New York Beauty quilt top finish

As I already mentioned, I entered the Quilting Gallery's wall hangings contest. While I was there, I noticed this quilt by Teresa at Quilting, stitching and sew on:

I had been doing the New York Beauty sew-along at Sew Sweetness, but having got to block 4, my enthusiasm was waning. So when I saw this, I thought - hey, if I get one more block done I could finish my quilt off in the same way.

So I worked on it all weekend, and here it is:

Apologies for the crap picture quality (as always. I really need to find a tutorial or something!)

I'm linking up with

Any suggestions?

I am looking to make a baby quilt for my colleague, who is expecting a girl. We fancy Puttin on the Ritz by Moda. Now to find a pattern...any suggestions gratefully received!

My inspiration, my mummy!

These beautiful quilts are just a small selection of those made by my mum. I will try to add more as and when she makes them, as she isn't a blogger herself and I really think she has a talent that needs sharing with a wider audience, clever lady!

So without further ado...

 

 And a close-up of the stitching on this one, she's so neat!

And my favourite:

And a close up of my favourite panel:

My latest quilt

Ok this is my latest quilt. I have 4 of the jelly roll books by the mother and daughter pair, Pam and Nicky Lintott. I loooooove jelly rolls! For those not in the know, a jelly roll is a set of 40 strips from the same fabric range, so they come already co-ordinating, a godsend for someone like me! The pattern for this quilt was in this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Two-One-Jelly-Roll-Quilts/dp/0715337564 and I used a jelly roll called Nicey Jane by Heather Bailey. I intentionally try and choose fabrics that are out of my comfort zone - my rule of thumb is 'Would my mum buy this?' and the answer I'm looking for is no! Anyway, here is the quilt:

I love it, and have used it to cover my ripped chair at work, to cheer me up on even the most dismal Monday morning.
And the best thing about the patterns in this particular edition? Each one only uses half a jelly roll, so I still have another half a jelly roll to use! I've got all the cutting done so I plan to get started on the sewing over half term, which begins tomorrow! :)

Quilts Two and Three

My second quilt will always have a special place in my heart, not just as I made it for my best friend's baby, my god-daughter to be, but also because I started properly working on it during our holiday in Ireland, where my partner and I got engaged. Here's the ring for those who are interested ;)

So anyway, the quilt! This quilt was inspired by my mum's style. She has only been quilting for a few years, but has such an eye for colour and design, she's got to the stage where I think even her teacher is in awe of her! So I designed my applique patches first, with several bunnies thrown in for good measure (I LOVE bunnies!!) and then designed the quilt around these. The fabric is a jelly roll of Oasis by Three Sisters for Moda: http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_Oasis.pdf (I love love LOVE Moda fabrics... I have my eye on a jelly roll by 'Bunny Hill Designs for my next baby quilt, for obvious reasons!) Anyway, I am rambling, here's the quilt!

Excuse the wonky picture! In fact excuse the quality of my camera work generally - it's not my strong suite! Will try to work on it, specially for you ;)

Then of course I 'had' to make a quilt for baby's sister (poor me!) I had just the fabrics - a set of glittery star and unicorm fabrics I had bought a few years earlier, originally planning to make myself a lap quilt. There was no real plan to this design. I cut out as many unicorns as I could first, then made the applique patches because I just love to sit and hand-applique in front of the TV in the evenings, and then I wanted a patchy square to showcase the fabrics for the remaining squares. I sewed them together, then backed with pink fleece, and Bob's your aunty's dentist's cat's vet's mother!

My first quilt!

Ok so it's about time I shared my quilts! My mum's skill inspired me to make a start on some of my own. We occasionally go to http://www.fabricguild.co.uk/ to get some fabrics at warehouse prices. I was lucky enough to pick up a batik jelly roll by Fabric Freedom for just £18. I loved the patterns, and I wanted to show the continuity of the patterns within the quilt, so that inspired the pattern for this quilt, which I designed myself:

I recently had a look on the fabric freedom website and completely by coincidence discovered that they had done a very similar pattern with the exact same jelly roll!

However, they haven't matched the fabrics up to get the continuity, and I have to say I prefer mine. Is that bad?! Let me know what you think!