My friend's daughter had twin boys back in March 2017. I made them each a quilt. I did say they'd probably be toddlers by the time I got them done and I was right. 😎
I was told they will be raised "gender neutral" - whatever that means. I took it as a big hint not to make the standard "baby blue", which I would not typically do anyway (boring!!!). Or trucks or things usually associated with "manly boys". I happened to have some "science" fabric, and I think that's pretty "gender neutral". We need more scientists of any gender.
I whipped up a couple of little quilts and named one "Science Fair" and the other "Beakerhead". And before you get all steamed up thinking this is an insulting name - Beakerhead is actually a big science oriented event that is held every fall in Calgary billed as a "a smash up of art, science and engineering" - I think it's aimed at kids to get them interested in science. Anyway, now that we have all the politically correct stuff out of the way, here are the quilts.
I found this irresistible fabric at a Calgary LQS and since I couldn't make up my mind which one I like best, I got 0.5m of all of them.
I cut as many 6" squares (5.5" finished) as I could out of each 0.5 m then make two piles - each with half of each of the four prints. I decided on a quilt 7 * 8 squares. I didn't have quite enough squares for each entire quilt so added some random fabric from my stash to make the extra squares. Then I separated them with a 2" sashing (1.5" finished) with cornerstones at each intersection (easiest way to keep the rows straight). I used the leftover ends of the science prints then added in some of my random additional fabric for the cornerstones. Quilted them both in one load (I love it when I can do that!) using wide backing.
I decided to try out my EQStitch program that Joe gave me for my birthday over a year ago. I drew out some embroidery designs using motifs from the fabric. I was able to transfer the designs to my Janome 10000 to stitch out. I still have a lot of learning to do on this program but I was pretty happy with the results for these little quilts. (Joe helps me with all this computer stuff otherwise I'd be stuck back in the Stone Age.)
I bound them a couple of days ago. I usually finish my bindings by hand but since these are going to little kids and will be used and washed to death (at least I hope so!), I finished by machine. I used my new Juki and man - what a great machine! It zipped through those bindings like nothing. And fast! I would have had to argue my way through it on my other machines. I see more machine bindings in my future!
They will be going in the mail in the next few days.
