baby boy quilts and OAKSHOTT!

Greetings!  I'm low on blogging motivation these days...not sure why...just a lot on my plate, I suppose, so creative time and energy is spent elsewhere?  Anyway, I thought I would share a couple of small projects I finished this week -- a week that included a 48-hour-period that added two baby boys to our circle of friends & acquaintances.

The first is baby Lucas, born to our neighbour's son and his partner, and we couldn't be happier for them!  I sensed that they would probably want something undeniably boyish, so I used solids from the Poseidon Kona cotton FQ pack I had bought last year from Brenda at Pink Castle.  This is the first time I have made an all-solids quilt top...and I love it!!






For the backing fabric, and to give baby Lucas something interesting to look at as he gets bigger, I used a black & white Timeless Treasures animal print that I bought on sale somewhere along the line...I think it's super cute, the kind of thing Jackson would have liked when he was little ("I still do like it," he retorted when I shared that with observation him yesterday).






I bound it with a royal blue solid and used one of my "enchanted bobbin" labels, which I have been shy to add to projects...but there you go.

Baby Chester was born the next day, little brother to one of the kids who was in our baby group 3 years ago. Chester's mom is a fabric junkie, so I knew I wanted something unusual for Chester's quilt -- and I found it at City of Craft yesterday: a FQ designed by Johanna of Charlotte & Stewart, cutest jellyfish I have ever seen!  If you like creepy-cute, you must check out Johanna's dolls. I saw them in person at City of Craft, and they are beautifully made.  I especially like the wee little ones.



I guess I was feeling inspired, because by the time I went to bed last night I had this second baby boy quilt pieced



basted, quilted, and half bound. All that remained to do this morning was to hand sew the binding, and voila!



I used a deep blue solid for the back, plus some leftovers from the front. Having such a high contrast between front and back, I selected a deep variegated blue Aurifil 50 wt thread for the bobbin, white for the needle, and FMQ'ed some little waves and straight-line quilted the rest.





And in other news, during one of the sessions of the whole cloth quilting class at the workroom, my new pal Melinda and I decided we really needed to split an Oakshott Colour Box...and yesterday we met up for tea, City of Craft, and Oakshott fun.

Melinda had her great camera with her, but no memory card, so I took a couple of pictures on my phone -- not great, but I like this one because you get a sense of how giddy we were...neither of us could stop smiling, the fabrics are so gorgeous!





I have an idea brewing for some of my share of the Oakshotts...more on that later.

Well, that was a much longer post than I anticipated. If you're still with me, thank you! I am currently sweaty from my second session of my new get-fit regime (inspired by a check-up last week...my body has not fared so well from the return to work post-maternity leave), so I think it's time to clean up and move on.

Bye for now.