Sunday 29 May 2011

Rockabye Sweet Baby James

One of my recent projects has been a quilt for James, first grandchild of our friends Melanie and Chris. We have known Ben, James's Dad since he was a young boy and he used to babysit for my boys when they were babies. When I heard that Ben and his wife Becky were expecting a baby in March I decided that the new arrival must have a quilt!

The quilt block I chose was the Shoofly Snowball block we used for the Block Lotto at the International Quilting Day. I decided to make it as an 'I Spy' quilt rather than a traditional baby quilt so that James would be able to continue to enjoy it as he grows up. Each block is made using a different novelty fabric and I have used images that are important to their family.

Here is a photo of the quilt label. I named the quilt for two reasons. Firstly right from when I heard that James was born the James Taylor song just kept coming into my head and I sang it to myself when I was piecing the quilt. I am a fan of James Taylor and particularly enjoy that song.

Secondly, one night years ago when we returned home and Ben was babysitting Jonathan, my eldest son who was then a very small baby, Ben was rocking him to sleep in such a gentle way that the image has stayed with me ever since. I knew that one day Ben would make a great Dad himself.


Here is a close up of some of the fabrics - lots of interest for a growing baby.




And finally here is a photo of the quilt, James and his proud Grandad. I forgot to say that James lives in Canada so it was a very special time for his grandparents who probably won't see as much of him as they would wish for.

Hello - I'm back again!

Not really sure why I lost my blogging mojo - lots of excuses - all important - but I am still here and I am still quilting!
Since March I have been working hard on my final two City & Guilds pieces, desperately hoping to have them completed before the end of this month but it didn't happen.
My Tuesday patchwork classes have finished now for the summer and we had a fantastic end of year celebration and 'show and tell'.
I have also made a baby quilt for a dear friend's grandson, 15 yards of quilted bunting for another dear friend's daughter's wedding and two lots of birthday bunting for two lovely little girls.
I have been on holiday to Scotland last week and visited the Loch Lomond Quilt Show for the first time.
So as you can see I have been very busy but the good news is I have lots of photos of all these things and hope to share over the next couple of days.


The significance of the photos in this post is that these are two of the inspirational photos I have used for my City & Guilds pieces. I am making a red wholecloth quilt based on designs found on Welsh Celtic crosses and I am also making a 'Golden Wedding' wallhanging for my parents.

Their Golden Wedding anniversary is 15th July - so still a bit of time left!

The wholecloth is nearly finished - just four cornerstones left to quilt and millions of ends to bury!


I am in that strange pre-holiday limbo at the moment as we leave for a very special holiday on Tuesday (00.30 hours). We are flying to Chicago at 11.00 Tuesday to travel to California and back in a hire car, returning to the UK on July 1st. Our house will be turning into a teenagers hostel and so I am busy packing, washing, ironing, cleaning, shopping etc.

I hope that you will be able to join us on our special 'California Trip' (in the words of the song) through the blog. The first two weeks will be Route 66 in its entirety and then we return via Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska. It is Geoff's 50th birthday treat so lots of car stuff! Plenty of quilty stuff too!!