Ready and waiting...

My new granddaughter's quilt is done and now we're just waiting for a phone call :). We have 2 weeks left, but with a first baby you never know.....
I am so pleased with the way this quilt turned out. This is such gorgeous fabric and this simple design showcases that perfectly.

The two small inner borders and the single checkerboard border add just enough interest without getting lost. What surprised me is how green it looks. I'm so glad I decided to only add pink and turquoise.

The echo quilting on the petal blocks gives this very modern quilt that traditional look that I wanted.

I found a fun stripe with red, pink and pale yellow - a perfect contrast to the large floral design.

The "K" is not for Karen but for my new precious granddaughter, Karis.

And of the course the kitty. This time it did double duty as it's also the label. I had to add a background piece since it blended into the backing. So now I wait, trying to focus on another project. It's very hard :).

Until next time,

Karen

Missing but making progress

I really cannot believe that it's been a month since I blogged!! I've been reading some, sewing some and trying to chill. I've been at the beach on the Gulf of Mexico with my family for a mini family reunion and I've been in the mountains of NC (no internet). I did take my machine and had fun working on some projects which I'll share soon. (Em, I thought of you and Roxy as I sewed, looking out at the beautiful mountains and the serenity of God's creation). Today, I want to share my progess on my new granddaughter's baby quilt. Here the shadows help show the quilting. I'm hand quilting this and doing a cross hatching in the plain fabric blocks.

It's a sweet old fashioned look to a very modern fabric.

I'm quilting in the ditch around each petal and then echo quilting.

I'm not marking anything, so each block is slightly different.

I'm doing straight line quilting at each one inch block.

I'm loving the contrast between the vibrant, modern look of the fabric and the traditional look of the muslin and the quilting. I always forget how different (slow) hand quilting is from machine quilting. I really want all my grandchildren to have at least one quilt hand quilted by "Nana Girl" so it's been a complete labor of love.

Hope you are all having a wonderful summer.

Until next time,

-Karen

Changing Gears

Wedding Memories Linger, and they will have to linger a while longer (see previous post) :). A few weeks ago, I showed you the bumper pads I made for my new granddaughter's crib. We went to Asheville for the holiday weekend and I also made the crib skirt while we were there. My DIL has chosen this wonderful print (Kumari Garden by Dena Designs) for the crib skirt and the curtains. The walls are painted this soft blue/aqua color - it's simply beautiful!
I finished the curtains and sent them up to her. I hope to have a picture to share soon. In the meantime, I've been trying to design a baby quilt using this fabric. I decided to use this print as the focal fabric (since it had all the colors to tie the room together) and my jumping off place for the colors.

This fabric has so much vivid color in it, I decided to let the fabric be the star and just pulled out the pink. The large petals are hand appliqued.

I designed this on EQ7 - this is the Joseph's Coat block. I will use the focal fabric for the border also. Each one so far gets a little better. Applique is definitely a skill that suffers if you don't use it. But it's coming back. The first block turned out so "rough" that I've decided to use it for the label on the back LOL!!

I'm thinking a small aqua inner border and the red stripe for the binding. There are a couple more elements to the quilt I'll show next time (I haven't made them yet) but I hope they look as cute as I think they will!!
This will be a very HAPPY quilt. Each petal block takes me almost an hour so it will take another week or so before the top is done (you know I've got that work thing during the day). Good thing the baby isn't due until August.

Until next time,

-Karen