Saffron and Cyan {2 finished quilts!}

The DCMQG has a tradition of making quilts for new babies.  That’s a lot of baby quilts each year, so volunteers coordinate specific quilts. I always love making a block or two to contribute to a quilt, but this past fall I changed it up a bit by volunteering to coordinate a quilt for a little boy, which is exciting for me since I normally sew for girls. 

The mom-to-be gave me some specific ideas for color palettes and quilt design (she really likes Denyse Schmidt’s Hop Skip Jump pattern) which was so helpful since I was a little bit nervous about the responsibility of coordinating the quilt.

I tried a new quilting design from one of Angela Walters’ books in the center orange portion of the quilt.  Then I did my old stand-by of teardrops in the blue section.

After assembling the baby’s quilt, there were quite a few very usable strips of fabric left over, and I hated to waste them, so big brother (he’s two years old) got his own quilt too!  I think I enjoyed putting this quilt together even more.  Picking out solid fabric from my stash for the block backgrounds was my favorite part, along with figuring out how to make enough strips out of the leftovers once I’d used them up and still needed a few.  A couple of strips have orange and blue in them for that reason, but I think the mismatched strips add to the playfulness of the design!

This bigger quilt I stippled…I love the quickness and texture it gives a quilt.   Normally I go with one fabric for binding, but this quilt specifically asked for a scrappy binding and I was happy to oblige.

Both quilts were well received and I’ve already seen a few photos of them in use on Instagram, the best kind of thank you

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!

Great Granny {the tablerunner}

Earlier in the year I won this copy of Lori Holt’s book on Red Pepper Quilts.

I like a lot of the patterns in this book and I’m happy to have it as part of my home library.  In January we remodeled our bedroom, and sadly our dresser has been “decorated” with an old bath towel on top to protect the surface from the TV and other electronics stored there.

But that’s all about to change!

I’ve been planning this tablerunner in my mind for several months, knowing I wanted to choose fabrics that would look sophisticated and pop out against a black background.  Slowly I built up a pile of potential fabrics and this past weekend I finally started cutting the squares.

The cream is Essex linen, and a lot of the fabrics are scraps, hooray!  The first seven blocks are sewn and squared up, just seven more to go.  The squares finish at 1” and it takes me about 75 minutes to sew one (already cut) from start to end, so this is all I’ve been working on the past four nights.

Hopefully I will have a finish to share soon!

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 bright and early Christmas

We got up awfully early this morning.  Even the kids were a little sleepy-eyed, but nothing was going to stop them from getting out of bed at the crack of dawn.  Notice it’s still dark outside!

Santa was good to everyone and we spent the entire day hanging out with family and playing with new toys. 

I started a new quilt a few days ago.  Someone at my husband’s work is having a baby girl in January, and I wanted to make them a quilt of course.  The baby’s room is yellow, so I started pulling fabric and gravitated toward some Denyse Schmidt and added pink, magenta, and gray.  The colors look so vibrant together.   Are they warms?  Are they cools?  I have no idea, but whoever said to pick colors that don’t exactly match is so right.  It took me a few years to understand, but I think I’m getting better at this picking fabric thing!

Originally I planned to make a quilt with a star pattern, but after cutting some squares I decided to go another direction and make a wonky crosses quilt.  It started out like this.

And then it became this.

Now I just need to get some sleep so I can do some math and figure out measurements for the setting triangles. 

I hope your Christmas was merry and bright, and that Santa brought you everything on your wish list!

Laurie + Denyse = New Pillows

Do you love Laurie Wisbrun’s fun and preppy designs?  Of course I had to get some of her bee and cardinal fabrics.  I didn’t have a plan in mind when I got the fabric, which is nice sometimes, but other times can be frustrating not to have enough fabric once a decision has been made to finally use it.

The horizontal lines of cardinals made it easy to make fast 2.5” strip pillow covers.  I just cut all my strips 2.5” and then spent a lot of time arranging and rearranging all the strips into different combinations.  In the end I settled on green & blue for one, and red & blue for the other.

I’ve always made envelope closures for the back, but this time I thought I’d give zippers a try.  I only had two on hand, one red and one cream, but I kind of like the way the red really pops on the back. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I think the zippers add a professional touch, but next time I’ll try to make them hidden zippers.  Now that I’ve given zippers a try I’m not as intimidated. 

Here’s a pic of how I fashioned the front of the pillows.  I just cut 2.5” strips from my fabric and pieced them together, pressing all the seams open.  I used the seam lines for a guide and I straight-line quilted evenly through each strip to finish the fronts before sewing the back to the pillow.

The pillows are so refreshing in my living room, I thought it was time for a couch facelift, so I got a slipcover for it!  I think the lighter color, after 13 years of a green couch, has brightened up the room considerably.  While I’m not a fan of the slipcover fit or quality of fabric, it is the third one we tried and we are going to live with it until the kids are a little older.  The nice thing is I can just pop it in the washing machine when needed.

So, I’m {finally!!!!} on my way to having my own handmade pillow collection.  Have a wonderful day!

