Bermuda baby

Our good friends in Bermuda welcomed a beautiful baby boy and I made them this quilt. I wanted him to be wrapped in the colors of the island whether he was there or away. It's a little hard to make out, but the base color on the front is a very pale green and the binding is a light brown with cream dots (both from Purl). I absolutely love this one.

(Click on pics to see bigger versions, I am having some technical issues!)


Pattern: Marquee from The Modern Quilt Workshop (inspired by this).
Fabrics: From the stash.
Date completed: August 2010.


The back.


Block detail.


Who can resist a little owl?

My first quilt

When I was about 13 I decided I wanted to make a quilt. Having no idea what this entailed, I settled in with a pile of pink and purple fabrics (what else), pinking shears, a spool of white thread and a needle. I painstakingly cut out piles of squares, and then commenced sewing them together. By hand. With no regard for seam allowances (of which I knew naught), ironing, backstitch, or really anything else.

After finishing one row of squares, I set forth on the second row. When that was done I eagerly set both rows together and still remember the crushing disappointment when I discovered the squares did not line up in the slightest (see ignorance of seam allowances, above). I think I put my quilt down for at least a year at that point.


At some later point, still while in middle or high school, I picked it up again and slowly assembled the whole mess, and then put it in a closet never to be seen again until last week, when my mom unearthed it while cleaning out the basement. I am so thrilled it's survived! Yes, it's a hot mess, but I can't wait to wash it (it's got some questionable stains, possibly from sitting with festering dressmaker's chalk for 20 years), patch up some holes and make it into the quilt it always wanted to be. Maybe one day I'll even get over the color scheme.

(Hopefully) sold to the highest bidder!

My good friend V is a member of her son's coop preschool and asked me to make something for their annual auction. The proceeds support the school. Her initial request was a knit hat and mittens but I said I'd rather make a quilt.

The tricky part was that since the item was for sale, I had to come up with my own pattern; I didn't want to risk infringing on anyone's copyright. I'm very pleased with the result!


The quilting is pretty light - only a row of loops across each of the linen panels. The fabrics are from the California Dreamin' collection (purchased here), Jay McCarroll's Garden Friends Collection (purchased here), and others from Purl Soho and the stash.


I was originally going to do all rows of the colorful fabrics but was afraid it would be overwhelming and would not apply to a broad audience of potential purchasers, so I toned it down. Of course, that was after I had cut all the rows of colorful fabrics so I have enough left over to make four more of these (and I just might).

Now hopefully everyone will think any wonkiness is just homemade charm and pay top dollar for it...

California Baby

My crafty friend M had a beautiful baby girl in November. I know it's crazy to make the quiltmaker's daughter a quilt, but I loved these fabrics and they had to go to sweet Lila in California. Of course it took me 3 months to get the thing out the door, but better late then never. Whoops.

The design is inspired by my Counterpane Quilt and this. I did loopy quilting in the open spaces which was really fun. The fabrics are from Fiber Notion and ye olde stash.
The back is this delicious organic cotton from Purl Patchwork that got so soft after I washed it. So cozy for a new baby!

The Quiltmaker's Child Gets a Quilt

While I was pregnant I didn't make a single thing. The child seemed to sap me of all creative juju. This meant that any baby born within 6 months of ours received no handmade gifts, nor did my kid get a thing. Slowly the creative juices started flowing and I started catching up, but it was not until this summer that I got around to making the child his own quilt. Then it took quite a while to get it on the wall, but at long last it went up this weekend, and I love it! Now we just wait to see how long it takes him to try to pull it off the wall.


Also, wanted to share a picture of Baby J sporting her Christmas pajamas. A perfect fit!

More zig zags

Continuing the great baby boom of 2009, Baby F arrived in London this past Monday, almost 2 weeks late. Needless to say, his parents are glad he's out.

Baby F's gender was unknown until he made his appearance so I had to go with something gender-neutral, and I hope this red and orange ensemble succeeded. This is my second Zig Zag Quilt - I love the way it's assembled and the process of arranging the triangles.

Welcome Baby G!

When our friends D and L announced they were expecting a baby I set straight to work on their baby present. This little bean has been long anticipated and although we weren't going to know the sex, the quilt had to be perfect. I chose the Zig Zag Quilt pattern from the Purl Bee and used a mix of orange and turquoise prints that I hoped would be gender neutral. Little baby G (a girl) made her appearance on November 5 (an excellent birthday, if I do say so myself, and I should know) and she is just beautiful!

Even more so than her blanket, if I'm being honest.

