Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2014

It's the Bloggers Quilt Festival again. Welcome, new and old viewers. 

I have just finished a small wall hanging for my son whose birthday it is very soon. I am still trying to finish quilting his bed quilt, so I can't enter that one this time!! The Boy is very much into Pokemon at the moment. I am amazed that this craze is still going around! I decided to make him something small to hang on the wall beside his bed.

I found a paper pieced pattern of Pikachu at Fandom In Stitches which came together relatively easily. 

Although, I had just taken a picture of the finished block when I noticed I had used the wrong colour in a place that mattered and gave poor Pikachu an extra pointy face. 

I couldn't live with this so it was soon corrected!

Paper Pieced Pikachu

I appliquéd the Pokemon title on to the top border and topstitched it down too, just in case it gets pulled around. I also appliquéd 3 pokeballs along the bottom. A pokeball is (I believe) the place you store your Pokemon (pocket monster, for those not in the know!). The 3 pokeballs I used were the poke ball, the friend ball and the premier ball.

He needed some features adding, like maybe some arms and a nose and mouth.   I also outlined him in black to give him more definition. I enjoyed this bit, like finishing off the character.

The rest of it is quite simply quilted with a little bit of echo quilting around the features and then lightning strikes down the side borders because he is an electric-type Pokemon and can store electricity in his cheeks and release it in lightning-based attacks, apparently! This is about as much as I know, and want to know, about Pokemon. Although, I am currently planning a Pokemon party for the birthday boy so I might have to gain a bit more knowledge to keep up with the 8 year old boys.

Here is the final wall hanging. Hoping it goes down well with the birthday boy.

Final Pikachu wall hanging

There will be lots of great quilts on display in the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side so do go take a look at them.



Quilt Stats:
Fabric: A variety of Kona solids
Size: 17.5" x 13.75" (? oh well!)
Started: 6 May 2014
Finished: 12 May 2014

A very pink cushion ** Finish **

Nearly a month ago now my brother's second baby girl arrived, a few weeks early but all well thankfully.

After the birth of their first little girl, 2 years ago, I made this cushion for her. 

I went through my patterns but couldn't find one I wanted to use. So, I took the baby's name, Brooke, and made it the focus. I pulled out some fabrics to piece the backing and some pretty batiks for a variety of appliqué features. 

Using a perle thread I quilted around the appliqué features and in the borders. 

It did turn out a bit pinker than I had anticipated! I hope she will be a pink girl!

Birthday cushion

It has been another hot, sunny day again today. Luckily my sewing room is in the basement where it is much cooler :)

I am working on a cushion for our neighbour's birthday. She will turn 9 and has recently started to show an interest in sewing. She has been making lots of rather small (8"x5") cushions which is driving her mum mad as they get left around the house. So I thought I would make her a large (20") appliqué cushion to show her what she could work towards.

The pattern I am using is by Kellie at Don't Look Now (here) because as soon as I saw it I just had to make one! It uses the fusible raw edge appliqué technique which I have just completed. I now need to stipple quilt around the pattern. But I am scared to start this. I am still quite a novice at free motion quilting, I can do it but I get a bit jerky and loose my way. But after being at work today, up too much in the night with my 3 year old and having just fallen asleep on my 8 year old's bed whilst reading her a story, I think I might have to leave it for another day!

Here's a picture of the completed appliqué. I hope my neighbour isn't looking :)

Does anyone know of good sewing books for children? I am struggling to find a nice one that does a range of things that are not too fiddly or take too long, as the attention span can sometimes be rather short!