Indiana's play mat

I just wanted to share the quilted play mat that I made for my best friend's newest addition baby Indiana last year.  He's coming up on a year old now, where does the time go?!?

After the rush to get Saffy's quilt finished before her birthday (it took me 3 months from the start in total due to time and financial constraints!)  I managed the play mat in a week!  It was a much more relaxed make, and I loved the colours on this.  The more eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that my blog header features the patchwork from this quilt :-)

My middle boy Benji chose the animal print fleece for the backing.  I just LOVE it!  I have a whole stash of it in the fabric box at the moment, most ear-marked for one of my WIPs, but the rest I am itching to make into hats and scarfs next Winter.  It's so cheerful I can't help but smile when I catch sight of it.
I am generally met with strange looks when I mention I quilt with fleece for backing, is it that odd?  I tend to choose it for durability and wash-ability for small people, especially babies.

The bright patchwork middle was lovely to put together, and we chose red cotton to frame it, and a really vibrant green ribbon for edging.

 

Starflower block

Well I've done one already!

I had  a quiet afternoon with just Arthur at home, so I thought I'd have a go at a starflower block.

It's pretty rough and ready - but I'm pleased it didn't take too long.  I'm going to make a scrappy block quilt, trying out a few different ones, and possibly getting the kids involved too!

Here are the photos - nothing spectacular, all taken on my camera phone, but you get the idea and can see just how 'rough and ready' my approach to quilting is!!

Looking for inspiration

Well, time for post #2 on my blog... Are you excited?  I am!

After twiddling with settings and designs most of yesterday trying to make it look 'pretty' - I took most of my alterations off and have left it minimalist - the reason being I realised that most of the blogs I enjoy reading are kept clean and simple, so I'll do the same for now.
(Not to mention resizing my photos to use as backgrounds so they were small enough for Blogger to accept them but big enough not to tile randomly was doing my nut in!)

Anyway, enough of that...

Yesterday I came across a wonderful resource - a webpage of free quilt block patterns, The Quilter's Cache 

Putting things in a place.

Hello no-one.

This will be a place for me to jot down ideas, works in progress, quilty things, sewing things - and mothering things.

I'm a mother of three sons, and 2 step-daughters.

We have ups and downs and sideways - and I try to keep it all together.