Quilt number 4

I love this quilt!  There wasn't much piecing as it was a play mat but I love the way it turned out. This was a birthday gift for my nephew's 4th birthday. The inspiration for it came from my mum who made me and my sister a mat when we were little and we played with it continuously. Some of this quilt was pieced (sea, sand and green), some appliqued (lake and river), and some of it stuck on after quilting  (roads and car parks). The dilemma I had was whether to applique the roads which from a sewers perspective was preferable or to have the roads relatively  flat so the cars would run along them, following consultation with my other half it was decided that a 4 year would appreciate the flat roads more..so the glue came out.

I used the sea to make waves as little pockets for his cars, figuring that it wouldn't bother him that people do not normally drive their cars into the sea.

As per normal time was a little tight to get it done so the quilting was machine done in a grid pattern to keep it simple.

Quilt number 3

This is where it went a bit wrong....friends of ours had a baby boy and I thought how nice it would be to make them up a special quilt. I used a variety of different blocks and even added some applique to personalise it with his initial 'A'.  Sadly I neglected to realise how similar some of my fabrics were and how a block might be good if used in multiple blocks without borders but on its own....well....I ended up sewing swastikas into it by accident - fabric with similar hues meant the pattern emerged without me realising! I am aware that the swastika was previously had a good meaning but the modern associations weren't really suited to a baby quilt. I did finish it off but this one is staying at home for my son to use.

No pictures this time, I would not like to attract the wrong attention to this site.

Quilt number 2

This was a very quick quilt to make. I attended a 2 day course at Hometown in Rochester under the guidance of Mavis and Marion Haslam.  The quilt was a quilt as you go technique, it is very quick to cut and piece and can use up lots of scraps. This quilt is in regular use at home on my son's bed.

What was good was I got to use my favourite fabrics from Quilt number 1. Here is a close up so you can see some.

This quilt was finished in February 2013, where I had this great idea of trying to complete a quilt a month...ha! Who was I kidding.

Quilt number 1

The first quilt I made was from following a pattern in a book, it was machine sewed but then hand quilted which took significantly longer than I expected and the sewing was not particularly neat.  This was meant to be a gift for my nephew on his third birthday in August 2012 but did not get completed until Christmas 2012.  I loved the fabric but did suffer from not including enough plain fabric, something I am still trying to adapt to.