Four Quilts

You may notice some familiar fabric bits in these quilts left over from the skirts in the previous post. Waste not, want not, right?

Two baby showers have fallen into my life recently (one of my friends having a girl and another a boy). I gave both of them quilts, and now that the showers are over, I can post the quilts without ruining the surprise. The design requires 25 (4 1/2 inch) squares in a main color and 12 (4 1/2 inch) squares in each of two brighter accent colors.

I liked the way the simple design "popped" when I added an unexpected textured fabric, and they were so much fun to make that I did two more, which I put up for sale in my Etsy shop.

Three Skirts

I made these three skirts a few months ago, but the fabric did come from the mega-pile, so I still want to talk about them.

This first skirt is a simple a-line, made from two knee-length pieces that look roughly like cones with the top sawed off. I highly recommend an a-line skirt as a first sewing project. The most challenging part of the whole design was to get the vertical stripe laid out straight, and it would have been even easier had I just used a solid-color fabric. The beautiful sueded material just makes me happy.

The second skirt I made from an Indian-inspired piece of cloth that was wonderfully shiny. It had a color splash that repeated at the top and bottom, which I wanted to preserve, so I cut off one of the color strips, sewed the rest of the fabric together to form a large, folded-over rectangle, then pleated the top until it came in far enough to fit my waist. Then I ran a piece of elastic through the top color strip and re-attached it to the skirt.

For the third skirt, I modified a pattern I had for a six-panel flounce bottom design. I love the way this fabric shines, and I wanted it to "swirl" when I walk. I think I've gotten more complements on this skirt than almost any other garment I've owned!