New Commission - Baby Boy Quilt and Block

The commission was for a baby playmat about a metre square with a panel that has the baby's name and birthdate on it and a soft toy block with ribbon tags - everything else was up to me, i.e. colour, design, applique, layout, etc. And here's what I came up with:

The name panel was stitched by hand with embroidery floss...

...and the puppy dog, tow truck and robot panels use raw edge applique for securing the fabric and for detailing, along with trapunto for texture.

The robot might look familiar as the design is from Don't Look Now's Robot Riot quilt

 

As I had free reign on the design of the quilt I wanted to make the back a bit interesting so I slightly modified the layout of the Modern Pickle Relish design from Modern Quilt Relish to suit a small square quilt.

I quilted all over with a medium density meandering loop pattern in variegated blue rayon thread on the coloured blocks...

...and more densely with random stars on the white background fabrics of the feature applique blocks and the white border using a white rayon thread.

The soft toy block only had to have the ribbon tags for bubs to play, again anything else was up to me so I ran with it and appliqued shapes onto two sides of the block. The dinosaur has overlapping crinkly spiky spines for bubs to grab onto...

...while the kite is made of felt secured with satin stitch and its tail is made of ribbon bows, again to add texture to tempt little fingers.

I was absolutely staggered at how this quilt was received by not only my client but also the baby's parents and anyone else who has seen the quilt and block in person or even simply pictures of them. Thankyou so much Leah for not only asking me to make this quilt but also for having such absolute trust in me that you let me just run with any design ideas I had to produce this, a gift to treasure.

Amelia's Quilt Pillowcase

I almost forgot. I did make a pillowcase to match Amelia's quilt and I've since learnt that she loves it so much that it's turned into a traveller, ie if she hops into mummy's bed, pillow comes too. So cute.

I used raw edge applique for the heart and butterfly and hand stitched the antenae.

And finally...Amelia's Quilt

Next Steph and I pieced the backing using fabrics from the flowers, hearts and butterflies and arranged in an off-centre cross.

I then sandwiched the quilt using cotton batting, basted it with thread and quilted it with an all over loop and heart design.

So as to not detract from the quilt I used the same pale pink background fabric for the binding which I machine sewed on and then Steph and I hand sewed to finish it. And I think I've dragged this out long enough...here it is.

I knew I forgot something

I found my way back finally. Sorry, how rude of me to not finish the reveal. I can fix that...

Trapunto.

I basted small off-cut pieces of batting behind each flower - I found it easier to baste with thread rather than pins so it was guaranteed to lay flat and smooth

and then free motion stitched a line close to the edges of the petals (aka raw edge applique) and also in the centre of the flowers. I stitched a spiral here but other flowers had hearts or pebbles stitched in the centre.

I then flipped the quilt top over and carefully cut away the excess batting as close to the line of stitching as I dared without cutting into the fabric.

I did the same for each heart and butterfly except for the three large hearts which were attached by needle-turn appliqued and have 2 layers of batting behind them for the trapunto. These were stitched close to the edge on the background fabric rather than on the applique fabric and I was really happy how they appeared to pop out of the quilt. I also used needle-turn applique to attach the caterpillar segments and added 2 layers of batting for the trapunto there too.

Then to finish off the butterflies I hand stitched the antenna with chain stitch, backstitch or stem stitch. The one above was done with chain stitch.