Superhero bags

 I've seen some really fun Superhero projects on pinterest but so far we aren't really into super heros and Matt has no special interest in any of them. So, when I wanted to make something for some of my young cousins and I found out they do like super heroes it seemed like a good time to pull one of those pins out. (specific one here)

 I apologize for the absolutely awful pictures. But I forgot to photograph them at all so last minute pictures are all I have. 

They are both paper pieced ... Paper piecing is a really cool way to do complicated images  but not something I would really want to do a lot of... ever...

Hulk actually looks quite different then the original. I thought he needed an actual nose and eyes. 

I put them onto drawstring bags... I wanted the gifts to be useful... possibly not the most appropriate place to put something that took so much time to create but hopefully it means they will get a lot of use out of them! 

Improv Quilt

If you follow Mom and me on Instagram you will see all the projects we are currently working on. This quilt was started before we moved and I can not believe this but I finished it up the last two days and actually photographed it to show you immediately -- WHAT!!! Craziness people. 

I have a Pinterest board where collect all sorts of awesome quilts I find. And I found myself pinning a lot of these improv quilts. So with a healthy stash of Rowan fabrics Shot Cottons (purchased from Purl Soho) I decided to give it a try. 

Improving is WORK. Now I know part of my problem was working from uncut pieces of fabric - scraps would make this process much, much faster. I basically had to turn all this gorgeous fabric into scraps and then try and then create a random quilt without feeling like I was forcing a design. 

It's a super bright and happy quilt. And because creating the top didn't take long enough I decided to do quilting every 1/3 inch with Dove Aurifil thread. I continue to not know why I do these things to myself. But I think it's because I really, really love it even though I really, really dislike how long it takes to finish it! 

The back and binding are chambray from Imaginegnats shop. Seriously don't follow the link unless you plan to purchase fabric... gorgeous stuff. 

This puppy will be in heavy rotation- the kids were doing summersaults on it before I could attach the binding. 

Double Wedding Ring Pillow

I've always wanted to make a quilt with this pattern... I decided to try it out with the last bit of scraps left from Bellas quilt and this quilt and also this quilt.  So when I say scraps I mean SCRAPS -not the best way to try out a new pattern. As in not sure I will ever do this again. 

I attached it to gorgeous dark grey linen with a blanket stitch and then I sandwiched it with batting and a piece of cotton on the back and went to town with small kantha-esque stitching. All with yummy varegaited purl cotton thread.  Then it was turned into a pillow for my living room. I LOVE this pillow. 

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!

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.

Plus Quilt

Several years ago, while working at an amazing place, I bought a ton of this American Jane Recess fabric by Sandy Klop. I always meant to make a quilt with it. I made some other stuff, Jessica made quite a few things, yet it wasn't until this year that I finally decided to treat myself to the quilt I wanted. 

Almost six years it took me, I may be a bit slow....

I'm kinda glad I waited though because if I'd have made it back then, it wouldn't be this quilt. 

I love this quilt.

I used only one of each pattern/color for the pluses. The background is blue dot stripe. No pattern, just cutting up 4.5 inch squares and seeing what happened. Pieced and quilted with Aurifil thread. 

I backed the whole thing in Maggie's dress navy. 

It lives on my couch for now and it makes me happy every time I look at it. It made me even happier to come home one day to it being used as a fort by two sweet babes. 

Because that's what it's all about.

Blogger's Quilt Festival 2013

My apologies to those of you who are tired of this quilt..... When Jess and I finished it, I had no idea that the Blogger's Quilt Festival  by Amy's Creative Side was just around the corner. It is so fun to see all of the amazing quilts people make! I've always wanted to participate, yet always manage to forget. This quilt is the one that made me go ahead and jump in. 

  For the long version, you can read more here.  The short version is, this was made in four very long days of sewing, for a special couple who are going through a tough time. We needed to send them a hug.

My daughter and I started piecing with no set plan other than ROYGBIV and the lyrics we would applique.

It measures 60 x 60 and is perfect for two to snuggle in. We backed it in a lovely herringbone flannel  from Joann, binding and applique are black Kona cotton, pieced and quilted with Aurifil thread, and we used Nature's Touch by Pellon for the batting. 

We love this quilt so much and are so glad to have been able to make it and send it to such a sweet couple. 

I have entered this into the ROYGBIV category. If you haven't already, go look, there are some amazing quilts there.

Thank you for stopping by!

&

When a Quilt is Like a Hug

About two and a half months ago a sweet young couple, Andrew and Sharria got married. Six weeks later they found out that Andrew was very ill. When Jess and I heard about this, we felt pretty heart broken. We've known this family longer than My Guy and I have been married.  

The day after we found out, I read Sharria's FB post, she said she had been singing this children's Bible class song to herself. 

Then I couldn't get the song out of my head. 

The next day, I told Jess we needed to make them a quilt. 

She said of course. 

For the next four days we worked and it was pretty awesome. I don't like to be too publicly emotional about things but, this was, for me, a prayer vigil for this couple. Jess and I wanted them to have something tangible to hold onto while they are going through this time, something to help them remember there are a lot of people praying.

Jess and I knew we wanted a scrappy rainbow quilt. Rainbows are hope and promise.

 We were inspired by this quilt at crazy mom quilts.

 I knew I wanted the lyrics appliqued on the quilt and even though Jess thought I was a bit crazy for choosing to applique it, she went along with it and cut the all letters out for me. 

 I cannot tell you how much we both adore this quilt. How happy it made us to send it off in time for their journey. How much we hope they continue to feel the love we sewed into this.

 Because quilting is a community thing, I have scraps from friends. These are a couple of scraps I really enjoyed using in the quilt. Thanks ladies.

 Jessica found a lovely herringbone flannel at Joann. We did simple wobbly organic straight line quilting. All of our piecing and quilting was done with Aurifil thread. 

 Andrew goes in for surgery today. If you have a moment please say a prayer for him, and his family.

If you'd like to read more about this couple you can go here to their Rally for Andrew page or here for their Face Book page.

Thanks so much for stopping by.