A Bit of Lou Lou Thi

*Picture heavy post coming!*

I am still here - it's been a mamouth month with my 39th birthday (eek! Too close to 40 now!!) and our 3rd Sarah's Cards Ltd retreat at the beginning of the month followed by monthly kit packing, grab boxes and then a nasty cold to contend with. But I have still managed a little sewing

I bought a half yard set of Anna Maria Horner's Lou Lou Thi range from Fabricworm a little earlier this year and have been pondering what to do with it. In the end, I made 3 quilts! It's surprising just how far 5 yards (10 x half yards of print) will stretch when teamed with solids - in fact, I still have enough scraps for a few pots or pencil cases if patchworked together. We'll see. I am trying to build my scraps a little to make a string quilt eventually.

So, for the first, I purchased some Kona Ash from Mandy and set to making another HST Quilt. I had slightly miscalculated, so had to order more for the back, but really like how it came out.

I used the same fabric to make a scrappy binding for this one and quilted on the grey Kona, around 1/4 inch away from the coloured fabric. It makes the colours pop more somehow

The next one I made using Bleach White Kona (almost ivory white - it suited these prints - I think white may just have been a little too stark)

I had intended to make a zig zag quilt using these HST's when I first started but really wanted to see how it would look in this pattern (which is my absolute fave right now!).

I do want to make a zig zag quilt at some point but when you've gone to all the effort of 130 HST's (to include the zig zag on the back) I somehow feel that zig zag is the "easy looking" option. I may try Crazy Mom's Quilts zig zag without the HST's - we'll see!

Finally, I made another stacked coin quilt

I just love this and love love love the colours of these fabrics together. I always lean towards blues, aquas, greens, browns & greys so it was great fun using these brighter prints.

The top grey sashing quilt is finished - the other two have backs but need to be basted & bound - a job for the coming week. All three quilts are destined as presents - I wonder if the recipients can guess which is for them??!

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Up Friday, week 5 (yes I know that technically it is Saturday here but, hey! It's still Friday somewhere in the world!)

xxx

Elizabeth Susan

My sister gave birth to Elizabeth Susan this afternoon at 2:45pm, weighing 7lb 12 1/2oz. Mum & baby doing well. I am thrilled - she has two boys and now a girl to add to the equation - how perfect!

We are trekking over to Wales tomorrow to see her - the twins will stay and play with their cousins whilst I get to go and have fabulous newborn baby squidges and I cannot wait!

Not wanting to go empty handed, and having given my sister a quilt for Elizabeth for Christmas, I decided to knock up a quick taggie blanket for her. It's not something I have made before but was fairly simple. Luckily I have an abundance of ribbons! I chose velvets, grossgrain, picot edge, satin, ruffled, stitched - all different textures to give those 10 perfect little fingers a little something to be entertained by. I chose more fabrics from the Patricia Bravo Dreaming in French FQ bundle I bought at Seamstar - Courtney is fabulous and had teamed it up with some solids for me, which were perfect for this project. The backing is a fabric I bagged in the Christmas sale at Fabricworm - I bought half a yard of pink and the same in blue, just incase! I used Warm & White batting inside (an offcut from a quilt I made last year). Super simple quilting on either side of the "ditch" rather than in it (I think it looks so much nicer like that - show off the quilting, don't hide it!) and topstitched around the edge of the seam

Have just realised the quilting looks puckered at the bottom in this pic - it's not, honest!

Hope she likes it!