A quick catch up.

It's been a bit quiet on the blogging front. I've been finishing old projects and working on lots and lots of presents. I feel a bit funny blogging tutorials for things I've made as presents, but I'm more than happy to answer questions if anyone wants to try any of the below!

So, here's a quick run through of the last few weeks in photos, and not so much a tutorial as an idea shared for a baby shower present you can make.

First up, this top secret present has now been posted, received, and is therefore safe to share. Made for a very good friend's baby, said baby had the nerve to show up 5 weeks early, thus throwing all my plans to have this there for his arrival! It was quite a basic quilt top, but then I decided to try my hand at free motion quilting. Definitely not as easy as I'd hoped it would be. Quilting this thing took...a very long time. And many, many broken needles. By the end, though, I was barely breaking any (as opposed to the first few inches which used up 7 in the space of half an hour).

I love this quilt - simple, bright colours, and the backing is possibly my favourite fabric ever. I may well make this again, but there are a few things I'd do differently...

Finished quilt

Close up of the quilting

Quilt backing

The finished book

 Next up, we have a project that was born out of a baby shower. We wanted to make a collaborative present for the (second time) mum-to-be, and I'd originally thought this would be a blanket. I asked everyone at the shower to draw a wee picture, and was going to turn them into appliques for a fleece blanket. However, the designs didn't really lend themselves to one blanket scene, so I then thought it would have to be a patchwork quilt. And then, the idea of a book hit me.

This one is made of unbleached cotton, and the appliques are as many different textures as I could find, from soft fleece to bumpy corduroy, to scratchy linen. I hope baby likes reading it as much as I liked making it.

First pages
 

Original drawing, and the resulting applique

Giraffe!

I was most proud of the cat's eyes

And finally, a special request for a friend: a couple of rounds of name bunting, for a pair of sisters. I love making bunting.

More exciting (?!) tutorials to come but for now, I have to finish this last thing that's been keeping me busy. I call it the Quilt of Doom and really, that's a story for a whole other post...