Noah's Quilt

My niece Naomi and her wonderful husband Dino had a baby boy in June.  I finally get to meet the little prince this week-end and will come bearing his baby quilt.

I have got this burgeoning passion to work with vintage textiles, incorporating them into contemporary quilt work.  For Noah's quilt I dipped into my Ebay bin of old blocks, tweaked a few of them, assembled them with some old jellyroll Moda sashing, some plaid cotton upholstery samples, and a few quilters cottons that I had on hand....seriously, this went together F-A-S-T, especially as I quilted it on the HandiQuilter Sweet 16 and machine sewed a ribbon binding on it.  4 days was all it took, with time off for baseball too!

One of the blocks needed red in it to match the other two I used, so a quick applique job took care of that!

Another block had its center taken out (you can see it on the left), with some vintage feedsack cotton swapped in place, so that I had a place to put the name.

These letters have fusible web on the back.  I've learned the hard way to always always always use a ruler to line them up before ironing them down.

 And here are the blocks, ready to be sashed and bordered!

You can see, this will be quick....

Sashings and borders on, piece of cake!

Then I used a tip I learned in Cindy Needham's Craftsy class, "Design It, Quilt It".

Maybe you all know this but I didn't: tape the quilt back to the table nice and taut before layering it with batting and top to pin baste.  What a difference this made! You can see the tape in the upper left corner.

I enjoy making an all over fan quilt design, freehand, no marking.  Easy peasy, and really fun.

A plaid taffeta ribbon made binding the quilt a snap.  What you see here is one of the corners from the back.

One line of zig zag stitch, carefully making sure that the front and back binding edges were sewn down, and it was a done deal.

I didn't want to make a big ol' label but thought a little inscription for the record would be better for this baby quilt. I used a Pentel Gel Roller for Fabric pen.

And here is Noah's quilt, ready for delivery...

 

It is 46" X 48".

Hooray for Noah!

Sweet 16ing a Vintage Quilt Top

You remember Pete and Katie don't you?

My nephew Pete asked me to make this for his girlfriend Katie a few years ago.

Now who wouldn't say "Yes" to a guy like that when he asked her to marry him a little while later?

Their wedding is in a few days...and it has been the perfect opportunity for me to not only make them a quilt, but also to try some experiments with my Sweet 16.

I have been saving a vintage quilt top for just the right occasion, and this was it.  I wanted to keep it true to its 1930's to 1940's time frame, but also really personalize it for Pete and Katie.  So this is what I did....

 I decided to try to quilt their names into the top, and began to lay them out.

Then I thought, why not make the letters raised up a bit, like in trapunto?

So I bought some craft fleece and cut out my letters.

 

I used some Sulky KK 2000 Temporary Spray Adhesive to stick them to the back of the quilt top.

Then I pin basted the top into a sandwich, with Quilters' Dream Cotton Batting (which I REALLY liked) in the middle and a piece of wide muslin for the backing.  In the picture you can see the Sweet 16 just waiting!

I outlined the letters in red thread, and then meander-quilted all around them, continuing on to quilt the entire surface.  I hoped the letters would be subtle but still easy to read.  (And by the way, doesn't everyone quilt while chatting on their phone?)

Well, they didn't show up quite enough.  So then I got drastically creative.

 

As you can see, the "and" here is ok but just a bit too faint.

Better, don't you think?  I do.

It's faux stitching!

I think of them as "Sharpie Stitches".

I did test this ink out thoroughly to make sure it was water fast, and it almost is...it bled a little.  But not enough for me to care.

I wasn't willing to do actual blanket stitching on the machine because I didn't want to squish the letters, and wasn't sure I could pull it off technically anyways.

I admit, I do feel just a little smug about this, and think it is pretty funny.

To carry on with the theme of fake blanket stitching, I quilted a "blanket stitch" into the border.

Here are their names from the back....

 

...and here is the finished quilt from the front.

The quilt is still vintage looking but there is this very personalized twist to it, which I enjoy a lot.

I hope they do too.  And may they have a long and happy life together!