I officially have a new nephew.  Somehow I managed to make a cute panel quilt for him between finishing the my master bedroom quilt and starting on my next project for my new baby girl.  I went to craft warehouse and fell in love with a really cute panel.  The panel has bears fishing.  I love the colors too; greens, browns and reds(very boyish).

I first bought the panel and some coordinating fabric for a border.  When I got it all home and looked at it, I decided that I would need to make it bigger.  I then went back to craft warehouse a week later and found a fat quarter bundle of coordinating fabrics.

I first bordered the panel in a red and black checkered fabric.  I then decided to cut each of the fat quarters in half and sew them lengthwise around two sides of the panel.  I set up a pattern with the fabrics and rotated them around.  I think it came out great.  I then used the leftover scraps for the binding.  The backing is a really nice green cuddle fabric.

The top is cute and fun, just fitting for a two year old boy, and the back so cozy and soft.

I decided not to quilt too much of this quilt for a couple of reasons.  First cuddle fabric is not the easiest to work with, as it can pucker very easily.  The second reason is I wanted to make sure that the quilt was going to be soft and not too stiff.

For the quilt label on this quilt, I used the lettering feature on my machine.  I usually embroider the label, but I wanted it small and not so large.  After all, this is a small quilt for a child.  I also hand stitched the label on to the back of the quilt.  I think it looks really good.

Here is my finished quilt for my bed.  It is a king size quilt, and boy am I glad that it is finished.

It was very difficult to quilt this beast on my domestic machine, but I managed.  I decided only to quilt in the ditch and I am glad that I did.  This quilt was just too big and heavy to manage any other way.

On my last post I was just about ready to start putting together this quilt top.  I inserted a plain gray square between each sixteen patch block.  I then put this quilt top together in stages.  I assembled a bunch of larger 9 patch blocks then I put them together in rows and stitched the rows together.  Once everything was assembled I managed to put the quilt on my bed, that way I could make sure that it actually fit.  I also did this so that I could decide if I needed to add any borders.  After placing the quilt on the bed, I decided that borders were not needed.

I then pin basted my quilt on my living room floor.  I found a lot of good tips online for trying to baste this large of a quilt.  Some people mentioned that they tape or pin theirs to the carpet.  I decided I would give it a try.  Since this method worked very well for this large of a quilt, I decided that this would be how I now pin baste all my quilts regardless of size.

I then proceeded to quilt this quilt.  I decided to take it slow, use my walking foot and stitch in the ditch.  It worked out very well.

Now that my quilt for my bedroom is finished, I can now begin my quilt for my new baby girl that is due in January.

The last Bernina Mastery class that I took a couple of weeks ago inspired me to work on making bags/totes.  I made a quilted zipper pouch in the class and decided that I could apply what I had learned and make my own bags and totes.  Here is a picture of what I had made in class.  The instructions were to make the exterior black, but I decided that I preferred the interior lining fabric as the exterior.  So, I switched it up a bit.

My sister moved nearby and I decided that I would gather a housewarming basket for her.  As I gathered everything that I wanted to give her, I noticed that I would need a large bag or basket to put it all in.  While I was at “A Common Thread”, I found a thin foam batting, and decided that I could make a large bag for her.   So I found some leftover fabric that I had laying around, and decided to quilt her a large tote bag.  I used one yard of fabric for the exterior and one yard of fabric for the interior.  I used my Bernina Stitch Regulator(BSR) to quilt the exterior of the bag by tracing around the cupcake design.  Once the bag was completed, it was huge!  I love how it turned out.  She can now use it in the back of her car for trips/groceries, or what ever she wants.  I had a lot of fun with this one.

I then wanted to try making a couple of simple tote bags with an embroidered design.  I choose a design, and made the same bag, but two different ways. On the first bag I choose to quilt the exterior and the lining.  I like how stiff the bag turned out, but that required me to have seams showing on the interior of the bag.  I do not like that look quite so well.  On the second bag I choose not to quilt it at all, but kept it fully lined.  This bag has no visible seems.  I like that, but afraid that it might not stand up after washing it.  I did enjoy making these bags.  I also used cotton webbing for the straps, which I have never done before, but love how it turned out.  I will use this product again.

This is what the quilting looked like before I put the quilted bag together.  It was nice to get some more practice with the BSR.

Here is the inside view of the quilted bag.  As you can see there are several seams that you can see, but the I still like how the bag holds up.

I had fun playing with the embroidery module on my machine.  Each of the bags has the same design but I used blue on one bag and yellow on the other.