Olivia's Quilt

When Jessica and I started brainstorming about my niece's quilt, we went back and forth on several ideas. At some point we realized we'd both pinned this quilt and then it was decided. Apologies for the less than quality photos. I need to not wait until it's too late and then just having to make do...

We loved the way our inspiration quilt made the secondary pattern of X's. Jess was in charge of making sure everything was in the right place. I was in charge of sewing and trying not to mess that up. This did cause one issue, in that, to get the desired amount of x's without having to make even smaller HSTs, we had to go bigger. As in the biggest baby blanket ever. Good news, it's so big it will take her straight through her toddler years and then some.

My sis-in-law picked out this duvet from Pottery Barn Kids for the little Miss's room. We stepped up the colors just a notch.... It was so fun gathering this variety of fabrics, picking stuff up here and there and pulling from our stash.

The duvet was used for the backing with plenty left over for room accents. We did simple straight line quilting on point. The binding is a deep purple.

The solid fabrics are all Kona Cotton. Aurifil thread was used for both pricing and quilting. The batting is Pellon's Nature Touch that we purchased from Joann.
We had such fun making this and of course it is full of love and good wishes for this little one as she starts her life.

Quilt- Swiss Army Style

I have slowly, so slowly, but surely tried to make quilts for everyone in my family. I have been knocking around ideas for this guy's quilt for quite awhile now. He's my big boy and he travels a lot, to far away places. I hate to saddle people with "things" if it is not convenient to their lives but I finally just had to do it and I'm glad I did. Cause, look at that face. Yes, I know that he is all grown up, but yikes, it seriously seems like yesterday that this man was only seven.

 This is my take on the old Swiss Army Blankets. I love those things and thought why not interpret it into a quilt? Since my son is 6'2" I made it long. Maybe ridiculously long, but I wanted him to be warm. I think it ended up over 8 feet. Silly me, I didn't measure but you can see when he holds it up it still drags the ground. When they originally produced the wool army blankets, the maker embroidered their initials and the year made on the blanket in the lower left corner. My twist on that was to embroider his initials and the year in the same corner. Of course I forgot to get a picture of that, because I waited until the day before he left to take the pictures and I may or may not have been close to boo hooing.

 I used Kona Cotton in white, coal and cardinal to piece the quilt and quilted the many, many mostly straight lines in Aurifil 50 weight Dove Grey. I kept the back simple with the same fabrics.

I love that he wrote me a few days after he left to let me know that the length of the quilt was the best part, and it was in fact keeping him warm. That's the whole point, isn't it?

The Wedding Quilt - Things Got a Little Fishy

My sister's son married a sweet girl this summer. We couldn't be there, so we decided to make them a quilt, hoping they'd know how much we love them in spite of not being able to make it. They are fishermen (people?) and artists. We tried to encompass both of those things with the quilt we made. 

Oh, and by we.... I mean I did the background and Jess did all the epic stuff. I do like my background but I LOVE what Jess did.

The lure was taken from a painting that my new niece, Shelby, did of a lure Tayler made. The fish is from one of his photos. Jess did an amazing job translating them into the quilt. I believe she may post some details of her process.

We chose batiks to help give it a water feel. I had some anxious moments trying to figure out how to get what was in my head to work with the fabric. I'm sure I could have found a tutorial somewhere but apparently I need to torment myself sometimes..... When it finally clicked with me, it was a lot of fun and I want to do it again.

The fish and lure are both raw edge appliqué. The trout also has painted details.

We backed it in a lovely plaid flannel, perfect for cold winter nights. 

Quilt details:

Approx 60 x 70

Fish and lure - Kona Cottons 

Background - Batiks from JoAnn Fabrics

Backing - Flannel from JoAnn Fabrics

Thread - Aurifil 50w

Batting - Pellon's Nature Touch 100% cotton

I've added our quilt to the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Art quilt catagory.

Backpack and Dress

There are so, so many things I haven't shown you. 

Way back at the beginning of this year, I had a request for a backpack. 

FYI - I am now a licensed seller of  Made By Rae Toddler backpacks. 

I gave her a few choices and this was the combo she liked. The fabric is Chocolate Lollipop Pink by Anna Maria Horner. The piping is Kona Cotton in corn yellow. 

I really like the way it turned out. 

This dress. 

I found some gorgeous linen on clearance at Joann. There was just enough to make up the Ice Cream dress by Oliver & S patterns for Bella. I bought it without Jess knowing. She pinned this dress about the same time. You can't see it much in these pictures but the neck and pocket facings are almost the same color as the inspiration dress. I actually had it in my stash! Of course, Miss Bella has grown so much in the last few months, it's now more of a top on her.

Maybe one day, she will enjoy modelling for us.....

Around The Worldy, Worldy

In my efforts to use what I have, I unearthed a charm pack of Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow. Then I decided to try my hand at a values quilt. Around the world style.

I really love it. Since it was a charm pack it was pretty small so I finished it off with some blue Kona on two sides. It's a great size for a stroller quilt, or for a sweet babe to drag around. It could even be a nice wall hanging. 

The back is finished off in blue Kona and some of the extra blocks. Not so perfect diagonal quilting lines and a hand sewn binding finish things off.

