Dandelions and Elephants

 Name:  Dandelions and Elephants

Design:  4" squares

Size:  36" by 44"

Fabric: Stash fabrics 

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white across the diagonals

Our son and daughter in law's friends are having their second and a quilt was needed.  This is for a soon to be born baby girl and the design directions were yellow, grey and elephants.  I felt some satisfaction that I was able to go shopping in my stash and find just that.  I used some of my favourite Michael Miller Kiss Dots in Fog.  I seriously love that fabric and have bought yards of it.  It is getting increasingly hard to find and it needs to be reprinted please, Michael Miller.  It is the best small dot, and the best grey.  Perfect for baby quilts, bindings, backings. It just is perfect!  I also used some of my hoarded Stof Fabric grey print, seed heads?  I have always called it Dandelions but whatever it is, I love it.  And it should be reprinted too!  I quilted it on the diagonals in Aurifil 50 wt in white.  I love quilting on the diagonal like this.  I don't mark it... I just drive, corner to corner.  So much fun!

Just a simple 4" square design.  Perfect for tummy time.

A gift for a friend

   Name: Scraps Springs Eternal #2

Design: Inspired by a quilt found on Pinterest by Kati Spencer and published in Scraps Inc.

Size: 67" by 67"

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt ilight grey, irregular grid

Fabric:  Various prints in orange, nayvy, aqua, red, grey and white and sashed with Kona Ash

Binding and Backing: Kona Navy binding and backed with a thrifted sheet.

I have been most busy this summer but I have not been keeping up to date here so I have some work to do.  I am more often found on Instagram it seems as so many bloggers have migrated.  You can find me there at @cathyeric  Anyway, I made another one of these scrap quilts this summer.  It was the first finish of the summer in truth.  This quilt is based on a picture I found on Pinterest.  As quilt by Kati Spencer in the book Scraps Inc.  I do not have the book but I do want to credit her design.  Not having the book, I made my blocks 18" square and with strips of varying widths in a controlled colour palette.  So much fun.  This is the second one of this design.  Here is the first.

Backed with a thrifted sheet in sunny bright yellow, I gave this one to a dear friend who just bought lake property and will be cabin building.  A quilt was in order for sure.

Run Wild Child

 Name:  Run Wild Child

Design:  4" squares

Size:  36" by 44"

Fabric: Stash fabrics 

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white in cross hatch

This quilt is for a friend's grandson. I used a selection of stash prints including a wonderful Dear Stella black and white print, some MOMO Oh deer, and some other fun ones that work well together for a baby boy.  OH!  Some birch trees by Patty Sloniger from Backyard Baby.  I used my regular 4" squares and had fun with the print placement.  Quilted on the diagonal in Aurifil 50 wt in white and this one is going in the mail today!

And on a side note.  We were visited yesterday and today by a flock of Eurasian Ring Necked doves!  What a sight!  They landed in a Cascara tree to enjoy the berries without any noise but the sound of their wings in the tree.  They are not a small bird by any means and the tree was shaking.  I think they pretty much cleaned the tree and then they were off.

Baby A and Baby B

 Name:  Baby A and Baby B

Design:  wonky stars, 3" squares

Size:  38 " by "46

Fabric: Stash fabrics, Kona White, Apricot and Persimmon by Carinna Gardener for Riley Blake

Quilted: by me with Aurifil white 50 w straight line grid 

I finished these 2 baby girl quilts on the weekend and was happy to deliver them this week to a wonderful Mom at my school who just so happened to have beautiful twin baby girls about a month ago.  Oh my goodness!  Two wee dolly babies.  How about that?  She is now Mom to 4 lovely daughters and quilts were definitely in order.

I made them the same but different.  One for Baby A and one for Baby B.  Little wonky star blocks made with 3 " squares.  One quilt had low volume whites for the background while the other has Kona White, Kona Flesh and some other soft hued peach and green fabrics.  The focus fabrics and binding is the feature floral print from Riley Blake, Apricot and Persimmon by Carinna Gardener.  It is a lovely vibrant floral. I used this for the binding on each quilt as well and backed them in a soft green gingham sheeting.  Super simple and just girly enough.

