quilting – Page 19 – the long thread

March 8, 2008March 8, 2008

Baby Dress Quilt

Here’s the first block of the baby quilt made of baby dresses that I’ve been planning for quite a while. Some dresses were mine and some were new, but all are stained or too worn to pass down. The birds were cut off on this block, but it was impossible to cut them another way. The smocking was a little tricky, but I really like it. This is going to be a very fragile quilt. Since I have two girls, I thought I’d just make two quilts now and sew all the blocks — 32 of them I think! We’ll see how it goes.

March 1, 2008March 1, 2008

Some New Pillows

There’s no point in getting new furniture around here because it will only get over-loved by the kids, so I decided to make some new throw pillows.

I wanted to find fabric that would lend itself well to a patchwork pillow design so I went with this Marimekko fabric from Reprodepot. Seems that it’s longer available there, but you can find it and all the other incredibly cool fabrics on the Marimekko site here. This is a pattern from the ’60s and I chose it because I needed blue, but I’m thinking it looks a bit like I pulled it off a dorm room wall. Can you smell the patchouli? Or maybe the colors make it look kind of nautical. Perhaps I should have mixed in some other fabrics. Anyway, I’m just not sure about these pillows. I’m going to try to make some more pillows to add to the room and see how it goes. Thought I might try Amy Butler‘s hourglass pillow pattern (available free on her site).

February 16, 2008February 16, 2008

Table Makeover

Raise your hand if you own one of these IKEA lamp shades. I have seen them everywhere, but still love them. My mother bought these two tables at an estate sale and I painted them for the girls’ room. They are right next to each other because their beds are pushed up against the walls for now. You can see the before and after of the tables below.

I’m not sure that I’m happy with the colors as I was mixing acrylics with house paint that I had on hand, but oh well. It adds some brightness to their very pale pink room.

Then I finally finished these little runners for the tables that I’ve been thinking about for a while. I just cut fabric with no measuring at all, then snipped as I pieced it together in a random pattern.

January 24, 2008January 24, 2008

A quilt…one of these days.

I’ve been sorting through my fabric over the past few days and came across the box of old baby dresses and such that were mine. These were either stained or too worn for the girls to wear, so I’ve been planning to make them into a quilt. I thought I’d post some photos of what I found because I love them so. I’m hesitant to cut these up until I have some kind of fabulous plan for this quilt. I thought I did, but I changed my mind. Suggestions welcomed.

January 16, 2008March 21, 2008

Patchwork and Quilted Pillows

I made these pillows last week in my patchwork frenzy and just finished them last night. I embroidered the flowers and lines and sewed them in with the cotton prints. I used upholstery fabric for the border and backing so I’ll need to have them dry cleaned after the inevitable jelly hands get to them.

After I made these, I found this totally amazing pillow from A Stitch in Dye which is giving my pillows an inferiority complex. You can see her beautiful work on her Flickr page here and more for sale in her Etsy shop. She also has a blog here. Wow, I’m a fan! I am really in love with the hand dyed look, inspired color choices and beautiful free form quilting. These must have taken hours to make and they are really inexpensive ($40 and $42 each).

Here are a couple of other nice quilted pillows:

This one is from Raeburn Ink, $70.

And this one by Neressa Bennett, $95.

All of these modern quilt designs make me think of the Quilts of Gee’s Bend. I felt inspired when I saw this exhibition and I urge you to take a look at the patterns, color and design for inspiration even if you are not a quilter.