Time Flies

This past weekend we gifted this quilt to my friend’s daughter who turned 9.  She is the first baby I held besides a few times as a teenager babysitting (I worked in a restaurant all through high school so I didn’t get much of a chance to babysit).  She was born about 6 months before my first baby, so I learned everything from watching her grow up.  Not only does the quilt have cute retro clocks on it, but making this quilt reminded me how quickly our babies grow up.

The finished quilt measures 58 x 58 and is the perfect size for a lap quilt and definitely big enough for her to snuggle underneath. 

The fabrics are a nice mix of Lori Holt and Denyse Schmidt.  The binding is a Holly Holderman print originally slated to bind a Valentine’s Day quilt, but it just went so well with this quilt I had to use it.

The quilting is a mix of flowers, loops, back-and-forth lines, and meandering. 

I’m not sure if making the photo black and white makes it any easier to see the stitches and texture, but the quilting adds another dimension to the mixture of busy fabrics on the front.

The backing fabric is this pretty pastel and gray floral print by Lori Holt.  I ran out of gray thread just as I was finishing up the quilting, so I used white for the bobbin.  Boy, is it noticeable if you know what you’re looking for!  I will never do that again!!!

So there you have it!  I wish we could have stayed at the party for the unwrapping of the gifts, but that day was my daughters’ dance recital and they were all just so exhausted we had to leave a little early.  (Plus, we narrowly averted a pool party disaster, so it was time to go!)  Linking up to Fort Worth Fabric Studio and Crazy Mom Quilts.

A little bunny told me

That spring has finally sprung!

This little bunny is from Melly and Me’s pattern called “baby bunnies.”  You can purchase the pdf pattern here.  He also told me he wished I had stuffed his feet a little better.  In my defense he is the first stuffed toy I’ve made.  My next one will be better, promise!  I already got my hemostats ready to professionally stuff the next one’s extremities.  And if you don’t know what hemostats are, they are very technical tools for stuffing homemade toys.

No matter, my daughter loves him and has carried him everywhere with her since I made him a few days ago.

And this little bunny also told me that it’s time to have a giveaway in celebration of spring.  Earlier this year I picked up a few charm packs for a giveaway…Hello Petal and Daydreams.  And then this past weekend I found some great designer brand fabric in the fat quarter bin at my local Joann’s…two Timeless Treasures nature prints and one Rashida Coleman-Hale Washi print.

One winner takes all!  In your comment tell me what project you are working on now.  I’ll pick a winner on the 17th and international entries are welcome.  Good luck! 

Penny Patch fabrics

The fabrics for the quilt along arrived yesterday!  Last night I got busy cutting the fabric in half to make fat quarters and bundling them up to mail to my sister in Maine today.

My daughter Bea and my sister are going to be making the same quilts—Bea is going to give hers to her teacher’s daughter as a Christmas present and my sister is making hers as a baby gift.

My sister is relatively new to sewing/quilting.  And Bea wanted (desperately) to learn how to use the rotary cutter.  So, I suggested we do a family quilt along.  My sister started out by going to the Fat Quarter Shop and picking a few fabric lines she liked, and then I did a little mixing and matching and this is what I came up with.  I suggested the Fat Quarter Shop because they seriously have such a wide selection you could spend hours scrolling through it all.  It was interesting to see what collections she picked—batiks, civil war repro, novelty prints—her choices were very diverse. 

I ended up picking Riley Blake “Enchant” that she liked as the base for all the other fabrics.  It has some really cute deer, rabbits, and foxes and novelty prints, but I didn’t pick those because most of the fabrics Rachel picked for her quilt were small scale prints.  One of the things I tried to do when I first started quilting was “recreate” a quilt from a pattern, but a lot of times my efforts would fall flat because I didn’t pick appropriate fabrics.  Plus I was remembering how much trouble I had with directional fabric when I first started sewing.  I was a little worried with only fat quarters for cutting, we might have to use a few deer  butts instead of heads in some of the blocks and nobody likes a body with the head cut off.  At least I don’t!

The two “reds” I ordered online and was a little nervous about how they would look together.  The Enchant floral was labeled “pink” and the Wallflowers print was labeled “red,” but my gut said they’d go together.  I’m quite pleased with how they look.

Just when I thought I was getting better at selecting fabric, low volume prints have become popular and thrown a monkey wrench into it.  I ordered some of these low volume fabrics with the other fabrics, but about half are from my stash.  There’s one more fabric that isn’t in either of these photos.  It’s a very light blue floral, and I’m not sure it qualifies as a “blue” or a “low volume,” so we’ll just have to see as the quilt along develops.

Hope you have a quilty weekend!

A Little Giveaway Game—Prize Update

Here is a photo of the prize, 4 fat quarters from my LQS.

From left to right:

• Pumpkin Party by Deb Strain
• Moda Essentials Dots
• Blitzen by Basic Gray
• Baby Jane by Cosmo Cricket

Enter my giveaway here.  Thanks to everyone who’s entered so far!  Good luck!

Luck of the Irish {A Giveaway}

Have you heard about the annual Pantone color contest hosted on Flickr?  This year, the color is emerald. 

I am giving away 11 fat quarters of “emerald” hued fabrics bought mostly from The Intrepid Thread.  They were half yards cut into fat quarters, half for me and half for one lucky reader!

Do you have the luck of the Irish in you???

Fabrics included are Oval Elements, Anna Maria Horner, Amy Butler, and Joel Dewberry.  The giveaway will close on March 17th and I will announce the winner on the 18th.  Open to US and international entries.

To enter, just leave a comment with your favorite color…mine’s purple! 

A Small Finish and a WIP

This is technically not “my” finish.  Bea sewed this bag on Friday night for her sister.  Ever since we rehabilitated a baby robin this past summer, Esther has loved birds and really wants a cockatiel.  So when I saw this Japanese linen fabric with cockatiels, I had to have it to make something for her, but Bea beat me to it!

Bea traced a heart onto Heat n Bond lite and fused it to the outside of the bag, which is a print from Joel Dewberry’s new Notting Hill line.  She picked a blue flower print for the lining and handles.  The pattern is from Diary of a Quilter and uses two fat quarters to make the entire bag.

She sewed all the parts of the bag except the decorative stitch used as topstitching around the opening of the bag.  It is currently employed to tote around My Little Ponies.

I also have a pic of a WIP to share.  These are the first few stars for my Modern Quilt Guild Madrona Road Challenge entry.  I’ve never sewn y-seams before! 

Linking up to Plum and June’s Monday Link Up.  She’s shared a super cute fabric bucket and now I’ve just got to make one for my girls’ hair ties.