The quilting is simple straight line grid work on either side of each small square in Aurifil 50 wt in white.

There is just something wonderful about gifting quilts for babies.  I hope that these will be thrown on the floor for tummy time, used for fort building, snuggling and dragged around by these sweet little girls.  Made to be used and loved.

My Psychedelic Baby

Name:  My Psychedelic Baby

Design:  from Sew Katie Did workshop Psychedelic Baby with my twist

Size:  52" by 66"

Fabric: Stash fabrics, Kona Snow

Quilted: by me with Aurifil ivory and 50 wt irregular straight line grid 

So Katie Pedersen came to visit out Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild.  It was pretty awesome seeing all her quilts at the trunk show and then I joined my quilting peeps for a day of work shopping Psychedelic Baby.  This is what I came up with.  I joined the blocks in a different orientation than her classic and made giant half square triangles set in some blocks of Kona Snow.  I did stitch and flip triangles with some of the off cuts.  And I still have a ton of off cuts to play with but here it is.  My Psychedelic Baby.  Quilted with Aurifil 50 wt in ivory in an irregular dense grid.  This is a nice size lap quilt.  I bound it in a grey cross weave.  And am calling it done.  On the barn and in the snow.  Yes,  Snow again and still!

All the Pretty Colours #2 a.k.a. Road Trip

    Name:  All the Pretty Colours #2 a.k.a. Road Trip

Design:  from Kaffe Fasset Glorious Patchwork: Pieced Stripes Quilt

Size:  76.5" by 82"

Fabric: Stash fabrics, backing Anna Maria Horner

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 40 and 50 wt straigh lines, 1/2" apart

So we had a bit of snow.  Just a bit.  Like over a metre.  Or in other measurements, around 40" over a few days. We don't usually have snow.  In fact there are year's when we don't see any of the white stuff but this year takes the cake.  School was closed for several days as a result and I had a chance to try to take pictures of this finish in the giant piles of snow that was our yard.  We are talking past your boots, people.  Past your boots!

I made a second one of these because Husband really liked the first one and he wanted me to give it to his sister as a gift.  I knew that I was going to use the first one in a guild challenge so I said, how about I make another one?  I had cut too much fabric the first time around and I already knew what I was doing so I cut more fabric including some wonderful Moda Grunge and got busy.  It went much faster than the first one.  Or it seemed like it and that is why this quilt has the subtitle Road Trip.  Because it always seems that when you are driving somewhere, the trip home takes so much less time.

This design is from the book by Kaffe Fasset, Glorious Patchwork and it has the very simple title, pieced stripes.  Which is what is it.  Pieced stripes of fabric in 3 colour stories with random 60 degree angle cuts.  It really is effective.  I quilted it just the same as the last one with slightly closer vertical straight lines in 3 colours of Aurifil.  Soft purple, vibrant hot pink and that lovely citron yellow.  I just love it.  I backed it in the same Anna Maria Horner fabric but because of the snow, I could not get a shot of the back. Take my word for it, it is awesome.  And it is bound in a dark burgandy Free Spirit solid.  This one is boxed up and ready for the mail tomorrow.  For Fran.

For Pebbles

  Name:  For Pebbles

Design:  4 " squares

Size:  35"" by 45"

Fabric: Stash fabrics, Michael Miller Kiss Dot in FOg, for binding and in the quilt

Quilted: by me with Aurifil  50 wt in white cross hatch

This is my first quilt finish of 2017.  Back in the swing of it.  We are expecting a new grand baby in May.  A wee girl.  And she is being referred to as Pebbles at the moment.  This is for Pebbles.  Shabby pink rose and classy grey all mixed up together for a wee baby girl.  I backed the quilt with a delicate floral on white flannelette and quilted it in a cross hatch in Aurifil 50 wt in white.  I made a similar quilt months ago and our daughter in law thought it was a good one.  This will be one of many to be sure because babies need more than just one quilt, don't you know?  I think our grandson is up to 4 quilts now and he is just 6 months old!

And did I mention we have had unheard of snow.  Good grief!  We have so much of it!  It is hanging off the barn roof in curls and so much of it has already fallen off the roof in big snowbanks.  Let me just say it was no easy feet stomping through the snow to take these pictures.