Sunday, April 22, 2012

baby boy quilts and OAKSHOTT!

Greetings!  I'm low on blogging motivation these days...not sure why...just a lot on my plate, I suppose, so creative time and energy is spent elsewhere?  Anyway, I thought I would share a couple of small projects I finished this week -- a week that included a 48-hour-period that added two baby boys to our circle of friends & acquaintances.

The first is baby Lucas, born to our neighbour's son and his partner, and we couldn't be happier for them!  I sensed that they would probably want something undeniably boyish, so I used solids from the Poseidon Kona cotton FQ pack I had bought last year from Brenda at Pink Castle.  This is the first time I have made an all-solids quilt top...and I love it!!


Poseidan baby boy quilt

baby boy quilt 1, made with Poseidon Kona FQ pack

For the backing fabric, and to give baby Lucas something interesting to look at as he gets bigger, I used a black & white Timeless Treasures animal print that I bought on sale somewhere along the line...I think it's super cute, the kind of thing Jackson would have liked when he was little ("I still do like it," he retorted when I shared that with observation him yesterday).


back of Poseidan baby boy quilt

detail, Poseidan baby boy quilt

I bound it with a royal blue solid and used one of my "enchanted bobbin" labels, which I have been shy to add to projects...but there you go.

Baby Chester was born the next day, little brother to one of the kids who was in our baby group 3 years ago. Chester's mom is a fabric junkie, so I knew I wanted something unusual for Chester's quilt -- and I found it at City of Craft yesterday: a FQ designed by Johanna of Charlotte & Stewart, cutest jellyfish I have ever seen!  If you like creepy-cute, you must check out Johanna's dolls. I saw them in person at City of Craft, and they are beautifully made.  I especially like the wee little ones.

fat quarter designed by Charlotte & Stewart

I guess I was feeling inspired, because by the time I went to bed last night I had this second baby boy quilt pieced

night piecing

basted, quilted, and half bound. All that remained to do this morning was to hand sew the binding, and voila!

baby boy quilt 2

I used a deep blue solid for the back, plus some leftovers from the front. Having such a high contrast between front and back, I selected a deep variegated blue Aurifil 50 wt thread for the bobbin, white for the needle, and FMQ'ed some little waves and straight-line quilted the rest.

detail, jellyfish quilt

detail, jellyfish quilt

And in other news, during one of the sessions of the whole cloth quilting class at the workroom, my new pal Melinda and I decided we really needed to split an Oakshott Colour Box...and yesterday we met up for tea, City of Craft, and Oakshott fun.

Melinda had her great camera with her, but no memory card, so I took a couple of pictures on my phone -- not great, but I like this one because you get a sense of how giddy we were...neither of us could stop smiling, the fabrics are so gorgeous!

Colour Box

tea and oakshott!

I have an idea brewing for some of my share of the Oakshotts...more on that later.

Well, that was a much longer post than I anticipated. If you're still with me, thank you! I am currently sweaty from my second session of my new get-fit regime (inspired by a check-up last week...my body has not fared so well from the return to work post-maternity leave), so I think it's time to clean up and move on.

Bye for now.

10 comments:

Lesly said...

Congratulations on your Oakshott Colour Box! I completely understand your giddiness! How did you ever manage to split up the contents? Can't wait to see what you do with it - I'm still brooding over mine!

Janine @ Rainbow Hare said...

Congrats on two quilts in one week! I love the fabrics you're using. I'm always a solids fan but I think the black and white animals and the jelly fish are wonderful too :)

Annabella said...

I don`t like how perilously close the Oaakshotts are to your coffee and croissant Jennifer! Sweet quilts and love Jackson`s comment about the backing. Good luck with the fitness regime - I`m on one too!

Melinda said...

Look at you go!! You have my undying admiration for turning that cute little City of Craft jellyfish into a Real Quilt in record time!! You rock! And the quilting is gorgeous! And you exercised? So, so good!

quirky granola girl said...

i love your solids quilt!
and then i saw that jellyfish fabric.... i have fallen head over heels. Henry is crazy for sea life right now. all day long i hear about sea stars and seahorses and jellyfish and anemones. is there any chance i could convince you to snag some for me?
your fmq waves are fantastic, too.
lastly, i adore the name, Chester. you probably didn't have a hand in that, but i have to tell somebody how cute that name is.

Lisa said...

I was oogling that jellyfish pattern at city of craft too. I can't believe how quickly you got that quilted up. It was nice to meet you then (I was the woman with the baby in an ergo - Melinda introduced us quickly).
PS - SUPER jealous of your oakshot solids.

Archie The Wonder Dog said...

I love the two baby quilts, they'll be treasured for years! Did you split each FQ of Oakshott or keep them whole and take half each?

Prof. S (the enchanted bobbin) said...

We had a lot of fun in the deliberations...!

Prof. S (the enchanted bobbin) said...

We'll figure something out....

Prof. S (the enchanted bobbin) said...

We each took 50 of the 100 fat eighths in the ColourBox. They were all so beautiful...!