Hello and welcome 😊 Another week has whizzed by. We're back to more seasonal weather and lots of rain. Yesterday the rain drops were so big that my patio umbrella was vibrating 😮 Let's get to the good stuff!
A Finished Baby Quilt Flimsy
The first baby quilt (of three) is now a finished top. It's actually one row less than the pattern but it's a baby quilt and didn't need to be that long. It measures 43" x 47". I just want baby to be wrapped up in it when it's cold and they're going out in the car or to play on the quilt on the floor.
As I mentioned, this is the first of three baby quilts. Three of JJ's friends had babies this winter. JJ helped me plan the quilt and chose the novelty fabrics based on her friends' hobbies. This one has fabric featuring Star Wars, pickleball, smoothies, and cute animals, including dinosaurs. I have three more blocks that I'll be adding to the back (hockey, trucks and mittens) and JJ will design and prepare the label.
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| A baby quilt flimsy from the Square Dance pattern |
FMQ Two More Houses
I had fun FMQ two more Rainbow Neighbourhood houses.
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| Yellow house now FMQ |
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| The brown house at night is also FMQ |
My process is to take out some thread and then do all of the FMQ that I can with that colour. I started with white, since I was piecing the baby quilt before this. I did all of the insides of the blocks on the side walls. I then went on to yellow and then brown since I could use the same bobbin thread for both. So far it's worked very well.
I haven't quilted the yards or the actual rooves since they're another colour. The quilt has 8 houses and a park. I've FMQ 3 of the houses, so 5 more left! I'm also looking forward to playing in the park!
Slow Stitching
While watching video tutorials and catching up in the TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club, I've continued stitching my grandmother's placemat. I wanted to stitch something different in the pink sections and happened to watch Mirjam Gielen as she demonstrated how to do an organic honeycomb stitch. It's not a great stitch to quilt with since it's difficult to keep the tension even but after ironing the placemat, it wasn't too bad - at least not worth un-stitching😁
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| Honeycomb stitch on the placemat - a little wabbly but fine |
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| I'll be using the honeycomb stich for only these two sections |
This afternoon it was cool enough to stitch outside. It's my favourite retirement activity. There seems to be new baby grackles and squirrels around. They really don't like each other but they mostly behave 😃 Today I took out my floral watercolour concertina book and stitched away while watching the live nature show.
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| I started using "W" shapes - they stitch easily |
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| Adding a lot more stitches to the pages |
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| The concertina book - many more hours of stitching left 😍 |
What I learned
- After finishing the last two rows of the baby quilt, I wasn't in the mood to make another two rows (the squares and then the triangles). I looked at the quilt and decided that it was big enough. It is for a baby, and would be fine for a toddler.
- I do have three more novelty blocks to add, so I'll make a fun pieced backing since the quilt is wider than 42" (of course).
- I do want to quilt the baby quilt but the Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt is a priority. However, if I can FMQ a couple of houses per week, in a month, I could have most of it finished. I was thinking that this gave me tons of time but July is just two weeks away, 😳 so I'll be focusing on the Rainbow Neighbourhood quilt.
- I'm happy to report that I've only had issues with my white thread when FMQ. I have no idea what that's all about but the tension at the back just wasn't quite right. However with the other coloured thread, everything was fine. I was using a piecing thread, so next time I'll use something a little better for the FMQ.
- The slow stitching on my grandmother's placemat wasn't as great as I hoped but it's still fine. I'll finish the last of the yellow perle cotton and then do something else for the other pink blocks.
- I had a lot of fun stitching on paper on the concertina book. The first page is the easiest, after that it gets a little clumsy but it's all good.
- I want to explore what other very simple stitches I can use on the paper. I have done some French knots. The vases on the collages are card stock, so I'll be able to try something different on those.
Related links
- Flitting from Project to Project and I Quilted This! June 11, 2026
- Baby Quilt
- Baby Quilt, Upcoming Retreat and I Quilted This! May 21, 2026
- Rainbow Neighbourhood
- A finish, June's OMG and I Quilted This!, June 04, 2026
- Slow Stitching
- Projects in Progress and I Quilted This!, May 27, 2026
- Playing with watercolour and stitch, January 07, 2026
Linking parties
I'll be linking to many fun linking parties that you may want to check out!
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I Quilted This!
Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it!
Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.
Gretchen from Gretchen's Little Corner, has finished quilting her two final compassion quilts for the year. Awareness & Butterfly Beauty are both lovely quilts. Gretchen did some straight line quilting in both and added a piano key border and diagonal quilting in the border corners of Butterfly Beauty. You'll want to check them out!
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| Awareness, made and quilted by Gretchen |
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| Butterfly Beauty, Gretchen's own design |
Kat from Scrapbox Quilts finished quilting her Peaches quilt for the Quilts 4 Kids Program. It's quilted in a straight lines pattern in a zig zag style.
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| Kat's quilted Peaches quilt |
Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts participated in a blog hop to showcase a new collection of fabrics, Sunflower Spice. They are gorgeous! Preeti created a wonderful queen sized quilt, Phagun, which she quilted on her domestic machine. You won't want to miss reading more about it and seeing more eye candy! Also, you'll want to check out her very cool pouches made with a recycled Nepal napkin.
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| Preeti's Phagun quilt |
Diann of Little Penguin Quilts participated in Sandra's Lyra QAL and made a runner/wall hanging. It is really lovely. Here are both views.
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| Diann's version of Lyra as a runner |
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| Diann's version of a wall hanging |
It's now your turn 😍
Thank you for highlighting my little quilts, I am getting better at machine quilting. Your Concertina book looks like fun but I'd be afraid I'd tear the paper. Honeycombs would be challenging to free hand quilt but that's like me machine quilting, the more you stitch, the better you get. Happy stitching!
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