Sunbonnet Sue Block

Here is a birthday block for a guild member. She loves Sunbonnet Sues and even makes tiny miniature ones by hand and sells them.
I again used the window fusing applique method but with the blanket stitch on my machine. You can get such a neat look with this. It's going to be a great quilt with so many variations of "Sue"!! Interesting how the colors vary with the photos. The actual color is like the top block with a yellow background. Happy Birthday, Linda!

Giraffes, Elephants and Hippos - Oh My

This is the latest quilt for Jake - to stay at Nana's house. I saw this quilt made up at Intown Quilters a few months ago and thought it was so cute! So, at Shop Hop, I purchased the kit and got it finished last week.
I did machine applique with a small zigzag stitch, using a lightweight cotton thread. I do a technique that is sometimes called window fusing. I first trace the whole pattern on Wonder Under (in reverse), then trim out the inside, leaving about a half inch of Wonder Under all around the inside edges to bond. I do this to keep from having the quilt be too stiff from all the fusible.
This quilt pattern is free if you go to Michael Miller Fabrics and look under free patterns. Or, here is the actual down link. You will see it in totally different fabrics but you can download the file and choose whatever you like.
Here is the back of the quilt. I had the center portion left from the kit and the stripe had been bought for a project and not used so it worked out perfectly. Here is a tip I suggest: If you have just a short amount of fabric to be used at the top or bottom of a quilt, I prefer to have a larger bit as opposed to it just coming to the edge and only having an inch or two show on the end. This way it looks more like it was planned and not like you ran out of fabric at the end and had to add a little piece.

Easy Peasy Strip Quilt

This quilt could be called "The Fabric Makes the Quilt" because that is exactly what I was wanting to highlight. Not a fancy design, lots of piecing, etc, but just the beautiful colors all put together for a baby quilt - the raspberry color being the key that the mom had chosen for the nursery.I found these fabrics at Sweet Home Quilt Company. They were perfect for what I wanted to do. I looked at several patterns but none were quite what I wanted or had in mind so I opened up Electric Quilt 7 and designed my own simple quilt.

I bought 1/2 yard of six fabrics for the strips, cutting them 17" x 7.5", getting 4 strips from each fabric. I then cut one of each of them in half so they measured 8.5" x 7.5". I laid them out on my design wall and played till I got the arrangement I needed, trying not to let the same fabric touch each other in the rows.

By buying half yard cuts, I still had enough left for a 2.5" wide strip to be cut so I auditioned those narrow strips between the larger ones but decided that was not the look or complication I wanted.

This was so easy, just sew those strips together to make 6 long rows, sew those rows, straighten the top and bottom edges then add my sunflower border and I had a quilt top!! The borders were cut 5 1/4" wide and I bought 1.5 yds to cut my borders lengthwise of the grain. I bought 5/8 yd of the stripe binding so I could cut it on the bias and the backing took 3-1/8 yards. The quilt measures 52" x 57" and has hearts and flowers quilted on it. As I said, Easy Peasy, so simple, yet to me, striking, and a quilt to be loved and used by my cousin's granddaughter.