Family Reunion Dress

My friend L is a great quilter and loves all things handmade. She only sews quilts and calls on me when she wants something else sewn. I'm always happy to oblige. L has great taste in patterns and fabrics, she's very easy to please, and she's easy with my timelines.

Last year, or maybe the year before, we were on a shop hop and she found the Family Reunion Dress by Oliver+S made up and decided she wanted one for her little girl. Would I make it? Of course.

I had a gap in my quilting and got started - it made a great break in the middle of trying to quilt my sister's wedding quilt.

Everything went really well and I can happily recommend the pattern - I'd use another one made by this company (and they don't sponsor me at all).

I made a few adjustments to the pattern - see below. I'm really happy with how it turned out - and so is L. The fabric is from Art Gallery but I can't remember the pattern or line. If you check below, L might leave it in a comment.

To make the neck facing the pattern called for sewing a fold line and gathering it - instead I made a freezer paper template and used the applique technique of starch and pressing and I got great results - see below for how nice and flat the facing sits

there were some instructions I first thought were funny - like this pressing above, but it made sense in the end

I had a little trouble in the sleeves with attaching them correctly - without pleats in the wrong place. That is totally me and nothing to do with the pattern.  I made size 12-18 months and really, those sleeves are pretty small. It took a few adjustments but they got in there the way they should be. Certainly not a deal breaker for the pattern.

See the little ridge between the sleeve and dress - it shouldn't be there.

And the finished product - L loves the buttons - so do I (cuz I picked them out)

The only other adjustment I made, and I don't have photos, is I changed the fully buttoned back to a snap closure and it only opens to the waist, so I sewed closed the rest.

The Quilting Is Finished

I've finally finished the quilting on my sister's wedding quilt. I've also attached the backing that makes it a duvet cover. All that's left is binding - I really want to be finished to work on other things.

Here are a few shots to mark my progress

Quilting in progress at Thursday Therapy day

Last border seam in and finished

Trimmed and ready for duvet backing

Another template to the rescue

I was debating whether or not to quilt the melons in this quilt - most people I asked said yes - that's what I really thought too but there are 64 of them.

I tried a bunch of different ideas and finally settled on something simple that filled the space, was easy to mark, and echoed the other designs. A lot of people online used a lot of pebbles in this quilt and that's just not in my repertoire with my current machine.

I made myself another template and got to work. These went together really quickly and I have no issues quilting the melons.

My template (the straight lines align with the seam line down the middle)

My dots:

Finished:

The templates I made and used for this quilt have been simple but very effective and I'm really happy with how they turned out.

Heading for the Border

I've finished the quilting (I think, still have to check the back) of my sister's wedding quilt. The wedding was June 5th so I'm a little late.
The borders are one. The quilt was pretty square before I put the borders on and they are laying flat (on top); the underside is a slightly different story, but it's going to be hidden inside the duvet cover. There were some border issues earlier - I'm much happier now.
I'm just doing straight lines in the borders, using painter's tape to mark with. The quilt is now so heavy and awkward I'm not as interested in finishing, but finish I must!

  The quilt is so big now and I'm not tall enough to get it all in the picture

1.5" wide painters tape marking the borders.

What are you up to?

More Templates For Machine Quilting

I really got into the dot-to-dot method of quilting for my sister's quilt. In the big white shapes I needed to put something. My first idea didn't work too well, then I came up with this:

Sorry it's a bit hard to see - I guess my thread blends really well.

This is my template

 And my resulting dots

Then I quilted it. I'm pretty happy with these results and there is so little marking to remove.

Remember to Blink

I took a quick break from my sister's wedding quilt (here, here, and here) this weekend to whip up a quilt for a baby shower. The parents-to-be are the brother and sister in law of my sister in law. I see them a lot at family gatherings and this is their first child - a cousin for my nieces.

I made them this quilt

Which is a pattern I borrowed from Buttons Quilts and it was super easy.
I quilted all straight lines, with the walking foot, doing stitch in the ditch down and across the sashing, then horizontal and vertical to match all the small squares - I ended up with a big grid of about 4" squares, interspersed with some 2" lines/squares. It looked good. If you look hard you can see the lines in the orange square.

I marked the lines using my hera marker - it just makes an imprint line in the fabric which I don't have to remove later - a total bonus given my tight timelines these days. It was pretty easy to see - it was an overcast day and that might have helped.

When I was quilting along the sashing, like here

and here

I had to keep reminding myself to blink - blinking helped keep me accurate I think. The pattern on the fabric is busy and almost mesmerizing too.

The label:

My nieces coloured the fronts of these cushions on our last crafternoon so that they would have something to give their new cousin. The backs of the pillows matches the back of the quilt.

The soon-to-be mommy loved them.

Quilting Update

My sister's quilt is coming along pretty well.
I'm either going to be just finished or just not finished by the time I have to leave for the wedding. No big deal if it isn't finished (But I'd like it to be so I can have the space back in my sewing room and make something for myself next).