Shake it like a Polaroid Picture

 Hey ya! (See what I did there? No? Outkast? Song Title? No? Okay, moving on.)

So after many moons and much deliberation over patterns and fabric… my kids decided for me. The Polaroid swap blocks were to be made into two separate quilts in plain colours – rather than the one big rainbow of fabric glory that I imagined.

But hey, I got it done. And the kids now have their own quilts for Christmas. So really, I’m still happy (even without my rainbow Polaroid happiness – do I sound disappointed?!).



Names are blotted out to protect the mischevious innocent. And because I’m weird like that.

So I used the very clever Jane’s (from Where Jane Creates) method to wonkify my blocks. Check out her post here on how to do it. The only thing I changed was I used 2” strips around my blocks and cut the blocks back to 6” so there’s a bit more space around them.

I sewed them together at random. I quite enjoyed looking through the blocks as I put the quilts together so I know the kids are going to love them!

With 40 blocks per quilt, it didn’t look right in a 5 x 8 arrangement. So I made the strips 6 blocks across and then appliqued the kidlets names in the bottom corner to fill in the blank space. Added borders and that was the quilt tops done!



Now you can see on the purple quilt, that I kinda stuffed up the backing. Here’s the thing. I used Minky. For the first time. With not enough pins. And it slipped. Resulting in a bit of wonkiness. I learnt my lesson when I did the red quilt (and didn’t have enough minky to re-do the purple one).

But the upside of using the Minky… these were fast finishes. I didn’t use batting. I didn’t quilt. I didn’t add binding. Did the old pillowcase fliparoo, top stitched top and bottom and called it a quilt! Or two. (Okay so technically they probably aren’t quilts but you get what I mean).



They aren’t perfect, but they were made with love (and possibly a swear word or two). And now my kidlets have their own quilts to snuggle on the lounge without fighting. Hopefully.

Feel pretty good to get these done for Christmas. Last year’s handmade gifts for the kidlets included these:


Now there’s a lot of work! Okay so Jaybird’s was made a few years back, but Lulu got hers last year. Each stocking was about 25 hours of hand stitching. They are from Bucilla Christmas kits. I love those! Hard to see in the photo but they are covered (and I mean covered) in sequins and glittery thread. So pretty.

So there you have it! I am on my way to getting my Christmas sewing done! Not even going to count how many days are left, because I still have quite a To Do list to tackle.

Might help if I work more on sewing and less on patterns. Having too much fun with paper piecing ideas! Here’s a sneak peek of one that is coming up (thanks to Gina for the great idea!)



And here’s the newest one added to my Craftsy shop.



Linking up with TGIFF which is over at Quokka Quilts this week