Cast a Vote for Baltimore Blues

Over at Quilting Gallery, it's time to vote on Quilts for Mom.   I have entered the Baltimore Blues quilt into their weekly contest and would really appreciate your vote!

This quilt was a gift to my mom for Mother's Day last year.  It's the second Baltimore Album quilt I've made. It measures 60" x 85".  The pattern was purchased from Fat Cat Patterns by Sindy Rodenmeyer. 





Do check out the wonderful quilts submitted over at the Quilting Gallery.   I would love for your vote to be for my Baltimore Blues, but if you find others you like better, I certainly understand.  They are all just gorgeous!  Voting is taking place now through Monday 6pm Eastern. Click HERE to get to Quilting Gallery.

Thanks a bunch!



And to all the lovely moms out there, hope you have a fabulous weekend with your loved ones!

My First Improv Quilt

I am so glad to show you my first finished quilt for 2012. I have used a pattern from Kate Conklin Designs called There's a Square in There. I love the contemporary look of the quilt and decided to make one for my son.

I have mostly used Denyse Schmidt's Greenfield Hill line -dogwood colourway, a mix of prints, Essex Cotton/ Linen solids and a whole lot of Kona Cotton in Snow.

It was a lot of fun cutting the fabrics using Kate's 'stack and slash' method.



I wanted to add more blocks as I wanted the quilt to be bigger and the blocks smaller than the original design. So after a few exchanges of emails with Kate and based on her recommendations, I made the blocks smaller without compromising the look and added 9 extra blocks to make it 72" square. Love the improv look!

Quilting was fun too.   I hand quilted it using Perle Cotton No. 8  and
followed Kate's method

using masking tape to mark out the squares and then quilted on the inside and outside of the tape.

I love her pieced back design
and did the same for this one.  I used
Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley line-new day colourway for the backing and added a few green prints to tie up with the front of the quilt.

I made up two scrappy binding strips using the remaining fabrics I have used for the front and placed them randomly on the sides and I love how it looks!

I am very happy with how it turned out and knowing that my son, Iliya loves it....PRECIOUS!!!

2011 Finishes

Besides the Flower Garden which you can read about it here and my Baltimore Album here, these are the other quilts which I've completed in 2011.

I've made another Baltimore Album quilt for my dearest mom (since she loved the one I made for my bed) and gave it to her as a Mother's Day gift. I used Sindy Rodenmeyer's Baltimore Blues pattern which I've purchased from Fat Cat Patterns awhile back.

Before Binding (left) and After

I started this quilt early last year. I hand appliqued the blocks and assembled the top within 4 months, I sent it out to my LQS for quilting as the batting were too thick and my needles kept breaking!  I was ambitious to tell them just to machine quilt the blocks and sashings and that I'll be hand quilting the side and corner triangles. However due to time constraint, as you can see the picture above, I commissioned my good friend Nordzie to help me with it.  She knew how tight my schedule was, so she went a step further by finishing the binding for me! It was so sweet of her! 

Lap Quilt measures 60" x 85".










This Log Cabin quilt was made for my daughter, Syairah. She wanted a bright and colourful quilt to cover her bed and she did play a part in selecting the fabrics for her quilt.

Assembling the blocks were abit of a challenge in the beginning but overcomed it after a few boo boo. The process of seeing the blocks coming together was really exciting and I couldn't wait to see the end product.

 I machine quilted 'in-the-ditch' and managed to whipped this baby up in 3 weeks!


The quilt is 56" x 65".  The colours gave a modern look to the traditional design and am glad my teenage daughter loves it!


Another finish for 2011 was a prayer mat. It was a request made by my sister-in-law, Eka Zahra, and I thought it would be nice to make it as a gift (since it was mentioned a few months prior to her birthday).  I wanted the mat to have a more subdued colour and chose neutrals which also happened to be her favourite!

I used one of the designs of the blocks I've made in my previous BA quilt and made it as a header in this mat. I've hand quilted the block and machine quilted the rest.

The prayer mat measures at 28" x 42".

Baltimore Album Quilt

I've always been inspired by pictures of Baltimore Album Quilts in magazines and decided to make one.

This project started in mid 2010. My LQS had a series of BA BOM and with much enthusiasm I've ordered the templates and started immediately upon receiving them.

A few of the completed blocks before trimming to size

These blocks finished at 16".  I hand appliqued the blocks using my favourite needle-turn method.   It took 5 months to complete all 13 of them.

 I wanted to try a new layout so I set the blocks on point and pieced them on a diagonal by machine.  I used a green tone-on-tone fabric for the stars and a soft green solid for sashings.

I hand quilted all the blocks, side and corner triangles. Machine quilted 'in-the-ditch' for both sashings and stars.

backing

Completed this baby in 8 months.

My Baltimore Album Quilt measures 103" square.

My hubby loves the fresh and vibrant colours of this beauty.

My Flower Garden Quilt

It all started with this photograph which I saw in the Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine, Vol 18 No 9.

I love hexagons and thought that it would be a nice project to start off after a long while (1995 to be exact) when I last made my daughter's baby quilt. 

This is my very first big quilt. It measures 85" x 95".

I started this project in January 2010 and completed it in February 2011.

There are more than 4,000 hexagon pieces in there, all hand-pieced and hand quilted. 

I used Marti Michell's 3/4" hexagon template to cut and mark my fabrics. These hexagons were pieced following Marti's dot-to-dot piecing technique.

After completing the centerpiece, I've appliqued it to the borders as I wanted to keep the hexagon shaped edges. I stitched 'in-the-ditch' for the hexagons and used variegated thread for the borders.

Backing

I wanted a crinkly, vintage finish thus I did not pre-wash the fabrics prior to cutting.




LOVE the traditional look!

Even though it took me about 13 months to complete this project, I have enjoyed the whole process of it!