Another baby quilt

Lots of my friends and family are having baby boys this winter.  I’ve made quite a few little boy quilts the past two months.  The latest is a little different than the log cabin quilts I’ve been making.

Of course the fabric is elephants!  The line is called “Bungle Jungle.”  I love the primary colors.  Each sashing strip is from a line by Jenn Ski that I just had in my stash.  The binding is a polka dot on blue by Connecting Threads.  The finished quilt measures 42 x 46. 

I was able to pick up some matching backing fabric at a great price at one of the many Black Friday sales events. 

I used the seams for a guide and quilted a 1/4” inside all the seams.  I like the look of the straight lines across the backing.

Who couldn’t use a ginormous bottle of wine and cute baby blanket to celebrate the birth of baby boy #2????

My daughters sang in church this past Sunday.  Bea stood by Esther even though that meant she had to stand with the preschoolers (which she wasn’t thrilled about because she is in first grade, don’t forget!). 

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!  Linking up to Tuesday at the Table and Freemotion by the River.

Hourglass Stars Complete!

This finished quilt measures 36.5” square. I am really happy with how it turned out.

The Kona celery sashing is a buttery-green color.

The back is simply Kona ash.  I used gray thread from Connecting Threads for the quilting on the front and back.

I really like the look of stippling.  This is one of the last quilts I finished before my husband modified my sewing table, so I am ready to try some new fmq designs.

Do you machine bind or hand sew your binding?  I am so impatient that I nearly always machine bind everything.  The first couple bindings were pretty poor looking, but practice really has improved my ability to match up the zig-zag on the front and back.  There is only this one little hiccup where the black thread shows a little bit on the backing.

I cut my binding 2.75” wide instead of the regular 2.5”.  I attach the binding to the back and then stitch it down with a zig-zag to the front.  I don’t use pins or Clover clips to hold it down.  I simply feed it through my machine matching up the needle with the first binding seam.  It’s easy to get arcs if you are pulling on the binding, but as long as you don’t manipulate it too much, the zig-zag will be pretty smooth.  I think cutting the binding a little bigger reduces the need to pull on the binding.  The entire rest of the binding looks perfect like the photo above.

Linking up to Freemotion by the River and Fabric Tuesday.  If you are interested in making a similar quilt, this is the tutorial for hourglass stars.  Have a great day!

More Hourglass Star Blocks

Here are  a few of the other stars using oval elements.

Yesterday was my first day doing a blog hop…it was so much fun!!!  If you missed it, you can enter the giveaway for a $25 Quilt Taffy gift certificate here.

Yesterday was also my birthday.  I got a gift card to Joanns and am so excited to go and spend it.  I will be getting a new cutting mat and some rotary blades.  No fabric for me…I’m sticking with my diet, although of course I first thought I might get backing for my Summerlove quilt.  I keep thinking a bright blue backing would be the icing on the cake.   But I’m going with stash fabric, and I plan to do wavy line quilting.

Linking up to Freemotion by the River and Fabric Tuesday.  Have a great day!