I wanted to make a sampler-style quilt with this panel for a baby boy, who is now a toddler. As the poor middle child, his older brother and younger sister both already have a blanket from me. Hopefully these blocks that I’m falling in love with will make up for it. 😂

I browsed Precut Bonanza! by Kimberly Einmo for several blocks that I liked for this sampler. The blocks in that book have pretty standard sized pieces that allows a lot of mixing once I make a bunch of HST, flying geese, and strips.

Two exciting things with this quilt! 1. This is my first one on my new long arm. 2. This is my first baby girl blanket in almost a decade!!

For the second, this is the 3rd baby for my friends but their first baby girl. Which means that even though I had been working on finishing the quilt for their 2nd baby boy, I had to put that aside to make sure she had a pink blanket for the new girl! Sorry for helping feed into the middle child syndrome 😂

For the first, I bought a long arm during the Quilt Show in October and got straight to work finishing this quilt. But before the quilting, is the piecing.

I had seen a top with quilt with cute colored pencils a while back and knew it would be perfect for a baby. I was able to make all of the pencils from my stash or scraps and only bought the fun confetti background. Even the back was pieced from leftover confetti background and a rainbow fabric I bought for a different baby quilt the buyer didn’t like.

I had so much fun quilting on my long arm. I was trying to get this finished before my friend had her baby so I didn’t “waste” any time practicing on other fabric. I got the machine set up and started quilting.

My idea was to quilt patterns into all of the pencils that matched the color name I gave them. My favorites are Cotton Candy and Pacific Ocean.

Also quite pleased with my geometric mazes. I appliqued on the color strips after everything was quilted.

I tried to get this quilt to the parents when it was finished, but only managed to get it there while the Mom was in labor at the hospital! Last minute is pretty on brand though.

See the finished quilt here.

This quilt was for my good friends’ baby boy. We both love ocean/beach themed décor, so I was excited to make this for the new Mom. This was inspired by a quilt I had seen online, but I don’t think the original had used prairie points for the fins.

I drew the pattern out in EQ8 then calculated the cuts for yardage, writing out all the steps. I did make these HST as 4-at-a-time because they seemed quite large for 8-at-a-time. I never thought about the biased edges and I wasn’t a starch user when I finished this. I don’t remember particular issues with deformation, but with my ironing and seam consistency habits, I feel like I have issues with block size all the time 🤣

This was my first quilt on point. Since I made the pattern from an image, I might have treated the waste and HST differently than intended. This was also the first time I made prairie points and I LOVED the look with the fins. Once the border was on, that white frame really finished the look of the top and, like so many quilts I’m proud of, I was so sad to have to gift this one on. I would have happily kept this blanket, but I know the Mom really appreciated the gift.

When it came time to quilt, I lightly quilted the background and had a lot of fun quilting in the details on the fish.

As usual, I audition the quilting pattern on my glass with dry-erase markers. To get comfortable with spacing on the first few small fish, I drew the pattern with Pilot Frixion erasable pens.

I encourage everyone to do whatever they are comfortable with. But you will see all kinds of chatter online about these pens. I have seen many people claim the ink, after ironed away, spontaneously reappears years later, either with or without cold temperatures. This was the first quilt I boldly drew in black ink all over the front of the quilt. I didn’t leave it on there very many days, quilted, ironed away, and, after binding, I washed the quilt before gifting. After 2 years, I know there hasn’t been a spontaneous ink appearance. I think if others experience this, it is likely on wall hanging type quilts they haven’t washed.

I’ve been quilting since 2002, but this was one of the first projects I photographed along the way—a habit that would eventually become The Stitched Helm.

I laid out the half-square triangles on the floor – not a design wall in sight. In the photo below, you can even see the small cutting mat I was using back then. 

Here’s the top ready for quilting, basted with polyester batting. I used 100% polyester back then—stretchier and harder to manage than the cotton batting I prefer now. One of the lessons learned from this quilt: just how much smaller the whole thing ends up after the pieces are trimmed and stitched. I remember being surprised at how much extra backing and batting was left around the top when I laid it out.

For the quilting, I used a simple free-motion stipple. This machine was my Granny’s (great-grandma’s) Singer that was given to me when she passed. Quilting is my favorite part, even when it makes me nervous. It is so satisfying to fully finish the quilt and see how different they look with all the added texture from quilting.  

I hand-finished the binding curled up on the couch and excited to gift this to my aunt.

See the finished quilt here

Aunt Sharon

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