A touch of Satin.

I made to baby quilts for a friend from church, she had a boy then a girl in close succession. That the girl followed so quickly was quite a surprise to the parents, the boy had been very reluctant and some years of persuasion had been required.  His sister, obviously impatient with the waiting headed on down at the earliest opportunity.

In the earlier stages of my quilting journey as I was then, I kept the quilts relatively simple (I have discussed the tag of simple and log cabin previously on this blog somewhere) and as they were so close together (I had never heard the term Irish twins before, odd phrase) I did my best to make them similar whilst not identical.

Satin baby quilt

The first quilt was made without knowing the gender of the baby so I covered both bases using  turquoise and pink satin along with white. The edge and backing is white cotton which has crescents and circles in the same colours, a most serendipitous find that material.

I happily had enough material left over to use again for the baby that followed, although I altered the design so who's was who's could be identified.

Baby quilt in Satin.

However, I will admit I can't recall which is which.I do not know his from hers or hers from his!

Hopefully they do, or their mother does.

For years I thought I only had a picture of one of the quilts however, I came across the second one just recently and nicely in time to post both today on the baby boy's 20th birthday!  Not such a baby any more, told told you it was a long time ago I made them. 

Staying with rainbows (cross-stitch)

some of you, who participate in blog hopping will have seen this before, although not here. (if you aren't sure what that is take a look at this link to see more. secret sweetheart stitching hop

This is a gift I made for my BFF.  It has moved house with her twice and caused some comment that it was incorrect from those who could not read the text in yellow. (without that is says a completely different thing).

Sewing the rainbow was a relief after all that black and white.

A Special friend (cross stitch)

A Special Friend cross stitch)

This is the first cross-stitch gift from my BFF as she started to explore the craft.  The top white section is her own design worked out on graph paper.

It was originally in the frame on is own attached to some purple material (also her first go at framing) 

Now my friend knows me well and understands me better.  I meddle with stuff, I like to tweak things and in this instance she gave me her full permission to do just that with my gift.  

I liked the colour of the frame  and wanted to keep that and the main focus on my friends work. I too got out the graph paper and made a design with something to reflect each of us, dragons for me and a rainbow for her.  I had a bit of 18 count navy blue which was just the right size.  

A small bit of mount board and my hand cutter and there it was, well with the date and our initials embossed, not sure you can make that out here.

Oh and the purple material, it went into a Bits-a-quilt, well what else did you expect me to do with it. 

Noah's Arc, quilt and cross-stitch

I did not make a birth sampler for my BFF's son as by that point she too was cross-stitching and her mother-in-law was also a cross stitcher.

I had quilted a  pre printed panel baby quilt ( my friend picked and purchased the panel for that) which was a Noah's Arc so I cross-stitched a "nursery" picture instead of a birth sampler to go with it.

Noah's Arc cross stitch

The rainbow is one of my BFF's favourite things so it was most appropriate and this a very colourful version.

The red of the Arc picked up the red in  edge of the panel quilt. 

However, after finishing the hippo's, giraffes and flamingos, I spotted a mistake.

I will give you a moment to look at it, enlarge it even, can you see it?

The pale green section of the arc.

Yup it is a couple of stitches higher on the right than on the left.

Oh I was miffed with myself, how could I make such a mistake and as the adjoining animals had been counted out from there they would be wrong too.  I looked closely at my stitching and then at the pattern and realised that my mistake was following the pattern exactly, the mistake was in the pattern itself.  Had I spotted it before sewing it perhaps I could have made an adjustment however, unpicking and redoing was not an option so I left it in as a talking point, or an observational test.

Here is a sadly blurry blow up to help you see it.

Noah quilt

Oh and a picture of the quilt it went with.