I finished my first quilt of 2014. It was made for the newborn son of one of my friends. She’s the first of my high school and university friends to have a baby so it was a very special occasion.
I used Kate Spain’s Sunnyside collection for Moda. This fabric makes me happy (even though there are clouds and raindrops featured on some of the fabrics!) and I think it’s perfect for a baby quilt so I bought a fat quarter bundle. Note to future self: When you want to use a whole fabric collection to make one baby quilt, it might be better to get a layer cake instead since a fat quarter bundle featuring 40 fabrics amounts to 10 yards of fabric which is enough to make at least 4 quilt tops… Just saying…
The finished quilt measures 35’’ x 47 ¼’’ (90 x 120 cm). I wanted this to be a relatively quick make and didn’t want to do any seam matching while piecing. For the front I cut 6.5’’ x 8.5’’ rectangles that were assembled in alternating columns of 5 or 6 pieces. The top and bottom of the columns with 5 pieces were filled up with 6.5’’ x 4.5’’ rectangles.
I didn’t use all of the fabrics in the collection. There are a couple that are a bit on the floral side that I think are too girly for a boy’s quilt. I tried to include the two blue fabrics on the bottom row in the picture but on their own they looked out of place so I decided to duplicate some of the other fabrics instead.
At first I wasn’t sure what to do with the back. I considered using a solid with some blocks of the Sunnyside collection pieced in. The problem with this idea was that I didn’t have enough of a solid fabric in my stash that really works with this collection and there are no quilt shops in Leiden so buying something new would either mean going to another city or buy online. The risk of the latter being that the colour I pick might not work with the collection after all when I get it. Since I had a lot of fabric left over from making the top I simply cut 6’’ strips of varying length and assembled these in rows.
For the quilting I wanted to stay in theme with the fabric and did a huge sun with sunrays in an orange variegated thread using my walking foot. The rays turned out pretty straight but the sun is a bit wobbly/wonky in some of the circles. I probably wanted to go too fast. In the centre of the sun I quilted the boy’s initial, I like this detail.
For the binding I had the same issue of not knowing which solid would work well. I realised that the fabrics that I could be certain would work were the ones that were already in the quilt. I searched Dutch online fabric stores and could find only 1 fabric from this collection for sale in the whole of the Netherlands and that’s the one I ended up using. The binding was handsewn to the quilt and I think this process took longer than the piecing of the front and back of the quilt. I love the look of a handsewn binding so I suppose it’s worth the time and effort.
Giveaway has closed!
Unsurprisingly, I still have quite a bit of fabric left over from my fat quarter bundle so I thought it would be fun to share some of it with one of my lovely readers. I cut pieces that measure at least 6’’x12’’ of each fabric from the collection. Most are more generous. This is enough fabric to create a decent sized quilt top. I leave it up to the winner to cut it up into squares, rectangles, triangles, hexagons or whatever else takes their fancy.
This could be yours!
Rules:
- Giveaway is open internationally.
- To enter leave a comment that clearly states that you wish to enter the giveaway. If you just comment “hey, I like your quilt” I will assume you are not interested in the fabric.
- You can enter until Wednesday March 5th, 20.00h UTC +1.
- Only 1 entry per person.
- Friends and family are allowed to enter.
- Prize drawing will be performed by my boyfriend.
- Results are incontestable
Hey, I love your quilt and I’d love to be entered into your giveaway too!
Your friend is very lucky, and i hope the quilt will be a family heirloom that they’ll cherish for years and years.
I’ve a new niece due in June and would use the fabric to make her a quilt if I was lucky enough to win 😀✂️😀
Thank you! I’m sure the quilt will be used often, they loved it.
Well I still want to say “hey I love your quilt” because I do! I bought a Janome with quilting attachments and I have been practicing with the attachments – I actually have a walking foot and know how to use it! So far I have made a few sets of placemats with various patterns for myself and family. But I still can’t believe some of the quilting projects I see here. Just beautiful!
Thank you! I love the playing with fabric and colour part of quilting most. You’re not ready yet to tackle a full sized quilt?
Noooo, just little things! 😳
I want to enter! I know at least two babies on the way who will need a quilt, and I love this fabric range. Geachte Emmely’s vriendje, kies dan alsjeblieft mijn naam!
Haha, I’ll pass on the message. I’m afraid he’s terribly objective though. I’l probably end up holding a bowl with names under his nose while he picks a piece of paper without taking the time to look up from his newspaper.
I’d love to enter for the drawing. I can just imagine playing with that fabric. 🙂
I also want to say I love the quilt, and in particular, I love your solution for the backing. It’s awesome! It gives me some ideas for a project that’s in my future.
Thank you!
Beautiful quilt and, as always, neat and lovely finish. I love that you personalised the quilt with his initial. (I’m not entering the giveaway – just wanted to compliment your work.)
