My first quilt!!!

I made a quilt! And it's not just a quilt but also a wedding gift for my close friend Ola. I've known her for several years now, we met at work and quickly became friends. She and her boyfriend got married in June but unfortunately I couldn't make it to their wedding. Therefore I wanted to make something special for them. A quilt seemed like a good idea.

In search of inspiration I got Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine (Vol 24 No 4). I really liked simple and modern design called Meadow Tracks by Emma Jean Jensen (and I'd recommend you checking her Instagram account out!) Once I decided that was the one I wanted to make I went shopping :)

Then it was whole lot of cutting, sewing, ironing and trimming... It actually went very smoothly! I'm not going to lie - it's not all even and not all the seams line up but I think I did reasonably well. I used nice and soft flannel for the backing and I used wool batting - it should be nice and warm!

I quilted it alongside the seams. It is really really hard to pull and push all that fabric! It also took a while to bind the quilt - half of it was done by the sewing machine but I sewn half of it by hand. I don't really like hand sewing but I wanted the quilt to have a nice finish.

When I was done I wanted to take lovely photos...  That never happened! It rained constantly for days and I was running out of time as it had to be sent. I took photos inside so the light is terrible and I didn't even have enough room to take a photo of the whole quilt!

Ola received her package and she was really happy with its content. Here is the photo that she sent me and I hope that the quilt will keep them nice and warm in winter!

Christmas gifts

New Year's is probably a good time to show cushion covers I made for my boyfriend's mum and my friend. First set is made using jelly roll in purple and teal.  First one was easy because I just joined stripes together. Second one was more complicated as I wanted squares but it worked out quite well taking into consideration that it was my second ever attempt on patchwork and quilting. I backed it up with grey fabric and added a few buttons. My partner's mum was really happy with them and she keeps showing the off to everyone!

The second set was made for my good friend whom I met during my move to New Zealand. We met at Hong Kong airport and she became part of our family. She is Dutch with Chinese origin which explains the colors I used - orange for the Netherlands and red for good luck according to Chinese culture. And in the middle there are panels of fabric with tui birds on them. I'm quite happy with how they turn out! My friend was happy too and that's what matters the most!
The photos are not the greatest but I took them the last possible minute - I actually finished pulling threads and sewing buttons at work on Christmas Eve! I got all the other gifts sored months before Christmas though so I'm not completely terrible with time management ;)