pretty in pink

I am so lucky to be a part of a charity quilting group at my church. We meet every week and sew quilts and other projects for organizations such as Lutheran World Relief and Project Linus, as well as quilts and gift baskets for various local fund-raising efforts.

Our latest project is making baby quilts for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of a local hospital. These small quilts will be donated to families with babies being cared for in the unit.

This little pink lovely is my first contribution to the group's donation set of quilts.

I started with a WOF strip scrap bag from an LQS purchased a couple of years ago. I think most of these fabrics were from a Moda Basic Grey line, but sorry I can't remember the name. I cut all the strips in half and sewed 16 of them into the center section. With the remaining strips I constructed some four-patch units to add to the sides with a 2" finished strip of white-on-white to separate them. The final border strips are the same 2" finished white-on-white bringing the total dimension to about 36" x 39" - perfect for new babies :)

The center and four-patch borders are straight line quilted in a pale pink thread.

Within the white border sections I free-motion quilted a continuous line of pale pink hearts.

The backing is a cozy pink-on-white stripe flannel.

It gives me such a great feeling knowing that this little quilt will be given to a family with a tiny new baby girl receiving extra special care and attention before she's able to go home.

I've got two more quilts for this hospital donation in the works. More about them later!

Hope you are all enjoying your week!

one last finish from 2011

Presenting "It's the Hap-happiest Season of All" - designed and named by Thing 2, machine pieced by yours truly, and machine quilted by a wonderful lady named Carol Linder. Finished on December 30!

Thing 2 and I followed the pattern "Sweet Pea" by Heather Mulder Peterson; it was very simple to cut, piece, and also fat-quarter friendly! I think we used 15 fat quarters and 1.5 yards of dots on white from the 2010 Riley Blake Christmas collection (the name escapes me, but it was definitely 2010).

The pattern calls for appliques of large, daisy-like flowers, but obviously snowflakes are more appropriate here. We found some clip art of snowflakes online and enlarged two different ones for the appliques on this quilt.

I tried (again) to use Steam-a-Seam Lite for this project, but I just seem to have the worst luck with that stuff. It didn't adhere to the fabric very well, so when I tried to pull the final backing off, most of the adhesive on the snowflake edges came right off with it. Grrrrr. But I just edge-stitched all around each snowflake to secure them, so it's all good now :)

Another shot of the fun fabrics. Thing 2 fell really hard for these prints!

The red and white stripe was cut on the bias to make the binding, which was attached front and back by machine. So easy and quick! And check out that cozy flannel backing :)

Next time I make a bias binding I'm going to show you the wonderful ruler I use to cut it. Maybe you all already know about it, but I think it's the greatest little ruler ever. And while I'm at that, I'll also show you how I attach the binding by machine. It's nothing revolutionary, but I think it makes for a very nice finish when you don't want to take the time to hand-sew or you need more durability for machine washing.

Just a couple more shots of the amazing snowflake pantograph quilting.

I chose a light teal/turquoise thread, and I'm so happy with it. That little bit of color adds so much more depth than white thread.

This quilt finished off my sewing year. I went back through my goal list for 2011, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I accomplished quite a lot of my goals. Here's a list of finishes. Gosh that word "finish" sounds so good to me (extreme procrastinator and easily-distracted-by-new-projects-quilter that I am!)

7 Pillows
7 Wall or Lap Quilts
4 Baby quilts
4 placemats sets/table runners
2 Bags
1 Tuffet
1 Memo Board
1 Tree Skirt

27 finishes!! I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't made that goal list. Kinda puts the pressure on for this year though, huh?

I know it's quite belated, but Happy New Year 2012 to all of you friends out there!