Elle's Unicorn: A Finished Quilt

A colleague whom I cherish recently gave birth to a precious baby girl. This Lisa the Unicorn quilt (an Elizabeth Hartman pattern) seemed the perfect choice. The background is Kona UltraMarine. 

For the unicorn's mane I used all Alison Glass Sunprints and I LOVE how it turned out. The unicorn's horn is Tula Pink.

The backing is an old OOP Aneela Hooey print that I find charming, in a light pink.

I did organic straight-ish line quilting.

The wee bub (and her mom) loved the quilt!

Spunky Stack: A Finished Quilt

My younger daughter was in Junior Kindergarten this year and had an ECE (Early Childhood Educator) in her classroom along with her classroom teacher. My daughter has no idea which teacher has which role just that she loves them both and they encourage her and love her. So OF COURSE I needed to make a quilt not only for her teacher but also for Ms. S, her ECE.

I really liked the Stack Quilt pattern by Modern Handcraft and thought this would be a great opportunity to try it out. Then once I did my fabric pull...oh man, I was jazzed (I even cut two because I think I want to make another one with the same fabrics!)

And thank goodness that Cyrus also did a fabric inspection. Look at that Alison Glass! And the Tula! And the Lizzy House! And the Sarah Watts! 

The pattern is really well written and comes together quite quickly. I then added lots of white space at the top and did some simple straight line quilting. Here is Spunky Stack:

The backing is Lizzy House mini Pearl Bracelets (can you tell that I both love Lizzy House AND that Sew Sisters had this fabric on for $10.99/m??). I think this is the Aqua colour.

Ms. S LOVED her quilt and I hope she gets lots of love out of it. My daughter wrote the label for this one, too. Giving quilts to teachers seems super satisfying!

Meadowland QAL

I have wanted to make a Meadowland Quilt ever since Then Came June released her pattern. I bought the pattern but assumed it would sit, as many patterns have, waiting to be made. Then it was announced there would be a Quilt Along and I figured that was my push to actually get one done!

Not to be reasonable, I decided to try to make TWO Meadowland quilts at the same time. One for my daughter with a bundle I curated close to two years ago and one with a bundle to make a quilt as a gift that is for secret sewing.

These are the two bundles I curated. Secret sewing on the left, quilt for my daughter (who is 10) on the right.

A closer look at the bundle for my daughter's quilt.

The piles to make the blocks seemed huge.

Mixing and matching them was interesting having never done it before. I learned afterwards that I prefer more monochromatic blocks.

First five done.

Look how cute one block looks!

The finished quilt top didn't come out quite how I intended (I decided I like a bit more restraint in colour to make this pattern pop) but I will finish it this summer and move on to the next one (that I need to get done for a September gift!)

Some Stuff I Made

I made some things. So I am just capturing them here for the record.

I made this lined drawstring bag for the WEMGQ exchange of shoe bags. It is Jenni Baker's Lined Drawstring Bag pattern in project size since when I tested it seemed to fit a pair of shoes well.

I made some Sister blocks for the WEMQG block lotto using the Kona colour of the year, Splash. Cute, right? It matched so well with this Elizabeth Hartman print.

 I  made a couple of minis for the program I did with a guild mate, Carol, about mini quilts and mini piecing. 

 I made another project-sized lined drawstring bag to hold a birthday gift for my daughter's friend who turned 11. There is a squishy pink ladybug stuffed animal inside. :)

 I made a bunch of bunny bags to fill with some Easter candy for some loved little people. I do NOT recommend the pattern which is poorly written and which I ended up modifying quilt significantly, but I DO like the outcome. So cute, right?

I made a drawstring bag for Erinoak Kids as a community project for my guild. The instructions are absolutely terrible but once I figured them out, this bag came together in no time. (Sorry for the horrible picture of the end result).

