Guess the Date of New Baby's Arrival/ Quilt as You go Bag

"Quilt as You Go" Tinker Tote

Three of my favourite things are my 3 grandbabies, quilting and my cats.

We are expecting a new grandbaby in late November, and this time we don't know ahead of time  the gender of this baby. (Yes, the not knowing is driving me crazy! )

I decided to have some fun with that and raise some funds for Alley Cats Rescue in Red Deer, AB at the same time, plus give myself the perfect excuse to quilt. :D

'Quilt as You Go' tote bag  side 2

I challenged my friends and acquaintances to guess the arrival date of New Baby and the closest guess to the correct date would win a handmade quilted bag.

We have 3 cats that are from Alley Cats Rescue in Red Deer, which comprises a dedicated group of selfless individuals, who rescue litters of wild kittens in and around the Red Deer/ Innisfail area. They find the cats and kittens temporary foster homes, get them spayed and neutered, and finally adopt them out with the help of the local Pet Smart.


I know Alley Cats Rescue is always looking for ways to help pay their vet bills, so I charged  $5 for each Baby Date guess to donate to this worthy cause.

I printed up a calendar of the month of November and early December to keep track of the guesses.   (You know babies; they will arrive whenever they darn well are ready whether you like it or not! :)

Both sides quilted 

After emailing my friends and posting it on my FB page, I started slowly receiving responses. I quickly got started on a new "quilt as you go" Tinker tote bag. I had bought an online tutorial through "Craftsy" in July and had made myself a Tinker tote bag at that time, (which I got many compliments on). Tara Rebman is the instructor and she does an exemplary job of showing and explaining the steps.

It is quilted as you go along, some with the walking foot done in straight lines and some is quilted towards the end with free motion.

I like the method of making the zipper pocket!

Zipper inner pocket

This time I made the bag a few inches narrower than the first one and I used thin stiff batting usually used for making place mats. I was pleased with how it was turning out, but had a bit of trouble with sewing on the binding around the curved edges of the bag once I sewed  the sides together since the bag is so stiff.

The lining pieces

I had to rip out a few sections of the seams and try again in a few spots. I got smarter with the side seams where I used dabs of "Speed Sew" glue under the binding to keep it in place before I sewed it on  along the seam (letting it dry well first).

The completed bag looks great, though, if I do say so myself!  I almost hate to give it away! :)

Delectible Dino and Parade of Bears

In the summer of 2012, I pieced some dinosaur blocks and put them together to create a baby quilt top called Delectible Dinos. The dinos have 3 dimensional 'floppy' feet and 2 of them also have 3D 'floppy' heads.  The rest of the dinosaur heads are appliquéd on.

I finally got around to adding the border, choosing a back fabric and quilting it all.  I machine quilted it with some 'ditch' quilting and some echo quilting around the dinos.  Then I machine quilted a simple pattern using free motion on the border.

To make the binding, I sewed together a bunch of 2 1/4 inch wide fabric scraps from this quilt and from another one I was working on that I call Parade of bears.  I like the effect of the colourful edge.

The quilt itself is 40 1/2 by 40 1/2 inches square. The back fabric is blue with little white stars, the same as the outer border.  I quite like this little quilt!   :D



Parade of Bears quilt

Parade of Bears baby quilt 41" by 41"

I used up some of my leftover fabrics and a some blue print fat quarters, cutting them into 2 1/2" inch by 12 1/2" inch strips to create blocks for this little number. :)

I  traced 18 teddy bears out on the wrong side of fabric scraps. Then with the help of 'Steam a Seam 2' ,  I appliquéd 2 Teddies onto  6 1/2" by 12 1/2" inch white rectangles. 

Teddy bear appliqued blocks

I pressed the teddy bears onto the fabric first and then stitched around the teddy bears with a zig zag stitch to make sure they couldn't move.

After that I added a 3" inch border around the outside. The back of the quilt is a light yellow stars fabric. After sandwiching and pinning, I machine quilted it: ditch quilting along the strips and echo quilting (free motion) around the teddy bears. (I used a fading marking pen to draw around the bears first.)

The completed quilt is 41" by 41' inches.


 I like it quite a lot and now I'm considering doing a similar version with pinks.  There are 6 babies that either have recently arrived or are about to arrive in the next few weeks, but who will end up with what, has not been determined yet. The first 3 babies were all boys. I'm hoping that at least 2 of the next 3 will be girls. I bought a lot of small sleepers in both pink and blue to give away along with a quilt, so I don't want to end up with all the pink ones left! :)

Our own new grand baby is due in 3 weeks or so. I'm so excited not only to find out the gender, but to hold and get to know another baby! :D

Wacky Jack

Wacky Jack

Finally after 8 years or so of quilting, I have gotten around to making a Hallowe'en item. About time! It seems that I spend soooo much time making baby quilts to give away to family, friends and friends of the family, as well as the odd quilted bag, place mats and full sized quilts, most of which I don't keep myself.  I decided it was time to keep one of my own quilt projects to hang up at the appropriate time.

I enjoyed making "Wacky Jack" so much that, once I was done stitching on the binding,  I immediately started cutting out more orange and yellow strips of fabric and planning Wacky Jack #2.  :)

The pumpkins are easy to make. You need a piece of  muslin (or any other thin light coloured fabric) about 26-28 inches square. The variety of orange strips get sewn onto that.


Choose the fabric strips that you want for the centre, then place the first 2 with right sides together in the centre of the muslin. Sew a 1/4 inch seam down one side and flip the top strip back, finger pressing it open. Add a strip to the top in the same manner and go all the way around adding strips (similar to making a log cabin block.)

When the square pumpkin is as big as you want it, add strips of black fabric to the 4 corners to get the pumpkin shape. Then sew on 4 more black stripes, one on each side.

The eyes, nose and mouth are appliquéd on at the end, as well as the stem.

The directions for these blocks were from the American Patchwork Quilting magazine Oct. 2013 issue, page 50 and 52.

Happy Hallowe'en!