Caught up! (for the moment)

I've had fabric to make this baby girl's quilt since the end of September. I was so happy to finally get this one finished, and pleased with how it turned out. I made a baby size (45 x 63ish) version of this quilt. This was my first time piecing curves, and I'm feeling much less intimidated now. 

And a photo of the back.

I was in two online quilting bees for a few months, then just one after September. Once I was back to work, I got WAY behind. Each month, the envelopes were really piling up. I finished blocks for the last 5 months of my bee this week.
August: Mondrian inspired blocks

September: square in square blocks

October: wonky log cabins or square in square.

November: rectangle in rectangle

December: wonky star

These really didn't take that long, so I shouldn't have gotten so far behind. At least I'm caught up now. January is the last month, and it's my turn to send out fabric. While I'm on a roll, I should get those envelopes ready. 

Merry Christmas!

Borrowed from http://alamodefabric.blogspot.com/2010/12/hehe-merry-christmas-my-friends.html

Just a little bit of sewing

I certainly have less time to quilt these days. I have managed to find a little bit of time for sewing, though.

This quilt was for my brother in law. (Don't look too closely at my seams!)

And a bit of the back.

On my design wall...

This top is actually finished now. I just need to make a back, baste and quilt.

Kindergarten Dress

I decided earlier in the summer that I wanted to make a dress for Ashlyn. I kept seeing these cute dresses, and decided they didn't look too hard. (I've never made a dress before.) I got the pattern from here.

Originally, I was planning for this to be a summer dress, Since school starts in less than two weeks, I decided it would be a new dress for school.  I'd kept putting it off, but as I was repairing her princess dresses yesterday, Ashlyn started looking through my fabric for her new dress. She picked out the orange fabric, and I started adding to it. By the end of the night, I'd finished the dress.

Unfortunately, it's a bit big. I had to retie the knots to pull it up. I might make another one for her to actually wear the first day. I definitely made mistakes (besides the size) which I'm not going to point out. The fabric not only came from my stash, but was all used in at least one previous project. So really, it cost me nothing but the pattern. AND, Ashlyn LOVES her new dress. She tried it on first thing this morning and declared me to be "the goodest Mommy ever!"

(It will look even better with her hair brushed and without crocs.)

Quilter Bees Quilt

April was my month for Quilter Bees. I decided to have my fellow bee members help me make a quilt for the Hopes and Dreams Quilt Challenge for ALS. I sent out fabric and asked for 12 1/2 inch blocks using circles as the theme. Everyone came up with lovely blocks. One of the reasons I asked for circles was because I wanted to do some curved piecing myself. I ended up feeling in a bit of a rush (deadline for the challenge is the end of the month,) and used raw edge applique instead. Obviously, I still need to do some curved piecing, one more to add to the list.

Thanks to my fellow quilter bees for all of your help!

If Dr Seuss Was a Quilter...

This quilt is for a friend of mine, who asked me to make a quilt for her next baby. Of course, she asked this more than 2 years ago, before she was even trying to have a baby. When she found out she was pregnant, she then decided she would like a Dr. Seuss quilt. She's due in the next couple of weeks, so, as usual, I'm getting it done down to the wire.

It took me awhile to plan this one. I had originally planned on doing the cat in the hat in applique. Instead, I decided to use a potterybarn kids sheet. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. I decided that I wanted it to be fairly fun, as if Theodor Geisel had designed the quilt. You can see in the detail how I quilted each color slightly differently.

This was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I had a twin set of sheets, so I used that on the back as well as fussy cutting on the front.

The quilt is approximately 42x51-ish.

Baby Mermaids

 

I'd been admiring these Mendocino fabrics for awhile. Last year I decided these would be perfect for a friend of mine's baby girl and ordered them. (I also ordered them in the blue colorway, just because.) Of course, at the time, she wasn't even pregnant. I knew they wanted to have another baby, though, and, ideally, they would have a girl. As luck would have it, they got pregnant and had a baby girl last month.

My original thoughts with these fabrics, was something involving waves. I kept playing with different designs and just didn't like any of them. I finally decided that what I really wanted to do was highlight the gorgeous fabrics. Simple does that best sometimes.

I used a couple additional blocks and solids to make an interesting back as well.  I ended up doing pebble quilting, just felt like it went with the design really well. I used white thread on the front and a variegated pink on the back. I love the back.

And my favorite block. Love how the mermaids in pink seem to be swimming around the one in yellow.

I ended up being very happy with how it turned. Hopefully, the momma and baby will love it, too. Finished size was about 45 x 60.

Star Baby

I've been eyeing these 50s looking cowboys for awhile. I thought they would be cute in a baby boy's quilt, but didn't know anyone who was really into cowboys. I finally decided that if I liked it, others who aren't into cowboys would like it, too. This quilt is for my cousin's baby boy, due next month.

I always like primary colors for baby quilts and decided maverick stars would be a great way to highlight the fabric, as well. I used a dark charcoal for the background, which I love. Stipple quilting, which I seem to use frequently. I like doing it, it's fairly quick, and makes a nice, crinkly finished product. 

And a shot of the back, with a mini star as the label.

The finished quilt is approx 48 x 60, plenty big for playing on the floor and for use well into toddlerhood.

