1. Happy Campers Pinwheel quilt, 2. pinwheel quilt, 3. Lonestar, 4. Design Wall, 5. the big orange wall quilt, 6. Baby Elliot’s quilt, 7. Against Traffic closer, 8. Finished Swoon Horse Quilt, 9. Bright Circles Topper, 10. Calico Quilt., 11. Broken Dishes Quilt, 12. Equilateral Triangles

A while back I started making a quilt for my cousin who was expecting her first baby in May. I absolutely loved this quilt and used it as inspiration for my cousin’s. In the beginning, everything went as smoothly as I could have hoped…I loved the mix of fabrics I had chosen and I had each little 4.5” square sewn together into one lovely quilt top. Problems ensued, however, nearly every step thereafter. For example, half way through quilting it, I was disappointed with the amount of puckering, so I picked out all of the stitching and re-pinned. Quilted again….more puckering. It was only after Suz commented on my post that I considered picking up a walking foot. Thank you so much, Suz, for that wonderful suggestion! I have no idea why I waited so long.  So, I happily quilted it for the third time with much greater success and was pleased as punch with the results. I finished the quilt the day before my cousin’s baby shower and washed it that night. DISASTER!  I pulled the quilt out of the wash only to discover that the beautiful blue plaid backing and binding fabric had bled alllllll over the creamy neutrals that made the quilt so sweet to begin with. After several more washes I deemed the quilt a failure and resigned to make her another one.

At least with this attempt I had the walking foot from the beginning. If you do straight line quilt without one I would really like to encourage you to try one out. Such a difference!

I had to retire my blue plaid backing and binding fabric and find a replacement, which was disappointing. It had so many lovely shades of blue and complemented the quilt beautifully….Sigh…

Are you a prewasher? I know there are some who always do and some who never do. I’m in the middle, and it usually just depends on how much time I have and what I’m using the fabric for. With clothes I usually try to prewash to account for any shrinking. I’m thinking now it’s probably worth the extra time just to go ahead and zig-zag those edges and toss it in the wash.

I am happy to say that quilt and baby are now together in their new home.  May they spend many happy moments together over the years to come.

Taking a little break before diving into quilting this thing. This is my second attempt at pinning. After my first go, I tried running my machine over the layers only to make a big puckery mess. I then removed all the pins, ripped out about four lines of quilting, starched and pressed the top and bottom, and re-pinned the layers together again. I’m hoping better preparation of the layers will help cut down on the puckering, but I think it’s only part of the problem. The other part of the problem would be the backing I chose. It’s all lose and shifty no matter how many pins I jab into it, but I’m too far into it at this point to pick something else. Drat.

Annabelle, the 4-year-old, has really taken to caring for her “babies” as of late. In the past, I think she was always satisfied with role-playing Mom and Baby with her little sister, but now that Charlotte is 3, perhaps the game has lost some of its appeal?  Anywho, Annabelle is much the doting caretaker to her various baby dolls and stuffed animals. She carries them carefully and is eager to share her food with them (as evident by the chocolate stains on the baby’s mouth). At times, she concerns herself with finding a suitable bed for her dear ones and will not be content until everyone has a suitable place to sleep. Most of the time she’ll arrange the dolls strategically around her in bed, but occasionally she just really needs a separate bed for somebody.

Thankfully, I stumbled across this post a couple years ago and have kept it handy in my mind ever since! Not only did the author present a very useful idea for an empty box of clementines, but she also introduced me to the wonders of this delicious variety of citrus. Are you familiar? They’re delicious. They’re small and juicy and sweet. They peel easily and most of them are seedless. They are truly a treat and now we go through at least 2 boxes every December/January.

Of course, if one has a bed, one must also have a blanket….or quilt.  I’ll take any excuse to make a small quilt. I had some recently acquired pinks and was happy to cut into them, plus I reeeeaaallly need to practice my mitered corners on quilt bindings, so this doll-sized quilt came in quite handy for that.

