Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Theo's quilt finished (& Brit Thursday linky)

Theo's houses quilt

So this week I have a finish - hurray! The quilt in question is Theo's second birthday present. Does he need another quilt? Errr probably not, but he has a compulsive quilter for a mother and when I spotted this baby quilt a while ago I was desperate to make my own version.

The fabric it is based around is Alexander Henry's Smiles Around The World. I fussy cut each face and framed it with a Kona solid and then built up the houses with co-ordinating scraps.


The trees were made from a paper piecing pattern I bought from Protoquilt on Etsy. I used it the right way round twice and reversed it for the other two trees. The fabric for the trunks is a great wood effect cotton I found on eBay

theosquilt_tree

The border is made from a Moda fabric and the binding is by Birch fabrics. They are very similar, but subtly different. If you think that was very clever and calculated on my behalf you are wrong! I simply bought the wrong one when I went back to buy binding fabric, but it's a happy mistake!

theosquilt_binding

For the back I used more of the Moda dots, mixed with solids (the largest part is Kona Robin Egg) and paper-pieced Theo's name on the back using My abc's pattern by Diane Bohn.

theosquilt_back_edited-1

For only the second time since I started quilting, I chose to use a longarm quilter. Partly as an experiment, partly because my sewing machine is playing up, and partly because I wanted this to be a "special quilt."

As a result of that decision a very strange thing happened (here comes the crazy bit!) I missed building the relationship that you do with a quilt when you quilt it! All the handling and feeling and feeding through the machine, and watching it change before your eyes. So when it came back to me in the mail I didn't actually like it! However over the last three nights as I have hand sewn the binding on to it, and handled it again, we have developed that relationship, and now like all my quilts, it's a thing I love.



So what's everyone else been doing?




Follow on Bloglovin

9 comments:

  1. I'm sure Theo will never have too many quilts. I'm itching to make baby quilts and nobody is having babies! I thought your border/binding co-ordination was inspired not a mistake :-)

    I have nothing to link up with at the moment due to being extremely lazy since my holiday!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi! Theo's new quilt is fantastic! I love all the unique blocks and colours! So beautiful! x Teje

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great quilt for Theo. He is going to love telling you his colours and spotting all the different folk living on it!
    I wish I could get my lettering to go as good as yours.
    It's interesting what you say about the longarm quilting process. I agree with you that the quilting bit, although sometime arduous and tiresome, is an important part of the love affair.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is absolutely amazing! I am always in awe of quilters, but this is really something special. I'm sure Theo will love it and treasure it for many years.

    Angela xx
    Little Apple Tree

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love the quilt - it's beautiful! Theo's a lucky boy!

    I'm in the middle of my latest sewing project still so nothing to share at the moment, but it should be ready by next Thursday.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love this and you can never have too many quilts! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is gorgeous! As Kelly says, you can't have too many quilts :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. What a fabulous quilt! I am sure your little boy will love it. You definitely can never have too many! Thank you for hosting the party. Have followed you and Dandelion Day Dreams on Blog Lovin. Have a great weekend. Marie (mlismore@optusnet.com.au)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love your quilt! It's fantastic, I want to make one too. I love the name on the back too, great font!
    I was wondering if I could join your linky party too. I live in Italy and my Mum is British. What do you think?

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for posting a comment, I really appreciate your feedback and messages!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...