Finished Summerlove Quilt

My cousin and I took the Summerlove quilt to the Calvert Marine Museum last week for a photo shoot at the lighthouse.

There was no wind, which made it a perfect (although cold!) day to take photos.

This is the first quilt I’ve ever had professionally long-armed!  I picked the quilting pattern and then mailed the quilt and backing off to Utah and got it back about a month later.  The stitching is beautiful and perfect.  I will definitely be sending my quilts out when I can afford it.  Melissa Kelley of Sew Shabby Quilting did the beautiful quilting.

You can really see the quilting on the back side of the quilt.  The backing was a gift from my husband a few years ago.  It’s a wide backing fabric from Keepsake Quilting.  As much as I really love a pretty pieced backing, sometimes it’s awesome not to have to sew the back together!

I couldn’t help but include this outtake from the photo shoot.  My cousin just had a baby in January so she did all the quilt holding with a 14 pound baby strapped to her chest!  You can see his little ear poking out of the wrap.  Thank you, Summer!

The finished quilt measures 60 x 72.  The fabrics are Summerlove and a few from my stash.  The background fabric is Essex linen.  I think the color is called natural. 

After washing and drying, the quilt looks almost exactly the same, just a little crinklier and softer.  I am in love with this quilt!

Baby Grace’s Quilt

 

A friend just had a little girl last week. So I whipped up this quilt from the scraps left over from the hourglass quilt top I posted about here.

I used some leftovers to applique her name to the back.  Fun!

It was a miracle I found this backing fabric in my stash.  It is from a Connecting Threads collection called “A Sip of Summer.”  I told you I am loving orange lately.  The binding is Denyse Schmidt.  It measures 30.5” square.

I ran out of batting while making this little quilt, so I used a yard of white quilter’s flannel I had on hand from fabric.com.  I crossed my fingers when I put it in the wash because I was nervous everything might shrink badly (I don’t prewash anything anymore) but it turned out just right!  I love the soft feeling of the linen and hope baby Grace does too.

My next project will be for Grace’s big brother.   I just received all my Polaroids from the swap a few days ago and am putting them together in 12” blocks geared for boys.  Luckily I have about 200 Polaroids to choose from! 

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

WIP Wednesday

Two projects waiting to be binded (bound?).  I’ve got them quilted.  All of my kids went to bed early last night.  Can I hear an AMEN???  I had about four hours of sewing time to myself last night.  I got through three Law & Order episodes on the Roku.  It was bliss!

The sashing fabric is from Joann’s.  I’m pretty sure it’s called Kona celery.  I just had it in my stash and thought it worked—it’s a kind of greenish yellow.  I think I’m going to use a black on black print for the binding. 

This is the fabric.  I borrowed this photo from the Windham Fabrics gallery from the “Tea for Two” line.

And here are the two quilt tops I’ve made in the past week or so.   Interestingly, both are inspired by fabrics I’ve seen on Maureen Cracknell Handmade and both are made with hourglass blocks.

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway here.  I’m heading to the DC Modern Quilt Guild meeting this Saturday.  I can’t wait to meet some other modern quilters!!!

Summerlove Update

I have finished up the first four rows of my Summerlove Hourglass quilt. 

Love, love, love!  The sashing is Essex linen, which I have never used before, but I find it soft and easy to sew with.  I may never buy Kona white again…just kidding!

I also joined A Bee in My Bonnet’s Row-Along.  I happen to have quite a stash of Lori Holt fabric, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.  The first “filler” row is done, but I’m not loving my fabric choices.  I just kind of hurriedly picked them out while the kids were with me one afternoon.  It didn’t help that I didn’t understand the directions and picked out twice as many fabrics as needed—my error, not the direction’s.  Luckily it’s just a filler row, so hopefully I can refine my choices as the qal progresses since it’s mystery-ish and I’m not really sure exactly how prominent the focus fabrics will be.

I will be participating in the Dots on Dots blog hop coming up September 10-21 and giving away a $25 gift certificate to Quilt Taffy, where you can find lots of sweet fabric treats!  See you September 10th!

Baby Elephant Dance Reprise

I had so much fun making the boy version of my elephant quilt that I just had to make it in girl colors.

I used pink and green and then added some orange because I am really digging orange lately.

The elephant print is also Kharma Baby in the girl colorway.  The other fabrics are mostly Riley Blake and DS Quilts fabric with Kona white sashing.  Of course I went with striped binding!

Don’t they look so cute together?  If only I knew someone who was having girl/boy twins!!!  Now I just need to sew labels to the backs of them. 

I’ve got some blocks made for my newest project with Summerlove that I can’t wait to share put together.  I am using linen for the sashing this time!

 

Linking this up to WIP Wednesday.