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.

Going away gifts... Part 1

We moved recently... Matt took a job transfer back to California. So we left my parents and a lot of very, very close friends back in Jacksonville. Lots of ugly tears were cried. We are beyond excited to move back to the west coast and for opportunities we have here, but we are equally or more sad to leave this bunch of people that we love so much. 

One of our friends demanded a going away gift. No gift=no leaving. LOL. She took the news especially hard..... So, since she is a die hard Hello Kitty lover, and she and her husband are both Gators, I thought it appropriate to mix the two and appliqué this graphic that I found online onto a quilt. 

The back is a super soft double sided minky (not that that matters since it sandwiched) but it does make it super fluffy. Its almost a twin size. 

It took me a bit to find a photo of Thaoly that she or her husband wouldn't kill me for posting. She is well known for posting/taking possibly embarrassing, but aways awesomely funny photos. She also taught Bella how to pout and eat Oreos at inappropriate times; scheduled girls shopping trips when she hates to actually shop for clothing, and filled Bella's vocabulary with things like 'California sucks'.  lol. They were one of the first people we had to our house after we moved to Jacksonville 9 years ago and are super amazing people. 

We miss them so much! Hopefully we will get them to come out and visit soon...

I have a couple more going away gifts I will try to get them up soon- do you all make things for people when you leave? 

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.

A Quilt for Mom

Another in the long line of things we've done and haven't blogged. I used my Go cutter to make 4 inch squares from my scrap stash. I am not sure why but when ever I go scrappy, I also autopilot into ROYGBIV. Maybe this shows a lack of imagination or maybe I just love rainbows. Either way, I am happy with the results. 

Rounded corners give the quilt a softer look.

I love that I had enough fabrics that each square is different.

Simple straight-line quilting on the diagonal.

The backing is a wool blend I have had for forever. It started out grey and I dyed it this pretty purple. I used it to make this jacket several years ago.  

Thanks for stopping by!

A mothers day gift

I realized at the the beginning of this year that I am a terrible daughter in law! I hadn't made my mother in law a quilt... I knew she would like one because one of the first things we ever did together was go to an Amish quilt fair. 

When I came across Tula Pink's Acacia line, I just knew it was the fabric I had to use. It has hummingbirds which is her favorite. 

Bella is performing her normal quality control checks. No quilt leaves our house without her approval.

Another favorite blanket- animal style

So I finally found the gifts I talked about in this post. (hope you weren't holding your breath!)

Parker's Aunt wanted a blanket made for  him so she asked me to create it. I recommended one of my kids all time favorites - a whole cloth, minky backed blanket. The kids love them, they are super soft and can take a bajillion washings.  

Now you know I love pieced quilts BUT if you are wanting something custom made for you and are on a budget which in no way means cheap.. don't get me wrong... minky is involved! I think these are fantastic. And seriously the kids all time favorite to snuggle up with... not that you are allowed to touch any of their other blankets... Bella will cut you!

I quilted a zigzag to follow the fabrics zigzags  and it turned out perfectly. 

If you didn't notice I appliquéd the same animals I made for the invite onto the quilt. 

The left over fabric turned into a bag -- because we all know I can't help myself  when it comes to bags! 

I will try to get my gift up on the blog soon.... I have finally taken the time to dig up the last years worth of crafting and I am trying to get it sorted to show to you- I hope you will enjoy it there is a lot of really good stuff! 

A whole lot of animals... and +'s

This blog slacking is no joke. We have so many projects...they are even photographed- why can't we get our stuff together? 

I wanted to use up the remainder of my printed spoonflower fabric. This last year for me has been one of finally use up all those supplies I have been hoarding (remember this is me talking not mom... she has no such goals in mind - lol) 

 So this quilt is definitely bright and fun and outside of my normal choices. But I love it and hopefully it will make some little boy very happy. 

 Diagonal quilting is my new go to. 

It's up in the etsy shop waiting for it's new home! 

Isabella's quilt

So rewind to when Bella was turning one. This was her gift from me. An absolutely delicious  star quilt from Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee line. I pinned this one and couldn't get it out of my head (  apparently it isn't her original idea either) But who ever came up with it was genius! I LOVE it.

 It is a generous double size quilt

 And hand quilted in a purl cotton. 

 Bella still hasn't used it (or the peacock quilt for that matter) but they are both in her room. I am sure she will use the peacock one when we get her in her own room (right now the kids share a room). The kids literally have loads of handmade blankets so I don't feel too bad saving some of them for when they don't have to be washed at least once a week... They love all of their blankets. Infact they know whose are whose and do not want to share them.... 

 Someday soon this will be gorgeous on her bed. 

And a little bit of one year old Bella... in some adorable oliver and s shorts made by mom... which we probably never blogged. I actually spent yesterday going through all of Bellas handmade baby stuff for a cousin that will be arriving in December... and unfortunately I don't think we blogged most any of them.

Time sure is flying by!  

Quilt's Of The Past

This was for a special boy. A nephew of my heart. I started making a quilt for his big brother and decided that I needed to go ahead and do his too. I'd love to show you the quilt I made for his brother but I've lost the pictures somewhere.

 

I used my "Go" cutter to make the tumblers. Random was the plan for this layout. 

I quilted a single line down the edge of the tumblers and finished it off with a scrappy binding which I love more than I thought I would.

I remembered to take the time to tag both quilts. Mostly because Jessica helped me get these done. She helped A LOT. 

I 

I used all Kaufman Kona Cottons for the front and their "spot on" wide quilt backing to finish off the back.
Both boys love their quilts and that makes me so happy.