Now the girl has the doll and the doll has a bed and the bed has a quilt and Mama has oranges and everybody’s happy. The end. :)

Usually, the weeks leading up to Christmas are filled with the stress of trying to make a slew of  thoughtful, well-crafted gifts for friends and family. This year was different.  Instead, I focused on just one thoughtful handmade gift for my mom. Good ol’ Mom. Over the years I’ve spent countless hours making gifts for friends, friends’ children, and of course my own children, with very good intentions on making my mom a quilt “when I had time.”  Unfortunately, it took the passing of my father this past year to remind me that often, Time has its own plans.So, instead of the usual frenzy of last minute gift-making, I spent three weeks in December carving out time to make this one for Mom. I used the string quilt  tutorial from FITF and the paper piecing worked beautifully. My absolute favorite part of the quilt is that it uses just about every single piece of fabric I own, including scraps from previous projects. As I examined the piece afterwards, I could point out the fabrics that I used for jammies for the girls, the skirt that I made for Annabelle’s banana party, the apron that Charlotte wore as part of her Little Red Riding Hood costume, and many other sentimental projects (most of which were for my kids).  I love that the quilt has a bit of nostalgia built into it.

I encouraged my girls to help me as much as their little attentions spans could handle, and I was very pleased that they were each able to complete a square each. They picked out the fabrics, piece by piece, and alternated between “steering” the fabric and using the pedal to stitch their strips together. I was so happy to be able to present the quilt to my mom Christmas morning and I know that it is something she will cherish forever.

(Special thanks to the hubby for being my “quilt –holder” for pics.)

I’m sewing along with Sew Mama Sew and Oh, Fransson! This week, Elizabeth detailed how to make a simple triangle block. Simple is right, and I love that there are so many variations for laying out the blocks. I stuck with the same layout she used in her sample, but not before playing around a bit with other layouts. This block is used in zig-zag quilts, which is on my list of things to do…hopefully in the near future.

I tried my hand at stippling on this one since it was nice and small and destined for nothing in particular. It’s definitely something that will take alot of practice, although I’m not sure how often I would use it for quilting. I think I prefer grids over the random, meandering pattern of stippling. Maybe I’ll have a change of heart once I get the hang of it, as is often the case. :)

I’m looking forward to seeing the new block tomorrow. Be sure to check it out and join in the fun!

P.S. I just noticed that the binding looks black in the photo. It’s not. It’s navy. Take care!

1. aidan’s quilt, 2. spotted squares quilt, 3. Dad’s Quilt, 4. echino airplane quilt., 5. Cool Colors Quilt – Front, 6. Quilt Front Using “1974″ Moda Fabric, 7. colorstudy(y,w).jpg, 8. Dick And Jane Quilt, 9. Charlie Front

These deadline-driven tops are keeping me busy, and I’m so glad they are because I would probably continue to put them off otherwise, but the truth is I’m desperate to make a quilt. I’ve been pulling fabrics here and there and putting them together…you know…just to see. Above are some of my recent favorites on Flickr. I think all of them are from the Fresh Modern Quilts group. There is truly so much beauty to found in that group…it deserves a visit at least once every couple days or so.  Go now, and be inspired!

Here’s the quilt front:

I had this “dancing in the flowers” theme in mind for the quilt, which was largely inspired by my 3 year old’s love for both dancing and, well, flowers! That’s supposed to be a dancing girl up there in the corner, and on the back I stamped some more dancing girls in what is supposed to look a bit like a paper chain.

I used scraps for the flowers, binding, etc, which saved on time and money, and was fine for such a little quilt (about 20″x22″).

Part of the reason this quilt took me so long was because I was scared to death to do the quilting. I have a brand new free motion foot for my machine and had every intention on using it, but totally chickened out after practicing on scraps for a couple days. Ended up doing a bit of scenery, I guess you could say, with just a little bit of quilting. I debated using more rays from the sun to get a few more stripes in there, but in the end decided to leave well enough alone!

Time also played a big role in my decision to stitch the binding by machine. It doesn’t look nearly as well as if it were done by hand, but my hand-stitching goes super-slow and frankly I just needed to get it done. The baby wasn’t due until March, so I thought I’d have more time. But, the baby had other plans! She came last week so I was really anxious to get this stuff out to my friend. My next quilt will most definitely be bound by hand though, as I really didn’t care for the look of the machine stitches on the border.

And, I put together a quick blanket made of nice soft fleece and flannel. They’re in Wisconsin so I opted for fabrics that would keep baby nice and warm! I also made it rather large so that I can be used as a play mat and can continue to be wrapped around the sweet little girl as she grows.

So, between the dresses, the blanket, and the doll quilt for big sister, I think this gift is ready to make it’s journey to it’s final destination. Now on to baby number 2!

What are your favorite handmade baby gifts?