One idea after another...

I was fiddling around with fabric, as you do, and made a simple bunting in pink and blue (which since has found a home with my Aunt).  A quilt friend saw it (before it became the property of my Aunt) and said you should add letters, make it say happy birthday or something like that... and two days later I had both of these made.

Not satisfied with stopping at two (see previous Union Jack post --- not sure what this says about my self control) I made another with a simple saying:

I now have another in the works, I think this one will say celebrate !

Why is the Union Jack such a compelling design?

This is the Union Jack Quilt I made for my daughter... both she and I absolutely love it !  She asked me to make a block for the front sleeve of her school binder, which I did, and then found I could not stop.  Forget Lay's Potato Chips or whoever said once you pop you can't stop... they did not mean potato chips, they meant these Union Jack blocks.

While I would love to keep this for my own Lou has waited many years for a new quilt, not to mention the fact that Soapy Soap Lola of previous posts has two quilts with a third on the way and she is only 1.

Never one to be left out, I also had to try the Union Jack block in traditional colours, to make sure it worked out properly of course and this is mine :)

Now I have had two family requests for this quilt. One from my Aunt Jac, she likes the soft vintage Laura Ashley look and two, from my sister Jac (Mum of Lola), who wants hers in Kaffe Fassett.  Wouldn't that be delicious :)

Now for my next trick...

So this quilting business... it is not something I picked up recently.  I have been quilting, and I can hardly believe it, for over 16 years now.

Until now I had shared my quilts by taking pictures, having them printed and putting them in a photo album and showing that to people who visit, willing or not.  I know the glazed look in the eyes of those I ask, do you want to see my quilts? My daughter has indicated that I should enter at least the last century with quilt pictures and stories on the internet.  So here I am.

After Lola's First Birthday Quilt, which is actually her second, more on that later... I was at my sister's house.  We were discussing fabric and ideas for future quilts (mostly for my sister who has more of my quilts than I do) when she drags out two large white storage bins filled with fabric.  In one there are a billion, well maybe not a billion but a heck of a lot of tiny little 2" squares.  She has no recollection of what she was intending to do with them given she was pregnant at the time she cut them out (and they are surprisingly accurate given the circumstances).  She offers them to me along with a few coordinating prints.  And we are off...

I bring this bunch of misfits home and start to play.  This is where the real fun begins, when time stretches out and nearly stutters to a stop, if you do anything creative you know what I mean.  I make up a block. By the time all the bits are used up and I have made one more trip to my sister's house for additional coordinating fabric, this is what I have... stay tuned for the next installment, provided I have not bored you to tears and you are no longer reading this, which I have no way of knowing...

Lola Soapy Soap is One !

This is the quilt I finished for my newest niece Lola, or Soapy Soap as she is more commonly known.  Lola was born nearly one year ago on July 19 during a dreadful thunderstorm which included power outages at the hospital.  The storm foretold of Lola's dramatic nature, only beginning to be revealed.

Recently while out at a quilt shop, Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph, I found an adorable panel that featured many world cities, Cairo, Mexico City, Nairobi to name but a few.  Usually I am not one for panels however I have seen what some of my quilt clients can do with them and I thought I should stop being such a panel snob and give it a go.

I started by cutting out the city patches (of which one is Rio de Janeiro - timely given the World Cup) and then added the blue and purple fabric borders.  At this point the process stalled.  Putting them all together without something in between was just too much, even for me.  I was also determined to use a scrap of cabbage floral (Kaffe Fassett I think).  It is the leftover piece from a quilt I made for Ava (Lola's oldest sister).  Eventually after some auditioning I decided to use the white and the green and found a way to add the lovely cabbage floral :)

The purple square on the lower right was required because the city squares numbered 15.  This is a difficult number when trying to plan a square quilt.  The purple is not properly positioned, but once I had it sewn up I decided it was fine.  I am not someone compelled to be perfect.  One can go mad doing that and it takes all the fun out of the process.  The point of the quilt is to keep my niece happy and warm.

Happy First Birthday Soapy Soap :)