Sew Fresh Quilts' Giraffe Love Quilt / Beauties Pageant 280

Back in 2014 when I started From Bolt to Beauty, I discovered Sew Fresh Quilts, a blog by Lorna McMahon. Lorna started designing and selling patterns well before I did. At first, she released geometric designs but soon homed in on—and found her groove with—animal designs. Truly, she’s made quilts of any and every creature you’d encounter in your house, out in the wild, or at the zoo.

When it came time to sew something for a giraffe-loving new mom, I went to Sew Fresh Quilts and found many options. There were rainbow giraffes lined up in a row, a sweet giraffe family of three, a giraffe with his zebra buddy, and four others.

I decided on Giraffe Love, a whole-composition design of three giraffes munching on leaves. I think I fell in love with this pattern because it strays from my usual white or light-colored background, which isn’t a wise choice for a baby quilt that’s going to see its share of spills. Plus, I couldn’t resist the combination of yellow giraffes on a background of gradient blues. The foreground colors really pop!

I modified the pattern because I didn’t have the required six shades of blue in my stash and wanted to avoid horizontal seam lines that were necessary when sewing with six blues but not with the four I used. (Yes, I like to complicate projects whenever I can!) I really like how it came out.

This was the first pattern of Lorna’s that I’ve sewn. I was thankful for the many diagrams—it’s so much faster for my brain to process illustrations rather than written instructions.

Sewing this design reminded me of my own Ridiculously Easy Jelly Roll Quilt, a pattern that’s assembled in columns. (Giraffe Love is sewn in rows.) As with Ridiculously Easy, Giraffe Love’s simple construction doesn’t mean you can sew on autopilot. I was using my backup sewing machine at the time and didn’t check my quarter-inch seam allowance. When it came time to sew the rows together, I found discrepancies that required some seam ripping, even quilt-top surgery at times. All of that was my issue, not the pattern’s.

Now I just need to find time to quilt this beauty! Any suggestions on a quilting design? I’m planning on quilting this myself with my walking foot on my domestic machine. Thanks in advance!

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Use It or Lose It: Cirrus Solids / Beauties Pageant 279

My love affair with Cirrus Solids started back in 2021 when I made my Quilt Buzz Bingo project. I wanted a special solid to sash my blocks, and these yarn-dyed wovens are a little heavier than—and have more personality than—regular quilting cottons.

The color and texture of Cirrus Solids in Ocean, a deep blue, transformed my blocks. Without it, my pink and green blocks looked very “modern Christmas.” The sashing erased all evidence of the holidays and replaced it with “preppy summer.” The palette makes me think of a woven button-down shirt and cutoffs, and the finished quilt is on my bed right now in an effort to inject color into my New England winter.

Ocean wasn’t the only Cirrus Solid in my stash, however: When I reorganized my stash recently, I realized I had 3-plus yards of both Limestone (a white) and Amazon (an aqua). It was time to find those beauties a purpose!

Enter Windmill Weave by Sewspicious. Although there’s something special about mixing Cirrus Solids with quilting cottons, as I did in Quilt Buzz Bingo, there’s something equally special about using solely Cirrus Solids, and I know this bold, graphic design will be striking sewn up in Limestone and Amazon.

I am two blocks into this project. Thanks to my AccuQuilt Go and strip piecing, however, the process is surprisingly fast. I have more to say about using Cirrus Solids and the pattern, but I’ll save those comments for a future update on my progress. : )

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Because People Keep Having Babies / Beauties Pageant 278

Just when I think all the babies in my life have a Michelle-made quilt, another one comes into the world!

The quilt you see here was made for the 4-month-old of a very special teacher. This project is the sixth time I’ve sewn this particular pattern. It’s Little Man, an oldie but a goodie by Camille Roskelley from her book Simplify (Stash Books, 2010). 

What makes a baby quilt pattern worthy of sewing a half-dozen times? Well, Little Man is super cute, and its fabric requirements are easily fulfilled by my stash. Although I opened a layer cake for Little Man #6, I usually cut into the suggested four fat quarters. That’s an easy bill to fill for a gal who doesn’t invest in many baby-friendly prints. 

Little Man is also a fast sew and measures in at about 40" x 50", so the recipient can use it well into his toddler years and beyond (and I can squeak by without piecing a back!). Gah—it’s the best baby quilt pattern!

My only regret with this quilt is that I didn’t get pictures of the quilted-and-bound finish. With my usual machine in the shop, my backup machine and I struggled to finish much of anything before Christmas. This beauty was completed the night before it was delivered, and it went straight from being bound by my humble backup machine to being wrapped up for gifting. To see my past versions of this pattern, including more than one I’ve dubbed a “Little Lady,” click here.

For those of you who fall in love with this project’s turtles and crabs and whales, they’re from Ahoy! by Gingiber. Could that have been Stacie Bloomfield’s first collection for Moda way back when? One way or another, the collection is long out of print. I can cut another (my seventh!) Little Man out of what remains from my layer cake, and then that will be the end of my fun with Ahoy!

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