Blessed

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.  Ours was nice and relaxing because my mom hosted this year.  The food and company were great, and it was even better that I didn’t have to cook or clean anything!

Esther’s pillow is finished.  Originally I wanted to turn the embroidery, designed by Sarah Jane, into a wallhanging for her bedroom, but she was adamant that she wanted a pillow.  Of course the kindergartner won that argument!

Lately I’ve been on a sewing-room-organizing-kick, so I was able to use my shoebox of 2.5” squares to fill in around the embroidery to make the pillow 18” x 18” square.  It couldn’t get any easier than that!  I feel like I’m getting the hang of picking fabric.  I auditioned a lot of squares, and like the final result.  Circles are Esther’s favorite shape (“because they are round”) so I tried to use lots of little prints with circles.

Then I saw this AMAZING (and easy!) free motion quilt tutorial on Christina’s blog “A Few Scraps.”  If you’ve never checked out her blog and you are interested in free motion designs, you have to take a look at the video tutorials she’s posted.  Spoiler Alert:  my quilting looks nowhere near as good as Christina’s!

Even though my quilting isn’t perfect, it was fun to try this new design and Esther loves the extra circles.  Win-win!

I did an easy envelope back using Denyse Schmidt’s line Piccadilly.  This medallion print feels so bright and ornate for something designed by Denyse Schmidt.  LOVE!

Not only was I blessed with a wonderful Thanksgiving, I also won two giveaways this past week!  A huge THANK YOU to Fat Quarter Shop for the Bella Naptime Solids fat quarter bundle and Hawthorne Threads for a fat quarter bundle of their exclusive new line Calliope.

I hope you’re enjoying the weekend and maybe some turkey leftovers and time to sew!

Mooshka Quilt

This quilt has been on my to-do list for the past few months, ever since we checked out the book “Mooshka” from the library. 

It’s about a quilt that talks.  One day I saw the “Mooshka” line of fabrics for sale on Winter Creek Cloth and we were on our way to making our own.

It is a little smaller than a full size.  Probably should have overrode my daughter’s decision to put the blue hst in the corner, but oh well, she helped and it’s her quilt.

I love a pieced back.  The backing fabrics are mostly other prints from earlier Julie Paschkis lines that I got on clearance.   Hearts, butterflies, birds, and roses…the perfect combination!

Bold & Scrappy Patchwork Baby Quilt

This quilt made a journey to meet its new owner last week.  Hope it likes being drooled on and snuggled!

The feature fabric—Menagerie—is perfect for a baby quilt.  I’ve read bold black and white graphics stimulate infants’ brains.  I bought it here.  The design is just made up by me to use up some extra 2.5” squares.

After struggling for a long time to pick fabrics for my quilts, I limited myself to blue, green, red, yellow, black & white and then added in gray (presumably to give the eye somewhere to “rest,” but I’m not sure the gray really does that?).  Usually I just go all-out and pick anything I think looks good, but placing the limitation on color made a big difference and kept the quilt ordered yet scrappy.

This is the first time (ever!) that I’ve used a solid fabric for the binding.  I’m not afraid to use solid-colored binding anymore with my machine binding technique.  I was afraid a lot of imperfections would be more visible, but that was not the case.

The backing is a bold black and white Pezzy print that I think was called something like Peas and Carrots by American Jane for Moda.  It was the perfect coordinate for the back of this quilt.

I had so much fun making this quilt that I made two more quilt tops for 100 Quilts for Kids.  Katie at SwimBikeQuilt just announced this year’s charity drive here.  Check out the button on my sidebar and make a quilt for a kid who would love one!

Strawberries in season

Local strawberries just appeared at the farmer’s markets in our region and they inspired me to make a little mat for our dining room table.

I just cut 2.5” squares from an assortment of “strawberry” fabric and some of that sweet birdie fabric from these baby shoes.

These mats make great protectors for your dining room table.  You can put warm dishes on the table without the fear of ruining your tabletop.  I like tablerunners, too, but this size is much more practical for our table.  It finishes about 11” x 19”.

The back is this sweet apple and cherry print, so it can be reversible.  The binding is machine attached, which hopefully will give it a little more durability since I figure it will be washed a lot.

I wish I could have taken a photo with a bowl of fresh strawberries on top, but every time I’ve bought strawberries they are gone within the day—not enough time for me to snap a photo.

Have a wonderful day!

Another baby quilt

Lots of my friends and family are having baby boys this winter.  I’ve made quite a few little boy quilts the past two months.  The latest is a little different than the log cabin quilts I’ve been making.

Of course the fabric is elephants!  The line is called “Bungle Jungle.”  I love the primary colors.  Each sashing strip is from a line by Jenn Ski that I just had in my stash.  The binding is a polka dot on blue by Connecting Threads.  The finished quilt measures 42 x 46. 

I was able to pick up some matching backing fabric at a great price at one of the many Black Friday sales events. 

I used the seams for a guide and quilted a 1/4” inside all the seams.  I like the look of the straight lines across the backing.

Who couldn’t use a ginormous bottle of wine and cute baby blanket to celebrate the birth of baby boy #2????

My daughters sang in church this past Sunday.  Bea stood by Esther even though that meant she had to stand with the preschoolers (which she wasn’t thrilled about because she is in first grade, don’t forget!). 

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!  Linking up to Tuesday at the Table and Freemotion by the River.