A quilt, some trivets and some decoration

Hey Hey,

So, I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but sadly have been distracted by stats...yup - there's that science component of our blog again! So I've got a few things to show...

First I made some trivets. Are they amazing? not really. Perfect? far from it! But they were completed :) I also apparently forgot to take photos of the completed projects, so here's a few of the process:

The first one is a needle felted trivet. I made it by hand felting raw wool around a polyfill inner that I also needle felted to stick together. This basically involved squishing it all in hot soapy water and letting it dry several times until I figured out how to do this. First time...


Then I needle felted some pretty squirly strips of alpaca fleece (not seen here).
The second trivet was linen with a stipe of cotton fabrics.


I've decided linen is difficult to work with, and yet I'll love it anyways. Here's a pic of my very first homemade bias strip:

Next up, I added a fabric border to a mola I bought years ago in Panama and mounted it on canvas. I should have taken a picture of where it now lives in our house, but sadly, it's been living on the floor against the wall that I'm pretty sure is where I want it...for about 4 months. Gotta get on that!

Here it is. I can't take any credit for the design...all I did was add the blue fabric to the outside.

Did I attach the fabric to the canvas with duct tape? yes indeed. In my defense the duct tape was blue....

Lastly, my first quilt!! The only person worthy of this is my beautiful brand new niece Evelyn! She was born April 9th (a few weeks early), and I was lucky enough to meet her on my way through Vancouver this week. I hope it keeps her warm on those dreary Vancouver nights.

I went with a simple blocky pattern, and had the wonderful plan of free-motion quilting. Needless to say that didn't work out so well (you can ask Linnea - she got the panic call a few days before I needed to get it done!!)

Here's the layout

Making my first quilt sandwich:

The world's best model holding it up after it was all done. I quilted beside each square, and at the ends, just "made" squares freehand. Worked out ok...


I went with a fleecy purple back and plain yellow for the binding. I figured this would work for a spring baby...also I can't handle too much pink:)
Here it is all ready to go. Card curtesy of Unik printshop - as usual!
I've gotta run...hope the spring is bringing in some sunshine and new outdoor crafty activities!!

a.