim two sides before I pressed them open and then have to trim all four sides.

And it's all sewn together.

I'm still working on my machine quilting, and this was a perfect project for it since I could do straight lines.  I put the backing on the floor.....

...and spray basted all three layers together.

I quilted a quarter of an inch from each seam.

The back.

Love the polka dot binding.

Learning to machine quilt #2

Since machine quilting the potholders went smoothly, I started on the Christmas table runners that I wrote about earlier.

I put the fabric backing down on some newspaper so I could use the basting spray and not get it all over the floor.

I had done a lot of reading about basting quilts and decided to use basting spray instead of pinning the layers together. I lightly sprayed the backing fabric and then put down the batting, making sure it was smooth.

Next was the top.

And I ended up with a quilt sandwich.

Another quilting tip that I found in my research was to use masking tape instead of using a marking pencil for the lines.

I used that for a while and then switched to painter's tape which is less tacky. I used my walking foot to sew and just followed along the edge of the tape, and I ended up with a perfectly straight line.

And just one time I sewed on the wrong side of the tape and the spacing was off. :-)

I quilted each table runner with a different degree of angles.

One of the finished projects.