They call me mellow yellow…

Denyse won out!  The binding is a Denyse Schmidt plaid.  At first I thought it must be Shelbourne Falls or Chicopee, but a little research revealed that it’s actually a line called Croquet she did for Joann’s.  Apparently she has an even newer line for Joann’s called Bakersfield and Union Station.  It isn’t available yet, but I probably won’t be able to resist when it is!

Before I basted the batting and backing to the quilt top, I used 12wt Aurifil in a light green to secure the raw-edge applique leaves.  I used 12wt Aurifil in dark green to do the vines.  I did both with my machine, just switching out my normal size needle for a size 14, and going slow. 

I’m not sure if I prefer the rounder more oval vine loops above or the pointy ones in the photo below.  I used my trusty Aurifil 50wt white thread to do some free motion micro-stippling over the background fabric. 

The weather finally turned cold today after a week of nearly 90 degree weather.  Now it finally feels like time for apples and pumpkins (instead of watermelon).  Happy fall!

Thank you to everyone who chimed in with your guess for the binding.  The winner of my giveaway was #22 Fiesta.  I emailed you this morning so if you see this post first, please send me your name and address and I’ll get your fat quarters in the mail pronto.

Time Flies

That’s what I’m calling this quilt.  It only took a few hours to cut and piece the top, and it has two cute clock prints from Lori Holt’s newest line, Gracie Girl. 

I had a whole plan to make this top entirely from Gracie Girl fat quarters, but two cutting errors later, I added in some Heather Bailey and Denyse Schmidt.

Then I added a border around the quilt which brings the size up to about 70” square.

1 Choice 4 Quilting is offering 20% off precuts of Gracie Girl with the promo code “girlie20” (you can use it on the new line High Street too).  That brings the grand total for a fat quarter bundle to $51.99 which includes free priority mail shipping.  Should I order another???  I’m thinking about it!

Thanks, Nemo!

I was able to do a little daytime sewing today thanks to Nemo.  Got these bee blocks ready to mail out for Stash Bee.

I’m going to be honest, at first I didn’t “feel” the color scheme for this block with the black centers, but after seeing my blocks grouped together, I am loving it! 

I couldn’t resist including the sweet vintage iron print from Laundry Day.  A good rule to follow if you’re in a bee is to use the best fabrics you can, which I do.  Everyone’s tastes aren’t the same, but a good rule of thumb is don’t use your ugliest fabrics just to get rid of them.  Not nice!   The pink floral is original Flea Market Fancy.  I think the color is slightly different than the reprints or maybe not included, but I’m not sure.  Either way, it’s Denyse which is always good!

In this block I was really just going to vibrant, bright pinks.  I did fussy cut the Dena Designs Kumari Garden in the bottom left corner so the medallion would be in the center.  My oldest daughter actually said to me, “Mom, I really like this block the best.  I like how the white colors make it pop and how you put that circle in the middle.”  I am not making that up!  She is going to be an amazing quilter one day!

This is my favorite block.  I love the chickens, and the aqua floral is Alexander Henry Farmdale, my all time favorite fabric line, EVER!  A little thing about color I have learned…now the old Jamie would have picked any old aqua color to go on the outside of the black cross.  But after so much trial and error, the more experienced Jamie knew this time to pick something that would contrast with the aqua floral print.  This nearly blue teal print fit the bill and contrasts enough so that all the parts of the x and + stand out.  Just my two cents!

And of course bee blocks wouldn’t be complete without a “bee block.” The bees are Laurie Wisbrun and came in blue and gray too.  And more original Denyse Schmidt—the orange basketweave from her popular Katie Jump Rope line.  That yellow/lime Chicopee print is really versatile, too.  I’ve used it for lots of different bee blocks and love how it looks in everything.

It seems like a lot of quilters have feline assistants judging from all the cat-on-a-quilt photos I see on blogs.  It is no different at my house!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Potluck Churn Dash

This quilt came about through two extra churn dash blocks I made last month for Stash Bee.  A friend had a baby girl, and originally I thought I’d make her a star quilt, but then I got to thinking I’d use these blocks to make something bright and colorful.

I started with the orange and aqua block and put the other one aside to use for something else.  I decided to use some of my Denyse Schmidt fabrics for the other blocks.  Rachel at Stitched in Color is hosting a Shelbourne Falls Contest, so I incorporated a few of those fabrics into it. 

Once the quilt was 3 x 3 blocks, which was a good size for a baby quilt, it didn’t feel right to me.  Was this going to be the ugliest quilt ever, or just colorful?  At this point my husband gave it a thumbs down and I decided I’ll just go with my original idea to make a star quilt for my friend’s baby and keep this one, just in case it doesn’t turn out like I had hoped.  I added another row of blocks to make it a little bigger so my youngest daughter could use it on her bed.

A lot of the fabrics are Denyse Schmidt, with a few Anna Maria Horner and an Amy Butler print thrown in.  The back is an AMH print from Innocent Crush that all my daughters really love.  I pieced together the rest of the back from leftover fabric.

The quilting is a criss-cross on the diagonal—I marked it with masking tape and used 50 wt. pink Aurifil thread.

The binding is a Notting Hill print.

So, is it an ugly quilt or just colorful?  It has a vintage vibe to it that I really dig, but I honestly don’t know!