Two New Quilts, Another Commission Finished

Just to start off, here's a little doll quilt I made from the scraps left over from Amelia's quilt. I used all the cut off edges for the triangles and the border comes from the backing. It's sweet, and just visible in the background of the ironing board photo. I've got another one in progress, from the really little scraps of the same quilt.

I love doll quilts - so random and cute!

Behold the scene of conception of a new quilt commission in my studio. It's not very pretty. I was asked to make quilts for two 12 year old boys. This is the first. The colours were chosen and I decided to make a snowball block, with a look of tiles and tortoise shell, from fabrics provided by my client with a few of my own thrown in. It turned out to be quite a fiddly exercise with all those little corners and lots of cutting and pressing.
How do you like my ironing board cover? I can't help smiling every time I use it. I covered it with a fabulous Alexander Henry fabric called The Outdoor Type from my shop.

The quilt was finished with a simple black border and binding, and minimal quilting in the ditch so it retained a soft and cuddly feel. It's quite a large single bed size. I used lovely 100% bamboo wadding again.

In 12 years of quilting, this is my first quilt made specifically for a boy! I made a small one for my Dad, early in my quilting life. Apart from that, all the others have been for girls, women, or non-gender specific - just quilts I wanted to make. It was a bit of a challenge, and I think it's worked. I enjoyed working with the strong, earthy colours. I do think a lot of girls would like it too...

xoxo Ann.

My Comfy Chair Just Got Comfier.

Just wanted to show you...

Here is the cushion I finished a couple of days ago - finally after months of it sitting in pieces waiting... It didn't really take that long to sew the final bits together, quilt minimally by machine, and add embellishments. And it looks so cute, feels so good, on my comfy shop chair.
This is my comfy chair. Everyone loves sitting in it and gazing around at the fabric shelves. They can even browse from the magazine rack. Once they relax and take a load off, they can discover all sorts of pretty things they need... and want to sew with!

xoxo Ann.

Sweet Doll Quilt

It's been such a busy couple of weeks and I haven't been able to post, much less visit my favourite blogs. I've finished one large African Quilt commission and just about finished another one with all sorts of slippery, fraying fabrics in it. Pics another time.
This is a tiny doll quilt I made with the left-over triangles from a larger Jelly Roll Bow Ties quilt/ Cute, I thought. It's hand quilted...amazing the way these little quilts take so much time! More next time...
Thanks for reading,

Ann.

"Patricia" Quilted

I finished quilting the Gypsy Bubbles, Patricia Quilt! I love all those beautiful photos on other people's blogs, showing the lovely textures of quilting, so I tried to take some to show you too.

I am quite proud of this one, having quilted it entirely free of templates on my domestic sewing machine. My nice big Janome 2500 sort of died in the process (more correctly, it's gone into a coma after having a seizure caused by a malfunction in its motherboard). So I had to change over to my little Pfaff. It did a pretty good job.
This is the back,

a close up of the all-in-one binding with its little peeper trim,

and finally, its passed the comfy test by Dolly who started to sleep on it as soon as I folded it and put it on my studio table!
I haven't got back to the little doll quilt I asked you about in a post below, but the overwhelming vote went to (a), the yellow with the pink dot. Thanks for all your responses and I'll post when its finished.
Till next time,

Ann.

Scraps and Leftovers : To make a Doll Quilt or a Cushion?

Every time I finish a quilt top, I 'm left with a pile of scraps, off-cuts and shreds of fabric. I hate throwing them out and I always plan to make some lovely little something with them... but a new and larger project (or the book keeping!) always beckon and i end up bundling them together and stashing them in my scrap bucket until later, when I have more time.
This time I actually did make some small blocks with the usable scraps leftover from the Susan Quilt. Most of the fabric left was in shreds so I only got (barely!) nine almost 4 inch random log cabins. Now I have to decide what to do next...

I've tried out different layouts and these are the three finalists:
a) Yellow with pink spot

b) Fine blue stripe

c) Chocolate spot on aqua.
Now I'm throwing it open to my blog readers: What do you think?
Looking forward to your responses here (I know we all have opinions!),

Ann.