Sherbet Quilt

Now that I had completed the two cute bundles for the double baby shower, I could get started, I mean restarted on Alex’s quilt. Right?

Wrong.

But why?

Because there is another baby shower. My dear friend Manveen’s cousin Tresa is pregnant with a little girl. When Manveen invited me to Tresa’s baby shower, I immediately recalled that I had so much fun going to Sukhveen’s baby shower last year. Sukhveen is Manveen’s sister and is now the proud mother of twins – Malcolm and Melanie.

I had made my first quilt for Sukhveen’s shower. I had not seen Sukhveen since the shower last year. I had not seen her twins either. And for all these reasons I just had to go to the shower. I so wanted to see the twins.

And therefore, once again, I placed Alex’s quilt away and started working (furiously) on a baby quilt for a girl. It is a good thing I had an orange/pink  jelly roll on hand. Trust me, when you need a quilt in a heartbeat, a jelly roll is the way to go.

So I just started playing with the colorful strips and lo and behold – a pieced top. I am going to call it Sherbet Quilt.

Yes, it still needs to be quilted and I need better pictures showing the border and the back. But you know me - I get excited! I had to share. The shower is on 2/15/14. Some mad scrambling now to find time between work days.

I completed the Sherbet Strips quilt on Feb 15, 2014, early morning on the day of the baby shower. But bad weather prevented the journey :-)  Tresa, I have your quilt. Hope to have it you soon.

Here is the completed quilt. It is 45" by 45" and was machine quilted on my Janome.

And here is the label. I named it Sherbet Strips, based on the recommendations received from the quilting forum.

Too beautiful for a placemat...

Two things just go together - scraps and improv blocks. In fact, when you have scraps and are not sure of how to put them together , you just start with one and watch the design evolve as you add each scrap. That is exactly what I started doing after I finished Bear Hugs.

I had scraps leftover from strip tube blocks - the triangles left over at the edges, some left over binding and scraps of batting.

Step 1 - I joined batting scraps together, using a zigzag stitch. There is a tutorial here

Step 2 - Cut the pieced batting to a size of a placemat - 18 by 22 inches.

Step 3 - Add a backing and spray basted in place. This is the fabric I used. Love the rich dark colors.


Step 4 - Pull out the scraps and start playing. See the pictures below. I started with two leftover triangles and placed them in the center, RST. Stitched, flipped and ironed.

Triangles placed RST

Stitched with a scant 1/4" seam

Flipped and Ironed. Looking good, already!

Now, I had the center established. I kept adding strips and flipping and ironing - quilting as I went adding fabric strips. See pictures below.

Once I got to the corners, I added triangles to finish the placemat. Added a black binding - one that would go with both the front and back. After I finished one, I was so hooked, I made three more. It is that addictive. Here are the finished placemats.

And now I have to share with you the biggest problem of this exercise. These placemats are too pretty to be covered by a plate of food. And if I was a world-renowned chef, I would not want these pretty placemats to distract from the gourmet food on the plate.

In my opinion (biased, as it may be) they are stand-alone pieces of art. What do you think? Should I just frame them and use as wall art? Please help.