The Narwhal Quilts

I haven't posted much all summer.  It was certainly busy, but I was sewing lots too.  I made progress on all four of the quilts I've been working on - all the blocks are done for the Christmas Cake Quilt, I've caught up on all but the very last of the Squared Away blocks, and I finally finished the two narwhal quilts. 

Both of my husband's siblings were expecting baby girls.  Taera was due October 11th and Nathan's was slated for September 29th.  Well Jade was born on the 29th, but she belongs to Taera.  Nathan's little girl Kinsley arrived on October 5th, which just happens to be Taera's oldest's birthday.  Miraculously I was able to finish the quilts AND get them to them within a week of each being born!  

I picked up this adorable fabric (Snowfall by Paula McGloin for Camelot Fabrics) when I won a giftcard to The Fabric Snob, an online Canadian fabric store.  It specializes in amazing knits, but I'm still scared of them, so I went for the fat quarter bundles I knew I'd use.  I narrowed it down to a few choices and let the parents make the final decision - and they both picked the same fabric.  Matching quilts for the twin cousins!

I originally saw this simple squared pattern here.  I played around with some math and made my own cutting diagram to get two squares out of each fat quarter, to use every inch of fabric I could.  The quilt top was fun and quick to put together.  The quilting took more time than everything else though!  But worth it.

This woven pattern though, was one hundred percent my own.  There was lots of sketching and math to figure out how to use as much of the fat quarters as I could.  I ended up with very few scraps.  It came together very easily, and I'm proud to say that all the corners match perfectly!

I need to work on my sandwich skills - the backs of both quilts are not nearly as pretty as the fronts.  It isn't bad for the number of different directions I had to sew in, but there are a lot of little puckers and tucks.  I don't have a large amount of space in my apartment, so I'm wanting to look into the board basting technique for the future.  I was just surprised by how well my binding turned out, since it is just the backing folded to the front.

It feels so good to have projects finished, freeing some room to start something new!  I've got four little girl dresses and a couple of ties to make for my sister's wedding, plus all the Christmas sewing.  Not sure I'll get that Christmas quilt finished this year, plus I've started collecting fabric for a second one!