Finishing up those WIPs!!

I had some leftover fabric from this quilt and like any good quilter, I saved the scraps with every intention of making a doll quilt to go with the big girl quilt.  Life happened and that pile of 4 inch squares sat on my sewing table for the last 8 months along with the pink receiving blanket that I used for the backing. 

 

 

I ended up trimming the squares down to 3.5 inches by 4 inches to allow for one extra row and quilted with some "straight" lines 0.25 inches from each seam.  It looks beautiful. 

 

 

Of course, I didn't have fabric in my stash that was just the right color of pink for the binding and after the photos were taken, I headed to the fabric store and found the perfect shade of solid pink.  The doll quilt is in the dryer right now and I hope to get it in the mail to K tomorrow. 

Since there was some of the pink receiving blanket left over after I quilted it, I trimmed up the fabric with my pinking shears and made a little wipe clutch (stash busting!) and filled it with baby wipes.   I was able to take some photos of the binding...I love it!

 

 

 

I am linking up with Fabric Tuesday!

 

Friday Finishes

I finished up another row of the 2012-2013 block of the month through Fatquartershop.com. I'm excited for the remaining three blocks and I plan on making the borders and binding this weekend.

 

The block below had to be made and remade twice...I sewed the grey flying geese sections incorrectly...as shown below, the fabric needed to be sewn directionally.  All us well now :)

 



 

After I took the beautiful snow pictures, I realized my last row had all the geese flying south...

 

so after some seam ripping I have fixed the row so half my geese are flying north and half my geese are flying south.

My girls and I played with scrapbook paper, glitter and mod podge to make initial letters for their bedroom doors. They will be surprised when they get home to see the letters hanging on their doors. I spray glued some scraps of batting to the backs to eliminate clinkin when doors are closed :)

 

Happy Friday!!!!

I am linking up with Finish It Friday.

More Butterflies and Babies

My Mom sent me some more photos of the quilt before she shipped it off to Baby E.

 

Butterflies and Babies

I can't believe that I blogged about this quilt just about a year ago as my first quilting blog post.   It seems only fitting that as I approachmy 1-year blogiversary that I am posting about a finish from the end of 2012.  I had to wait to blog as this was a gift for a baby boy and I was waiting on my Mom to send the quilt to its new home.  You see this brand new baby boy is the grandson of J who received the handprint quilt.  J wanted nothing more to be a Grandma and it was not easy for her daughter C to get pregnant...something I am all too familiar with.  So when she got pregnant I knew that I would be making a quilt for this baby. 

 

I used the Me and My Sister Designs Easy as 11 pattern, slightly modified so I didn't have to piece the quilt backing and Riley Blake's Pieces of Hope fabric.  I quilted with straight lines, 1/4 inch on either white side fo the colored stripes.

 



 

 

LEftover fabric from the stripes was used for a super scrappy binding (love!) and I peiced the back.  I love a good pieced backing.  The colors of the quilt are perfect for this very modern and super trendy family.

 

After he was born and I made the tag for his quilt, my Mom asked me if I had any fabric from J's quilt leftover and if I did, she wanted a piece of it on baby E's quilt.  I cut one of the butterfly's out and added it to the quilt back, right next to the tag with birth stats. 

Baby E got his quilt last week and his Mommy sent me a note thanking me for the little piece of her Mom on the quilt.  I hope E has butterflies in his life forever as a sign of his Grandma watching over him. 


I am linking up with Fabric Tuesday, Show and Tell Tuesday and Finish it Up Friday.

Second Christmas Finish

I started knitting this doll blanket a long time ago...almost 5 years ago when we were in the process of relocating half way across the country and living in a hotel (two adults, a black lab and and 18 month old living in a hotel for a month...good times). Needless to say in the hustle and bustle of moving out of the hotel and into our house this project was thrown into a bag and shoved out of the way. It ended up in my craft room and sat there for a good 4 years. I found it again and would work on it whole I was on conference calls and finally finished it today. It will be going to my youngest daughter for Christmas for her bitt.y baby.

First quilty finish of 2013

I made this quilt top back between Christmas and New Years but never had the time to quilt this one. The fabric is Bungle Jungle by Tim and Buck for Moda. It is quilted in a meander, I think it softens the boxy nature of it and is quilted with Met.ler Silk Finish 50 weight cotton in a variagated green and yellow. I previously used this thread in another quilt and did not like it. My machine and this thread do not get along and needless to say, what should have been a quick quilting took forever. Once I remembered I did not like it, it was too late to go back. I machine bound the quilt, which is still a work in progress for me. I used some leftovers to make the binding scrappy (love!). The quilt is roughly 40" x 50". This quilt is for one of the many babies that will enter our family this year and I am super excited to have this one finished 10 full weeks before the pending arrival! Once the baby makes his arrival, I will add a tag with his birth stats.

I am linking up with Quilt Story.

Another Christmas Gift

My brother is now a married man and for the lsat 25 years of his life has used a fuzzy multi-colored dinosaur blanket for his afghan. I decided that he needed something a little more grown up for his apartment and made him an afghan. This varied the pattern to make it much wider so that two people can cozy up under it. The afghan is knitted with size 50 (yes 50!) knitting needles and 4 strans of Lion Thick and Quick yarn. I used 2 strans of an olive green, one brown and one off white. Since my brother is really tall, I kept knitting until I knew it was the perfect snuggle under size. I ended up using 12 skeins of yarn. With the big needles it knits up quick. The original pattern (8 skeins of yarn) takes 6 hours and this one took just about 9 hours to knit up. I literally cast off the last stitches Christmas Eve morning.