Ruffled Sunbonnet for newborn.

Made this sun bonnet for Élodie today. She's only six weeks & 4 days old. The store bought hats are too big. It is 100% cotton scraps from quilts. It can be made bigger by loosening the back tie. I sort of followed this tutorial. 

My doll's name is Rebecca, she is identical to my granddaughter Anastasia's baby. I bought her to make doll clothes. 

 Rebecca was quite delighted to model Élodie's hat.

  She closes her eyes when she's sleeping. 

😂 Happy stitching.

Project Linus Make a Blanket Day - Spiderman Quilt

April 29th, 2017 Project Linus hosted a make a blanket day in Brandon.  Forty-five blanketeers showed up to knit, croquet, piece, iron, and quilt.  In addition to these volunteers, several people dropped off finished blankets (10 big bags).  Thank you so much to all the generous talented people. As part of the Project Linus committee, I hosted three cutting days in my craft emporium.

We designed 30 quilts, cut all the pieces, binding and backing, so blanketeers were able to make a quilt with Project Linus materials.  

I selected the Spider Man kit below.

pieced on April 29th.

After pin basting, I pondered about it for two weeks on how to quilt it. Instead of stitching in the ditch or free motion quilting my usual Jesters' Hats, Heart-Shaped Leaves, Feathers, Butterflies, Flowers and other girly motifs, I decided on a spider web, which was completely outside my comfort zone.  

First I folded and marked the middle, drawing straight lines with chalk and a ruler.  Then I stitched all the lines from the centre to the outside edges.

The slanted lines were free motion quilted starting in the middle and working in circles.

My first quilted spider web! 

 This is the back.

 and finished front.

 Binding

Purchased the spider web backing in clearance section of Halloween fabrics. It is 100% cotton.

I do hope this Spider Man quilt will bring some child comfort.  It was made with lots of tender loving care.

Care Quilt & Nifty Needlers

This quilt is going to the Westman Women's Shelter, most of the fabric was donated.  

The quilt back, borders and some blocks are 100% cotton from my stash.

The yellow and white checked rectangles are 100% polyester scraps from shopping bags.

The white rectangles with red hearts and the white with red roses were free motion quilted with heart-shaped leaves and jesters' hats.  

 The inspiring words were machine embroidered.

 The photos were taken on a king size bed.

Free motion quilting heart-shaped leaves and butterflies in the borders.

The binding is 100% drapery fabric, it has an interesting texture and was the right colour.

Rather than hand stitching the back side of binding, I top-stitch a 3-step zig-zag on the front the front side.

In spring 2016, I joined Nifty Needlers, these awesome ladies meet every second Wednesday from the beginning of September to the end of April.  They run quilting, sewing, crafting classes, raffle off a queen size quilt, have a quilt show, make and serve tea at the quilt show.  There are several  committees and about 80 members.  They raise money for the hospital, make quilts for the homeless, Project Linus and the women's shelter.   I'm on the Care Quilt and Project Linus committees.  Project Linus is hosting its second make a blanket day (MABD) in Brandon on April 29th.  We have been busy cutting up quilt kits to hand out to blanketeers.  

Dear readers/followers, I saved the biggest and best news for last!  I have a new grand daughter Serena Rose born last week.  Between playing with grandkids, sewing receiving blankets, flannel crib sheets, pj shirts for my daughter, cutting up quilt kits for Project Linus, adult colouring, photography, walking the dog and playing the piano, there is little time left for blogging.   Would love read your comments if anyone is reading this. Happy stitching.

Mikaela's care bear toddler quilt.

Welcome to the world Mikaela, our great niece.  The plan was to finish her quilt for a presentation I'm giving at Nifty Needlers' meeting on January 18th, then mail it to her before Valentine's Day. My baby quilts are toddler size so the child make a tent with it, drag it daycare and use it on her first big bed.  This quilt was designed using Electric Quilt 7.

Care bears blocks with flower sashing, rainbows with sunshine sashing posts.

  Laid out prior to piecing.

  Watching "How to Make an American Quilt" while piecing.

 Scant 1/4" seam allowance.  

Inside white border.

Adding the ribbons for little hands to fondle.  These 100% polyester ribbons are designed for sewing. 

Basted on.

Stitched into place with outside flower border.

The seam with the ribbons is overlocked.

Then top zig zag stitched to the outside flower border.

The only way these ribbons will come off, is to cut them off.

After ironing quilt back and batting.  The back is held taut with plastic carpenter's clamps to table edge.  The edge that is shorter than table length was taped to cutting mat with packing tape.  In the past, I have used 505 Quilt basting spray and a quilter's basting gun with plastic fasteners.  Didn't like either one because the quilting spray is too sticky.  The basting plastic fasteners are flimsy, plus once a black bit of plastic fastenser got stuck in between the quilt top and batting.  In my opinion, safety pin basting works best.

Two flowers for the care bear blocks.  Traced the paper picture on to tulle in an embroidery hoop.

Using a sharpie black marker.

Next transfer the flowers to the fabric.

I used a Pilot Friction pen, which is supposed to disappear with a steam iron.

Unfortunately, the steam iron did not remove all the pink ink and on some flowers it left a dark grey residue where the pink ink was. The other down side of this pen is if the quilt gets cold the marks reappear.  I tossed it in the freezer all the markings were back.  

Ooops! I did this backwards, should have made a test piece first. With a scrap of unbleached white cotton, I drew a large pink flower on it.  I sprained it with "Shout" stain remover, let it sit for 30 minutes then washed and dried it.  Put in the freezer - the small pink centre circle of the flower was left.  Next sprayed hairspray on it, let it soak about half a hour, washed, dried it, then put it the freezer.  All the ink was gone.  After Mikaela's quilt was finished, I drenched the care bear blocks with hairspray and let it dry overnight.  Then sprayed it with "Shout" stain remover, washed and dried it.  The grey residue is all gone.  In the past I've marked the quilt tops with ceramic pencil, purple or blue fade away marker and chalk. 

The sashing, sashing posts and outside flower border have free motion quilted butterflies, the white border is heart shaped leaves.  All the free motion quilting was stitched with a Inspira 90 titanium quilting needle using 100% polyester machine embroidery thread in both the bobbin and needle.

 Back side

 Her name is machine embroidered .

 

Finished quilt is 47" by 59" 

Dear fellow quilters, if you have an easier method for marking quilt tops. Would you please share your technique?  Someone suggested I try children washable markers.