Drum role please.... Very hungry caterpillar quilt

Here she is! She has been a labour of love for 7 months so you will have to excuse me while I show off every little detail. This started out on a whim with a very scrappy design that I built adhoc. I framed the the main main panels and then slowly filled in around with with coin stacks, zig zags and other little fillers. I used most of the fabrics from the original Very hungry Caterpillar range, but also added in a lot of co-ordinating blenders and stripes and checks in bold primary colours. Once the main piecing was done I framed it with two borders. The first being a thin blue stripe and then a 5" border using the purple scribble blender from the VHC range.

The final quilt is 48" x 62"- this makes it a generous cot quilt or a large floor rug or perfect as a lap quilt!

Below shows the main butterfly panel with two 1" frames. Below this is a maverick star, also with a series of frames around it.
This pic shows another of the large panels with a 9 patch block above and a strip of fruit seperating them.

In another section of the quilt I created a fussy little window using a piece of the food stripe and framing it then filling it out with bigger scraps of multicoloured fabric.

The final main panel was also framed and is partially surrounded by half-triangle squares orintated into a zigzag.

Now to show show you how I quilted different area's of the quilt. I used white and grey thread. The larger area's of plain (!) blocks were quilted with a 1" diagional grid.

In the areas of white fabric I either used white thread to echo stitch around the pictures of food...

Or did a very fine free-motion stipple. On these bigger panels I also used some grey thread and free-hand stitched some of details into the caterpillar/butterfly.

The maverick star also got some echo treatment. I ditch quilted each seam in all the frames.

For the backing fabric I went simple and used the stripe from the Eric Carle "brown bear" range. The binding was a blue stripe I have had in my stash for a few years.

The cross hatch from the back.

The butterfly panel from the back.

Snap shot Sunday- Dungarees

I thought I would start building up some stock for the store.

Ispy quilt- Disappearing Nine patch

It looked perfect in my head, but somewhow got lost in translation. I *think* its because my head version used solid coloured fabrics framing the Ispy charms, but all I had was a fat quarter pack of pastel polkadots. I am trying to tell myself to unpick the charms and start again with some solids. I wanted the intensity of colour to be more like this

Anyway the idea went like this...

Take 4 Ispy charms and place them in the 4 outer positions of a "Nine Path" and fill in the other positions with plain (solids, tone on tone etc) fabrics. My charms are 5" square.

Join into rows

Then join rows to make a nine patch

Slice Nine patch like this to make 4 disappearing nine patch (D9P) blocks. The Ispy harms remain whole and they are framed by the plainer fabrics.

When you have made a few you can a arrange them to make a sort of crazy Ispy quilt.

Sandbox Pants

George started a 3 year old kindy program this week. Its only a couple of morning sessions a week, but there is always some outdoor play involved. Being a boy he loves the sandpit. You know what I hate about boys clothes and sandpits? Boys clothes magically attract sand. All those cute cargo pockets and bum pockets and nooks and crannies in boys shorts seem to hoard the sand until the moment your boy goes inside and has a little lie down on the couch.

?

Solution? No pockets, no cuffs and only detailing that lets the sand fall out straight away.

No compromise on cool though.

Zebra shorts (I did these a size up since we are now moving winter and he wont get a heap of wear out of them until next summer)

Ok little back story here.... last December I made George a Doona cover for his cot using strips of my favourite "blue" fabrics and gave him the bedding for christmas. I blogged about it here. In January we packed away the cot and George went into a single bed. Good one Milly! Not wanting to waste the fabric I decided to turn the Doona cover into some pants (with no pockets or cuffs of course).

The backing fabric was a lovely soft denim, so I turned those into a pair of pants too. This time I added in some little pleats- facing dowards of course so the sand will fall out immediately George stands up (before he's even left the sand pit).

Zig Zag quilt for Archie James

Archie was born about a week ago, so I got cracking over the weekend and finished off this quilt for him. I used this pattern and blogged about the quilt top here . Its a super nifty little way to whip out a zig zag quilt, especially if you used some jelly rolls. The only negative thing I would have to say about the pattern is that because, essentially, the finished top is on the bias it does have a tendency to warp and go out of shape. I had a bugger of a time trying to keep it square when I was smoothing it out on the wadding getting ready for pinning.

I used some of my Favourite Michael Miller "traffic Jam" for the backing fabric. For the quilting I decided to go pretty simple and just echo stiching each zig zag using my machine foot as the guide- so the stitching is about 0.5" away from the seam. I matched up the thread colours for each zig zag, red thread for the red zig zag etc. I usually try and use cotton thread, but in this case had to resort to polyester to get the right colour matches. I think the binding is a stripe from the Sandi Hendersons "farmers market" range.

The finished quilt is approx 30" by 42". I am happy with this quilt, its fun and happy. I love that it was quick to do but visually interesting, and its still a useful size as a bassinet/pram blanket or as a floor rug for a young baby.

Snap shot sunday- pram liners

It was a bit hard to decide what to photograph. Not because I dont have sewing to do- quite the opposite really. Normally the weekends are for "me" sewig, but I am a bit behind on some tin whistle orders. Guilt got the better of me and I pulled out the next tin whistle project on the list.

Its a pram liner I have been working on for a while. Its designed to fit the Stokke Xplory pram and I worked out a deal with a friend who owns one. I would make her a free liner if she lent me the pram for a week so I could design a pattern. We did that a while ago and I have been sending prototypes back and forward for fine adjustment. Now all I have to do is actually make up the liner in the fabric she bought to match her pram!

So I am officially pulling my finger out and starting it today... well right after I finish blogging.

Tin whistle stock for Red Feathers

I've just this morning taken this stock down to Red Feathers and a Hula Skirt. If you're in Perth and you like the look of any of them why dont you pop down to their store and snap it up!

Laguna skirt- size 3-4

Laguna Skirt size 3-4
Rainbow skirt size 5-8

Pinny size 3

Pinny size 4

Pinny size 3

Shorty dungarees size 6-12 months

Retro dungarees size 2

Retro dungarees size 3

Snapshot Sunday- super daggy maternity pants

My sister has a pair of those super daggy "over the bump" maternity pants that she's worn and loved through 3.5 pregnancies (still a few more months to go for the 0.5 one). She loves them but cant find any more like them because, apparently, these days fashion conscious pregnant women only wear their pants "under the bump". So we took the old pair, and got tracing and snipping and sewing and made her a new pair. It worked a treat and she is delighted to have some more comfy pants to wear.