Hansel & Gretel

These are quilts 7 and 8 from the Festival quilts.

Shopping online on Craftsy.com, I came across a beautiful bundle of 1 yard cuts, at an unbelievable price.  Eleven 1-yard cuts for under $50.  Yes, please.  Eight were monochromes and then there were three that had multicolored hexies.

1 yard cuts = Yumminess

I do not see myself making paper pieced hexies. Therefore, as soon as I saw the fabrics, I had this "brilliant" idea.  Why do anything?

Do nothing?
Ok, well a little something - like add a matching/contrasting border.
The result?

Hansel and Gretel were born.

Hansel

Hansel is characterized by navy blue.
Navy blue border for Hansel brought out the boyish charm of the pattern.

Gretel

Of course Gretel has pink and orange.  An orange border seemed just right for Gretel - feminine enough without being too girly pink.

The best part of these twins is the quilting.  I used the hexies to guide my curved quilting lines.

Gentle Curves

Walking Foot Quilting

For Hansel I chose a navy blue owls backing fabric.

Navy & Lime Owls

For Gretel, it had to be this bright floral.  This is the brightest fabric in my stash.

Super Bright Floral

Magically, a lime green binding worked well for both sides of both quilts.  That is pretty amazing!!!

Lime Green Binding

Perfectly Matched!!!

Kay fell in love with Gretel and bought it for her granddaughter.  Hansel went to Sean, the grandson of a friend.

Labelled!

How can something that is so easy and so simple look so pretty and adorable?
I am positive that the quilting gods were smiling upon me :-)

Will I make these quilts again?  Absolutely.  I so loved this idea that I went and bought 1.5 yards of each of these two fabrics from fabric.com.  Who knows, I might need to make one tomorrow.

Cheating never felt better!!!

Yes, I made a Hexie Quilt ;-)

If this post has brightened your day or given you any ideas, please do let me know.  Because, when I hear from you, it brightens my day!!!

Fit for a Princess & Puppyfish

These are quilts 5 & 6 from the Festival.

The inspiration/design for these two quilts came from Moda Bake Shop.  The pattern is called Bricks.

Once again, I made a sketch...

...while I was drinking my morning cup of chai...OOPS!!!

27 squares and 27 rectangles will make a baby quilt.

Now, you can make this super-scrappy but I wanted to stick with a theme.  Pink and girly.
Here is a hint when you choose fabrics for a project. Pick 5-6 different fabrics  - a dot, a stripe, a near solid, 1 or 2 focus prints, and 1-2 small prints. Make sure that there are some that are dark and some light.

Fit for a Princess

Focus Fabric

Sweet & Pink

Small Print, Dots and Stripe

A simple pattern keeps the focus on the fabrics.  Stare away at the princess and her castle - no major distractions here.  I chose a red/pink hearts backing.

Sweet Hearts

Choosing a binding was easy - a hot pink solid worked well with both the front and the back.

Cherries & Cherry Blossoms

Cherries, Cherry Blossoms and Cupcakes - Can it get any more Girly???
Yes, look at the Princess and her castle :-)

Labelled!

The quilting was once again the simplest (fastest) possible. I used the Cs and mirror image stitch and went over the ditches.

Pretty in Pink

When Mary saw this quilt, her eyes widened.  This would be perfect for her nephew's baby girl.
I was just thrilled that the quilt found a loving home.



Now let me talk about Puppyfish - the twin brother of "Fit for a Princess"
I struggled with the fabric choices.  There were two focus fabrics, but after that I could not find enough fabrics in my stash to make the whole thing work.  Felt limited by the colors in the focus fabrics.

Fishes and Puppies

Did not want to use grey or black from the Fish/Whale fabric - too gloomy.  Although some orange would be fine, it did not seem to be cohesive with the others.

In the end, I chose two dotty fabrics, one stripes and one small print with the two focus fabrics.  Fewer fabrics resulted in only 24 blocks instead of 27 in the original pattern.

Puppyfish

To get to a respectable baby size, I added a navy blue border.  That seemed to work and brought the whole thing together.  The backing was a light green soothing print fabric.

Owls and Birds

I think this was the last of this fabric.  Served me well in a few backings.

Simply quilted with Cs and mirror image of Cs, this was one fast finish.  I may have spent more time picking the fabrics than putting the top together.

Black Binding

Labelled

Jess bought Puppyfish for her granddaughter.  Are you sure, I asked.

Don't you want something more pink?  She was absolutely sure that this was it.

In the Sunlight

This is what I have learnt - Boys won't do pink. Must avoid any trace of fuchsia too.  Florals are a big no-no as well.

But girls are fine with all colors. Happy to be a girl - I get to play with all the colors!!!

I am so happy with the success of this pattern. It is fast and easy, really highlights the focus fabrics, requires only 5-6 fabrics and I am sure you have all of them in your stash.

I can see this getting made into several quilts.  What do you think?

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