Welcome, Baby!

In March I was able to attend my very first quilting retreat. It was so much fun spending uninterrupted time at the sewing machine! I completed two quilt tops, both baby quilts for friends who are expecting babies soon. The first top I completed is for a baby girl and has these really neat ruches on five blocks - that was a first for me, but it went well. This is also the first time I did more than "stitch in the ditch" on a quilt. I traced a flower into six of the blocks using my iPad as a light box, then quilted them on my machine, feed dogs down! I also added some curvy lines to other areas of the quilt. Overall, I like the way it turned out.

The second top I completed used a line of fabric called Chantilly by Moda. I love these fabrics! The colors and patterns are so lively and they were perfect for a baby quilt when the gender of the baby is a surprise. I took the time to match the stripes, it wasn't too hard to do, but I'm so glad that there weren't many I needed to match! This quilt, with all of it's lines, begged to be quilted using "stitch in the ditch" so I complied! I tried a new sewing machine foot for quilting that has a guide for ditch stitching, but I preferred my usual foot to that one, so I will be returning it to the store. Live and learn!

I've been taking pictures on my iPhone up to this point as I had lost my charger for my camera battery. I finally purchased a replacement charger last week, so hopefully future pictures will be less fuzzy! I'm continuing in my two block of the month programs and have started my next quilt, which I am very excited about. More updates on my little corner of the quilting world will be coming shortly.