 And, sorry for another horrible picture, but I made a recorder case out of sloth fabric for my older daughter who wanted something more appealing than the standard Yamaha case. Apparently all her friends are jealous. :)

I made 49 faceless dolls to give to a student at my school who is trying to collect 4000 of them by mid-May to represent the 4000 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls here in Canada. It is a national tragedy and source of shame and if you are not familiar with it you should learn more.

If you wish to contribute some dolls they need to be here by May 15. See my Instagram for more details (@lynnfilliter)

 I also made a sleeping bag for our friend's son who LOVES stuffed animals. My daughter picked out Petunia (the platypus) and then I made this custom sleeping bag for her:

 Petunia's sleeping bag resulted in my daughters requesting sleeping bags for their own stuffies. So I told them they could each pick one animal and I would make a sleeping bag using fabric of her choice.

Here is Tulip in her giraffe and yellow stars sleeping bag:

 Here is Koala in her Harry Potter/Elizabeth Hartman sleeping bag:

So I have been working away and keeping all of these images on Instagram but it feels nice to use my blog to also have an account of these makes. Which one is your favourite?

A Quilt for an Owl and a Flamingo of Tigers

After making my younger daughter a quilt for her doll, she insisted her owl, Oscar, also needed a quilt. Because of course he did.

 She was very particular, laying out all these HSTs that I had leftover from another quilt (that is almost finished and I should be able to post about soon!) and then handing me each HST in the order she thought I should sew it. 

 She occasionally stopped to test my pieces against her owl to make sure it was the exact size that she wanted it to be. Adorable but slow work.

 The finished results is somewhat adorable, though that binding does not really work for me. It was chosen by my daughter out of my scrap bind for bindings because it has owls on it. Of course.


On a different note, at the West End Modern Quilt Guild in March we learned about making art collage quilts from Tish, one of our awesome members. Our exchange for May is a mini quilt using this technique. I decided that a flamingo would be super graphic and easy to tell from a silhouette and got to work. And I am DELIGHTED with the results!

Rotary cutter for size

If you look carefully you will see some Tula, some Elizabeth Hartman and some strawberries from Alison Glass as well as some TIGERS! PINK TIGERS from an old Cotton+Steel print. SHUT UP ISN'T IT ADORABLE?! I hope that whomever the recipient is as in love with it as I am!

Summer Sewing

Despite having a busy summer I did find time to sew. I have several that are nearing finishes but I thought I would track a bit of what I have been up to!

My Aviatrix Medallion is almost done! I just need to get the binding on it and then it is going right on my bed!

I had it quilted because I was worried that I would mess it up. I chose an edge to edge pattern and Quilting by Design quilted it for me.

The binding is ready to go on. It is the same fabric as the backing, an Alison Glass fabric from my favourite of her lines, Ex Libris.

I have also been hard at work on my Polaroid quilt. The top is actually all finished and I just need to get the backing made. I even have the batting ready to go!

I also have been enjoying Summer Sampler 2018. You receive a new travel-inspired block pattern every Monday. This coming Monday, September 10, will be the last of the blocks. I have managed to make every block on time! I challenged myself to do them in neutrals (blacks, white, grey) and with scraps. It has been such a good exercise for my creative brain! Here are the first blocks!

I will have to decide how I want to finish this one up.

I also did LOTS and LOTS of fabric purchasing this summer. I mean, that is not unusual but I am definitely ready for a fast. From September 1 to January 1 I will not buy any fabric with the following rules: 
1) I can preorder Lizzy House Constellations. She is THE designer for me and she is not even designing fabric anymore so I absolutely need her to add to my giant stash of LH.
2) My guild has a shop hop on October 20. I will try to be modest but to not be able to buy anything will make it much less fun.
3) I can buy materials that are required to finish a project. Batting, more of a solid that I need, zippers, fusible, etc. If it is for a specific project that can't be completed without that then I can buy it.
4) Spending gift cards doesn't count.

I think the just because buying will be shut down with this fast but note that I have many preorders arriving in the next few weeks because of preorders so I will still be showing lots of pretty on my Instagram account!

Hope everyone else has been getting lots of sewing done!