BEES!

Getting caught up on my two bees.

Dorrie's May block for Quilter bees.

These are one inch blocks, requiring ironing and precision. Oh, quite the challenge for messy me. I think it turned out nicely, too. I really love the block, but this might be too much for me to make a quilt with these blocks.

Next up was Julie's blocks for Sew Bee It.

Julie requested confetti blocks with purple, 12 1/2 to 14 1/2.

And using our own favorites for a friendship block.

Sorrel requested log cabin blocks for June of Quilter Bees.

I was only able to finish one, probably because of poor planning on my part.

All caught up until next bee month!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Welcome to my blog from Blogger's Quilt Festival.

This is not a new quilt, as you can see from the Christmas decorations in the back. It is, however, one of my favorites from the past year. At first glance, it is a log-cabinish quilt. But, when you look up close at the quilting, you can see portraits in the center section. I had fun with the quilting on this one, and plan to play with this idea a bit more in other quilts. I wrote about it first here.

Donnie Dinosaur, Pink zigzags, and bees

Though we've been busy with moving, I did get two quilts finished while staying with my parents. This first one was for a baby boy, born early March. Kelly requested dinosaurs or space. My first thought was dinosaurs in space suits, but she clarified the "or." I couldn't resist having one of the dinosaurs at least play with a rocket. These dinosaurs were all inspired by the illustrations of Mark Teague from How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? and How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food? 

Previously, when I've done much applique, I usually turn under the edges of all but the smallest or strangest shaped pieces. For those, I would use an adhesive (heat n bond lite) and then sew around. I decided to just use the adhesive  for all of it this time. For some of the larger pieces, I did cut out the centers of the pieces before ironing them on. Things were a bit stiff, but I knew that would happen. However, I didn't realize how unhappy my machine would be when it came to quilting. Too many thick layers with the heat n bond on the front and back. Many skipped stitches. I ended up having to rip out quite a bit of the quilting stitches and redoing them. Of course, when I searched for help online, I found a great tutorial for using starch for applique, same concept as the heat n bond, but washes out. Good to know for next time. Anyway, I quilted each section around the dinosaurs differently. I wanted to make this a two sided quilt, but the quilting looked kind of odd on the dinosaur on the back. I think that would have worked better if I'd just done an allover quilting design.

All in all, I'm still happy with how the quilt turned out. It was just quite a learning experience for me. Always good, though. This quilt is approximately 48 x 60, made with all kona cottons.

I also made a lap size quilt as a wedding gift. I'd asked the bride's colors months ago, and had this in the plans.

Somehow, I still didn't get it totally finished until right before the wedding. Stipple quilting. This quilt is approximately 75x80.

It would have looked nice staying in my house, too.

I got quite behind on my bees. This is my mini quilt for Adrienne of Quilter bees.

And this is my row (really bad photo) for Tanya of Sew Bee It.

Sew Bee It blocks

I'm not sure what I was thinking signing up for another bee right before moving. Somehow, with moving halfway across the country, I got behind on my bees. A bit of catching up tonight. The photos aren't great, but I was determined to get these packed up tonight.

For March:

 For April:

Still have another block for Adrienne with Quilter Bees, but it's going to take a bit longer.

Current project preview

Traditional Modern

A few months ago, I read about a new quilt along. I hadn't participated in one before, but this one struck me a bit differently. I've never taken a quilting class and, quite honestly, knew very little about traditional blocks when I first started quilting. I mostly just started putting fabrics together and sewing. While I'm not a traditionalist, it's nice to at least be familiar with traditional blocks. No need to reinvent the wheel type thing. I've been checking out books on quilting from the library and looking at traditional blocks for the past several months. Then I read about the modify tradition quilt along. I liked the idea of actually making several traditional blocks for a quilt.

My grandmother was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and is going through chemotherapy. I had already planned to make her a quilt, so one with a bit more traditional bent seemed perfect.

I'm not precise, with anything really, so traditional blocks are quite a challenge. It just seems like a lot of no-fun work to cut fabrics to a certain size, sew, iron, trim, sew more, iron, trim again. Ugh, I guess I'm just too lazy for precise work. As I was working on this quilt, I thought I might end up hating it. Though I liked the fabrics I chose and liked them together, I liked them less in the blocks. It just didn't seem to be working. A couple of the blocks I ended up not using, because I really didn't like them at all. The nine patch just seemed really boring at a 12.5" block. After putting the blocks together, things started to improve, and I ended up loving the quilt after quilting it. Since this was a sampler quilt, I decide to make the quilting a "sampler" of sorts, each block was quilted slightly differently. I am kicking myself for not getting better photos, especially of the quilting, but you can kind of see the quilting from the back of the quilt in these photos. (I'm going to toot my own horn here, the quilting is really pretty, despite my cruddy photos. I must get better at taking photos of my quilts. I have no idea what I was doing this day. )

The backing is a pale yellow cotton, with a strip of the orange with blue dots from the front.

I doubt that I will work on a sampler quilt with traditional blocks again. This way of working just didn't fit my personality well. Of course, if I had made the blocks as the quilt along progressed, rather than one after another I might have liked it more.