Quilted Blanket

This one was my first ever patchwork blanket. I've made a couple of playmats before but never a full blown blanket. It was my first time using cotton wadding and bias binding on a large project too. I used a disappearing nine square technique for the patchwork which is created from 81 11x11cm squares. I am so thrilled with the result and Jessica is so envious that I've promised her I'll make her one too. This blanket took just over 12 hours to complete and it was worth every single second...

Twin Blankets

Having met the gorgeous and utterly enchanting twins, Alex and Josh, yesterday I can finally share the blankets that I made for them. This post is just a sneak peek; I'll post about each blanket separately during the week since I'm pretty proud of them both and I think the time and effort that each one took definitely warrants three posts in total! Keep your eyes peeled for a closer look in the next few days.

Woodland Quilted Playmat

I don't get the sewing machine out as often as I'd like these days but I love using it to make baby gifts. Here's a woodland themed patchwork playmat I finished a few weeks ago...

I used thick wadding from Dunelm and wasn't totally convinced that I could maneuver it through my machine for quilting so I decided to secure the wadding the old-fashioned way and hand-stitched some crosses in some of the patchwork joins...

The ribbon pulls can be used to attach toys to for tummy-time or just to be played with by little fingers. Here's the whole piece...

Batik Quilt

I decided to make a patchwork quilt from our batik printed pieces. It's only big enough for Jessica's toys but she is thrilled with it. This is only my second attempt at quilting and I used the offcuts of wadding from my first project, which made it slightly more challenging than it needed to be. There are four pieces inside and they don't quite cover the whole area of the quilt. 

I need to admit that I didn't measure anything and so there definitely are plenty of flaws in it but it's just for play and I'm quite proud of it. Here's a look at the unconventional quilting on the reverse and a closer look at the quilted details on some of the batik pieces.

Having said it's only big enough for her toys, here is Jessica trying it out. It seems it's just perfect to playing Sleeping Bunnies...

First Ever Quilting Project

I bought my quilters edition sewing machine way back in 2012 with ever intention of adding quilting to my repertoire of crafts. It has taken until now for me to even attempt to acquire the skill. I decided that a good first project would be a quilted playmat and chose a striking tessellated design featuring 42 separate pieces. Once the pieces were cut the pinning, sewing, pressing and quilting (along the seams) took about 4 hours. It’s certainly not perfect (there is one piece in particular that’s not even close to right) but I’m happy with it and I think the recipients of the gift were quite pleased too. My quilting career has begun!

  

Quilted Playmat

We had dinner with Alex last night when she gave Jessica a stunning handmade quilted playmat. It really is beautiful. I love the choice of fabrics and the ribbon pulls are a great idea too. This has come at a perfect time as Jess spends most of her awake time gurgling and stretching away flat on her back on the floor at the moment with the occasional period of tummy-time thrown in for good measure. She loves being down there and as you can see, she already adores her new mat – thank you Auntie Al, you’re very clever! xx