Thank you! And it’s perfectly allright not to enter. Not everybody quilts or will like this fabric.
Hey Emmely,
I would love to win some of your quilt fabric! So far I am not really familiar with quilting, but it would also look nice pieced together in a skirt. You really inspired me btw with your jeans skirt, got all my old jeans and a piece of jeans fabric with a nice applique/edge ready to go.
But I now thought to do the applique in folds (stolpplooi, geen idee hoe dat in t Engels heet), so I need to draw another pattern for that…
For a summerskirt I think this fabric would work. I would probably line it though.
Yay for cutting up old jeans and turning them into other garments! I think a stolpplooi is called a boxpleat.
I was just ging back here to say it is indeed a boxpleat, but I see you already knew that!
When you have a picture of the finished skirt I’d love to see it!
I am really loving the two-sided quilt movement. So yes, I would like to win this fabric, and I would use it for the back of a quilt where the front will be made using a Sunnyside jelly roll which is sitting patiently on my shelf. I think you could have made a scrappy binding for the quilt too.
Sounds like a good plan! I did consider a scrappy binding but thought it might end up a bit too busy.
It looks great. I don’t think the backside is actually a backside, the quilt has two front sides!
Do you do your quilting on a regular machine? When searching on what a walking foot is (turns out my sewing machine already has a grippy upper feet dog, now I understand why that’s useful) I found a video on “How to Quilt a Big Quilt on a Standard Sewing Machine”. Seems like a lot of work.
I would like to enter the Give Away to. I’ll probably start on a playpen mat though, they’re not as big 😉
Yes, I quilt on my regular sewing machine. It came with an extension table (see picture on my About page) that makes it easier to manoeuver large projects. I also use my walking foot for knitfabrics and slippery fabrics.
This quilt is about as large as I make them because I don’t want the quilting to become a struggle. How much quilting you need to do to hold the 3 layers nicely together depends on the kind of batting that you use. Some battings need very dense quilting others can easily be quilted with lines up to 8 inches (20cm) apart. Less quilting is also less work. The quilting of this quilt was very doable.
I’d like to be included in the giveaway, please. Now, to more important matters–the quilt turned out great! I really like the quilting pattern–a great idea for a happy quilt!
Thank you. I try to pick quilting designs that enhance the quilt and I think that worked out very nicely in this case.
Your quilting design on this is so clever. I love the sun.
Thank you!
Just found your blog via a comment you left on mine! Love the “no seam matching” idea – will be great for charity quilts. I love the fabric and would like to be entered into the giveaway.
Yes, no seam matching really speeds up the piecing. Otherwise I get in my “it must be perfect every single time!” mode and that’s not very helpful when a project has a deadline in the somewhat near future.
I’d like to enter the giveaway! I’m about to receive a new baby girl cousin in the next few weeks, and I think these quilt patterns would be just lovely for her. I’ve never attempted a quilt before, but maybe it’s about time to start! 🙂
If you start simple and look up some YouTube videos on piecing and quilting a quilt is not that difficult to make.
Hi Emmely,
not so lang ago (in december) I produced a quilt for my former university collegue because she would get a little boy in january. Now the boy was born on the 8. of january and he looks really cute with his quilt. Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to get such lovely fabrics. I used common cotton wool fabric without any design and sew some animals for the quilt. It looked surprisingly good for my first quilt. But I wished I had such a lovely collection of fabric.
Now I planned a quilt for my daughters bed. She is 5 now and your flower fabrics would fit there very good. It would get such a lovely simple quilt just as you sew yours. It is really great.
Best wishes for your next projects,
Claudia
Thank you.
I love your quilt and I ‘d like to enter the giveaway. I#ve not yet quilted before, but aways wanted to try.
Thank you.
Your quilt is great! I make quilts for my nieces and nephews (6 of them!) and this fabric would be great to use. I tend to stick to using charm packs but seeing this makes me think I should try using layer cakes. I also don’t have a walking foot for my Janome so my quilting is often quilt puckered and I have only done stitch-in-the ditch quilting so far, not brave enough to tackle corners :-). Good luck to all in the giveaway,
Thank you! If you have the money for a walking foot and there is one available for your machine it is absolutely worth it.
Your quilting looks amazing – do you mark the stitch lines before starting? If so, what do you use to do that?
I am very inspired by your blog this evening – as you can probably tell, I started from the beginning and am reading through! You first popped up when I was searching for using binding on an armhole.
Thank you! I marked the lines with a sew line mechanical pencil. These are ideal because they give a very narrow chalk line that is easy to follow. It’s available in different colours. I believe I started the first circle using a plate as a template and then measured the larger circles with a ruler. The sunrays were drawn with the aid of large quilting rulers.
I don’t think I’ve ever had so many comments from the same person on the same day. 😉
Thank you Emmely for all your replies! :o)