A detail of the edging and the quilting:The back, packed with Heather Ross' Mendocino:
Little did I know, but L's family has a special thing with seahorses, so the fabric choice was perfect!

All fabrics from Fabric Worm, Purl Patchwork and my stash (source sadly long forgotten).

Super Pink

It's been a long time coming but I have a few new things to show which have been held up by poor lighting and the necessity of secrecy.

The lighting situation hasn't improved (grim weather here in NYC) but the time had come to give this little guy away so I just had to deal. This is my long-ago started Hop Skip Jump Quilt. I actually finished all but a foot of the binding over a year ago, but since it had no recipient, I wasn't motivated to wrap it up. Enter a new baby girl for my good friend V, and I sprung into action.



This is actually the first real quilt I ever started, and it took me over 2 years to finish! Of course, I would do a million things differently if I were to restart it now (the quilting for one - I stitched in the ditch around each of the color blocks), but I do love it and hope it will keep the new babe warm and snuggly. Word is it's going to be hanging above her crib, which I take as a huge compliment.

And speaking of which, City Blocks got installed above the crib of its recipient and I think it looks great!


I'm going to wait for some good natural light to photograph the other two things I have to share (and another baby to be born), but stay tuned.

Lincoln's Baby Quilt

My best and oldest friend, A, gave birth to a beautiful (and enormous) baby boy at the end of April. I have been beavering away on his baby quilt and am going to give it to him when I visit them in Portland next weekend. I know the colors aren't exactly babyish but neither is she, so it should be a good fit. These are some of my favorite stash fabrics and I'm glad they are going to a good home!

The pattern is from a quilt class I took at Brooklyn Mercantile with Michael Michalski back in the fall, and I supplemented my stash fabrics with some from the shop.

Quilt front:

Quilt back:

Embroidered name tag on twill tape:

All over but the quiltin'

City Blocks, waiting to be quilted.

City Blocks for Baby C

My friend, M, had her second baby a few weeks ago. Many months before, she put in an order for a baby quilt and even bought a pile of fabrics at Purl Patchwork. I spent a long time hemming and hawing over the right pattern, since M is super crafty and creative herself. I settled on City Blocks because it is simple and modern, would showcase the fabrics she picked, and didn't require me to supplement with too many additional ones. I have 12 blocks done but need more. Here are the three colorways, though:




The blocks will all be oriented in different directions and I plan to free-motion quilt it - my first major free-motion project! Before then, more sewing and more practice...

Free Wheelin'

I finally took my free motion quilting class this weekend at The City Quilter! I have been counting down for months. I even toted along my trusty little Janome Gem so I could practice on that, seeing as the Bernina 440s they have for classes bear nearly no relationship to its elementary ways. (They both had needles, thread and a foot peddle, but after that the comparison ends.)

We started with "wind":

And moved on to "water":

But I am truly a squiggle girl at heart - it felt totally natural to me, probably because it's always been my boredom doodle of choice:

There were attempts at stippling in there too, but I need, oh, a few hundred hours practice before that technique will be ready for prime time.

Now I just need practice materials - after a little more muslin, I'm thinking a big expanse of some pretty fabric so I can practice maneuvering something large through my machine's short little neck. If it turns out decent, perhaps it will become a gift for a [very forgiving] recipient!

Another Jane's Quilt

I've been waiting to post this until it was done and gifted to the recipient, and somehow 6 months snuck by since my last post! Whoops.

Anyway, this quilt is for my friend J's new baby, Baby J. She arrived in January but the quilt wasn't finished until this week. I love it, and it goes smashingly with Baby J's navy nursery, if I do say so myself. I'm quite proud of myself - this is the most complicated thing I've patched together and it is so exciting when the corners line up!



Fabric: From Purl Patchwork
Pattern: Sweet Redbird by Liberty Star.
Started: Hmm, Fall 2008?
Finished: March 2009

I added a little tag for the recipient, which is embroidered on twill tape.


A couple more pictures here.

This weekend I'm taking a free motion quilting class at City Quilter with my new crafty friend, M, and I'm super excited to break free of my straight line quilting! She's way more advanced than me and already knows how to free motion, but I suppose everyone can use a refresher.

Jane's Quilt

Pattern: Easy Lap Quilt from Bend-the-Rules Sewing by Amy Karol.
Materials: Purchased at Brooklyn Mercantile and Fiber Notion, both in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Completed: September 2008.

I have spent nearly every day of my maternity leave hanging out with or talking to my new friend R, whose daughter Jane was born the same day as our little Sam. Together we have attempted sing-a-longs, roamed the park and obsessed over sleep (and our children's seeming disdain for it, day or night).

