more bibs and a hippo quilt

For those of you who are really into this blog for the photography, I really am going to try to intersperse all this sewing with some of my pretty pictures! Bear with me. And thanks for listening. Reading. Watching. Whatever.


I mentioned in a recent post that we've got two nieces on the way. Time to show you some of the things I've made for niece number two (numbered in sequence, not importance!). I made them before I knew she was a girl, so once again (see my first set here) I needed to go for gender neutrality. Which works out well, since her nursery is going to be bright primary colors…not much girly-girl pink and purple going on in her life, I'm thinking. We'll see when she gets here :)


The bibs are a variation I came up with using a basic pattern from Amy Karol's bend-the-rules sewing book. I embroidered the words, added a strip of the backing fabric to the front, and topstitched it all in bright orange. No need to be subtle about barf, spit and drool. One fat quarter of each fabric gave me plenty for the backing, the front strip and the ties for the bibs as well as coordinating burp cloths. Because when you can clean up barf with style, it makes it less gross, right?


In another nice coincidence (does the Spirit lead fabric choices??), I had picked up some fabric at IKEA and figured it would make a great blanket/quilt for a baby. And I knew that my brother and sister-in-law can handle some of my crazier color choices. Once I had the quilt done, I found out they were pretty much decorating the nursery with all IKEA stuff, so the lime green hippos will look right at home.


This is my cheaters baby quilt. I did zero piecing. Just sandwiched my front and back together and quilted away. I had tried free-motion quilting on placemats a while back, with some success and some frustration. I had since then taken a class at my wonderful local quilt shop and learned a couple things, so I thought this would be a great time to try it out on a slightly larger piece. I'm not sure I'd be able to do this on an even larger quilt…but then again, I never thought I'd even be making quilts at all.


I love pairing a crazy bright color with something neutral, like this grey dot. Without any piecing on either front or back, this turns into a reversible quilt. And at approximately 36"x36", it's just about the right size for a stroller.


After a trip through the wash, you end up with this fun crinkly texture.

I have found that the hand-sewing part of the binding goes much faster for me if I sit at a table to do it. I tried sitting on the couch and binding while watching TV, and it takes me forever to finish (maybe because I'm really only sewing during commercials!). If I put myself at the table and listen to podcasts, I can get a lot of binding done in much less time than I thought I could. It's still my least-favorite part of the whole process, though…maybe as I get better with the hand sewing, I'll like it better. We'll see.