I think this qualifies as my first quilt finish for 2013.

It'll be up for sale in the shop.... Unless I decided I need it for my wall...

Wonkystar Pillow

Things around here have been a bit, shall we say, hectic. Then we went and got a little, um, exhausted. During this time, Jess and I decided to take a break from things we had to do, to make something we wanted to. Mine is small, her's is huge. We have yet to get good photos of hers, so today it's just mine. 

So, I've had this wonky star block favorited and pinned forever.

 By the way, if you don't yet use pinterest please, please do so. It's such a cool resource for keeping yourself organized. Of course it is also addictive. You need an invite (or you have to wait for a few days) but that's not a problem, just email me and I'll send you an invite! 

So anyway, I wanted a small pillow for back support but I couldn't just make a plain cover. Then Jennifer pinned a huge wonky star quilt and made her own mini quilt. That finally sent me over the edge and I knew I how I had to make my cover.

I did this on a whim so didn't really think it through. In an effort to use what I have, I went to the scrap bins. I finally used my "Go" cutter that my hubby got me for my birthday. Did I tell you that? Hm. Anyway, 48 little squares cut out in about five minutes. Yes, thank you! I decided to put them on point and just started sort of free piecing the sashing around the blocks. Mostly because I had a tiny bit of the Kona ash left to use. I can't actually believe it worked. All I had left was two small triangles 

I love it. I may have to eventually make a whole quilt like this.......someday.

Pillow Talk

A few weeks back we had a sewing with friends day at my house. I was helping one young woman sew some pillow cases. We'd done it once before, but since then I came across the hotdog pillow case method. Where has this been? Why can't I think of these things on my own???

Anyway, I made one so I could show her the results. Of course, you can't just make one pillow case, can you?

I used a couple of Michael Miller fabrics from the Citron Gray line, Gray Lil' Plain Jane and Citron Play Stripe. The accent strip is Kona charcoal.  I will eventually do a quilt that coordinates with these........

 Normally I wouldn't choose big flowers for something like this but they make me happy. 

Nap time!

Napkins

Years ago when I was lots younger, with young kids, and not a lot of cash, I still wanted to give everyone Christmas gifts. I decided to make napkins! I used the most lovely calico fabrics, enclosing each square with a mitered corner frame. As ugly as we'd all think they are now, I worked very hard on making them perfect, and I used mine untill they died. I think my Mom is the only one maybe still hanging on to a couple. (Love you mom!)

A few weeks ago I went to the Jacksonville quilt show. I had a great time wandering through seeing some amazing quilts, trying out long arms (oh how I miss you Millenium) and looking through shops. Jacksonville very few fabric shops for such a large city, so it was fun to see such variety in one place. 

At one shop I spotted this piece of Farmers Market by Sandi Henderson and not far from that I saw a fabric I'd not seen before. I found out it's by Hoodie, whom I've also never heard of, though she has been designing fabric for years. This line is called Vegie Patch. The eggplant fabric was all I could find at the show. There on the spot I decided to revisit my napkin making. We go through a lot of napkins but I also do a lot of laundry so why not combine the two.... After looking at the line, the eggplant is my favorite, but I want to get the others to make more napkins, four is not enough.

They finished out at about 22 inches. I love the mitered corners. I made these by just wrapping the fabric from the back and framing my focus fabric. The solid green is Kona Grass. Is there anything you made years ago that you've decided to make again? I wonder if in twenty more years I'll think this fabric was a "lovely" choice?

Whether She Wanted It Or Not

One of my co-workers had a birthday last week. With only two days to come up with something, I decided on a bag. We don't know each other well, but you know me..... I'd rather make a gift than purchase something. I made it up as I went along because that's the way I roll these days. I may have gone a bit out of her comfort zone color-wise. It's kind of a lunch bag, carry-all type of thing.

 I took these pictures with my phone the morning I finished it.

 I should have been on my way to work.

 The color is brighter than I remember it being. Poor woman, I think she prefers black.....

It's the thought that counts.... right??

Sketchbook Shorts

Busy much? Yeah, me too. I made these a couple of weeks ago.....  Actually Jess did most of the sewing. 

 This is such a cute pattern, thank you Oliver + S. I used Kona cotton in stone (clay? whatever) and some of Amy Schimler's fun fabric for the waistband and pocket linings. 

 Jess did a really good job sewing and learning more about clothing construction. 

I apparently need to go back to cutting out stuff 101......  I thought I used the same peices I traced for the last pair I made, which fit the Little Mister perfectly. 

I didn't. 

They are too small. 

I think I have just enough for another pair.

A Little Charm Quilt

The other day Jess said, "We should make some stroller quilts."

Then she made three.

With appliqué.

I managed to eek out one in twice the time!

 My challenge was to use fabric I had, and I did. Even down to the batting. Of course it's tiny, 35 x 35, so I'm not sure it should really count as fabric out...

Michael Miller Pod Pozy charm pack.

 Kaufman Kona chocolate border.

 Michael Miller Ta-Dot for the binding and back.

Sorry about the not so artistic sun spots. I wasn't in the mood for a do over. 

Next up is my gratuitous baby shot. Avert your eyes if you are tired of these........

Trying to capture golden baby lashes on a wiggly boy.

Heaven.