When I saw these Dick & Jane fabrics I had to make a little something to thank R and Jane for all of the good times.

Here are a few not-so-good pictures, but trust me, it came out really cute!

Snip snip

Do you ever write a whole blog post? When you haven't written one in over a week? And it takes you like, half an hour? And then you post it and Blogger pukes on you and it all gets lost? Yeah, I hate when that happens.

Anyway, it's been slow going here at One Potato. Long work hours and daylight savings time have meant little time to make projects and even less time to photograph what has been made.

This weekend I finished cutting out the rest of the fabric for my Hop Skip Jump quilt. It's a good thing this quilt is wonky by design because if it wasn't... well it was going to be anyway. There were definitely some errors made as I raced through piles of fabric with my friendly rotary cutter. I trust that it will all be ok and am deluded into thinking the sewing will take way less time than the cutting. It will at least be a thousand times more fun. Oh cutting, how I despise thee.

This week I also got my blue laceweight cashmere from Hipknits. In the ongoing conspiracy being waged against me by the international postal system, the first shipment did not arrive. (Please advise me immediately if you see a UK or US postal worker with a powder blue cashmere shawl anytime soon.) However, the kind people at Hipknits sent a replacement and it came within a week. The color is well represented on the website and it's so pretty!

Finally this weekend I took a field trip to Purl Patchwork with my friend S, who has recently redone her kitchen and plans to adorn her bare wall with a big swath of beautiful fabric stretched over a frame. After coffee and sustenance at Once Upon a Tart, we chose a large repeating print with a bittersweet orange background and bird silhouettes and a butterfly and flowers. I can't find it on the website, but trust me, it's awesome, and will look fantastic on the wall. I may just have to invite myself over for dinner.

Look, I'm quilting!

First of all, Happy New Year!

And second, I'm quilting I'm quilting!

Yesterday I called up Purl to discuss my quilting hardships and wound up sprinting out of my house with my swatch, batting and muslin in tow to make it into the shop for some advice before they closed at 3. Can we all just praise Joelle for a moment? She's made a quilter out of me. She hauled out a machine, tried quilting my swatch (no problems, ahem) and suggested I dismantle and clean the whole thing, which she also demonstrated. It was very encouraging to see quilting actually occur, right there on my sad little swatch, and I went off rearing to go.

I got home and gave my machine a very through once-over. And then: quilt magic. Hurray! I think the cleaning definitely helped but what probably helped even more was actually lowering the walking foot onto the quilt sandwich. I know, I know... this is in the "check to see if your machine is plugged in" list of questions for the customer service reps, but you see, my sandwich seemed so fat and wedged under the foot it didn't seem like putting down the presser foot would actually do anything. Oh, except pull the fabric through and prevent stitches from piling up underneath. Duh.

I happily quilted the top of the potholder and half of one of the hand covers. And then, disaster - NO MORE THREAD.

I am so bummed! I was right there, in the store, with all of the miles of thread, just yesterday! And I bought none! Not to mention it's rainy and grim here today and the perfect day to bond with my sewing machine and my last day of vacation and I can't finish my stinking potholders! Sniffle.

Well, I guess I will have to find some other project with which to occupy myself today... there must be something around here.

In knots

On to the potholders and my first foray into quilting. On to knots and broken needle! I am discouraged.

Now then, I am trying to figure out this quilting thing on my own. I have used the quilting foot on my sewing machine once, but not for quilt-related activities. Unfortunately, I have no friends or family members that quilt and can sort me out. But it all seems simple enough: make a cotton batting sandwich and sew - what ever could be the problem? Silly, silly me.

Actually, let's start with the good part - this is the top panel of the potholders. The fabric cutting went off without a hitch and the seams matched up [on the second go-around]. In fact, I am very proud of my center seam!

And then, the trouble began. Back to my batting sandwich - I did some test lines and got a variety of mediocre results. These are all sewn with different tension settings. Shortly thereafter the tip of the sewing machine needle snapped and hit me in the middle of the forehead. I began to fear the sewing machine.I replaced the needle. I donned the Boy's clear-lensed biking glasses for eye protection, and I bravely returned to the needle-throwing machine, with which I was now in a big fight.

And then... this chaos. Aiyiiii! What is this madness? Note, this did not happen only once. Do I need a different needle? Thread? Project?

For the moment the dear sewing machine is going back on the shelf and I am sticking to knitting needles, which are far better behaved.