Baby's quilt

It isn't often I have helpers around to show off a quilt. I took advantage of the girls' visit this week to capture the quilt for their new baby brother due to arrive this Spring.

They were kind of cooperative...

And kind of noisy...

So here are a few more shots of the finished quilt. I titled it "Big Hugs, Little Kisses", as I'm sure he may be a bit smothered in love!

The 6-minute circle technique was perfect for the 8 inch "hugs" and the 4 inch "kisses" were made from a simple drawing and then paper-pieced.

The quilting is done in straight diagonal lines radiating from the center, forming a giant "X" of quilting. It was tough to capture the way the light was hitting the quilt, but you get the idea!

We hope he likes it!!! . . . Cindy

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The 6 minute circle

A pieced circle in 6 minutes! I first saw this technique on Simply Quilts, an HGTV show back in 2005. I thought the technique was cool and immediately bought the book about it, Pieced Curves So Simple by Dale Fleming. Of course, the moment passed and I never did anything with it until this week.

I was inspired by my Redbird Bee buddy, Hanna's quilt Hugs and Hugs. I thought they'd make the perfect addition to my "X" blocks for a hugs and kisses baby quilt.

Was I able to do a pieced circle in 6 minutes? At first, not by a long shot. But after a few, I managed to make a block in about 15 minutes. Considering my blocks were 2 pieced circles, I was pretty pleased.

I found my Olfa circle cutter handy to make the freezer paper templates and a pair of super sharp to the point scissors for all the clipping. All in all, I loved this technique and plan to use it again. A nice video of the 6 minute circle technique can be found on the HGTV website here. You might want to bookmark it - I had a hard time finding it until my friend Kelly pointed me in the right direction!

As far as other projects go, my Bee blocks are also pieced together and the quilting has started!

. . . Cindy

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