I’ve been slowly working on this quilt (pattern from Moda Bake Shop) for several months now.  It was the first project I started after my baby was born.  I chose it because it was pretty low-key, and it wasn’t intended for any purpose, so there was no deadline.  I pieced the blocks, and then once my Christmas sewing began again, I put them away for a while.  Now that Christmas is over, and the new year is here, I’ve begun evaluating my UFOs (unfinished objects) in an effort to get them finished in the first months of the year.

I sewed these blocks all together relatively quickly.  It’s a large twin size, and since the seams are all straight, it went together pretty quickly.  Now I just have to decide how to quilt it.  Honestly, I’m kind of stumped about that one.  One of my goals this year is to avoid stippling everything as I have done in the past, but this quilt is one of those that I’m not sure what else to do because the top will overwhelm any sort of fancy quilting design.  I’m considering one wavy line down the middle of each “stripe,” so it would create a criss-cross pattern of wavy lines.  I personally don’t like heavy quilting for bed quilts because it makes them too stiff for my tastes.  I prefer a cuddly quilt, and I’m hoping the wavy line design would do just that.  What I don’t like about this option is that I see it taking much longer than it would to just stipple.  I’m also not sure I’m keeping this quilt for myself, and many non-quilters really do like the stipple design better than others. 

Any suggestions?

linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday

You may remember that I posted Wednesday about working on this gray and yellow chevron quilt.  Well, it’s now finished, and I just love it.  I only had enough of the yellow backing for a baby quilt, but I’m hoping I can find something similar in the future so I can make a nice lap-size quilt for our sunroom.  Since I don’t have any baby girls to give this to, it’s going on etsy whenever I get the nerve (and the time!) to start listing some items.  I think it’s a little too girly for my boys since it has that flowery background, or I would be sorely tempted to keep this.

I also don’t yet have anything in the trendy gray/yellow color combination, and now that I’ve decided I like it (I fought against it for a while), I’m itching to have something like this while I’m still so in love with the trend.

I measured carefully and found that I did, in fact, have enough leftover yellow fabric for a bias binding, so I went with curved corners instead of squared ones.  I thought that would contrast nicely with the sharp chevron points.  The back is nice and swirly, so it echoes that, and it makes the whole quilt have a bit of a softer look.

I love how the hand-quilting makes such a nice soft quilt.  While machine quilting is much faster and probably quite a bit sturdier, hand quilting can’t be beat for a soft cuddly sleeping quilt.  I used yellow crochet thread for the stitches, and it shows up nicely on the front to bring a little color to the gray and white pattern.  It mostly blends in on the back, which is also good since the back has such a vibrant pattern to it.  While I do hope this sells, part of me will be sad to see it go if it does.

Now that I’ve had a break from the frenzied Christmas sewing (which I actually did enjoy, but I still need a break once in a while!), I’m able to pick up some projects with no deadlines again.  One of these projects is this gray chevron baby quilt.  I loved the yellow fabric for the back but only had a yard and a half, so that meant I had to make it a baby quilt.  However, I love it, so if I stumble across a good yellow backing fabric again, I’m going to get enough for at least a good lap-size couch quilt.  I decided to hand quilt this because I can use colored crochet thread for a nice pop of color that makes the stitching stand out and adds a bit of interest to the rather plain front.

I finished quilting yesterday (I only had a few rows left) and have started trimming today.  Hopefully I’ll finish binding this week.  I think I’m going to use the same yellow fabric for the binding.  I have just about the right amount left for that, hopefully—I’ll need to measure to be sure!  I wanted to round the corners, but that would mean a bias binding, and I’m not sure there’s enough fabric for that, so I may have to leave it squared off.

Below is my other stack of items waiting for attention.  These are just plain fabric baby blankets.  The owl one is backed with a bright blue minky, and the others are backed with a striped blue flannel.  All they need is a simple crochet edging.  I’m trying to find a good boy-friendly crochet edge pattern, but those are hard to come by as most are very lacy.  I plan to use the owl blanket for my own little boy, and I’ll either sell the others or give them as gifts.

One of my major goals this year is to open up an etsy shop.  Well, technically my shop is already open, but there has never actually been anything in it, so my goal is to fill it up with stuff.  I do have a few things laying around already.  It’s the photography part that has me scared.  It seems like etsy listings have the most beautiful pictures, and I’m just not sure I can get pictures that are good enough, but eventually I’ll give it a try.

Recently I got to help throw a baby shower for a friend from church.  We didn’t have a clear theme since her nursery is green and brown circles/dots.  I had her check out my stash since I was planning to make a baby quilt, and she picked out a light blue dog print.  She loves dogs, so thus was born our theme.  I and three other ladies from church contributed to the shower, and it turned out quite cute!  The pictures aren’t the best since the lighting was iffy.  It was held at a community center.

My contributions were cupcakes and cookies.  Although I had visions of little dog faces on the cupcakes with fondant floppy ears, I kept it super simple and made cupcake toppers on the computer.  My goal was easy this time around since I was so close to having my baby.  I made these two weeks ahead and froze them just in case something happened.  This way, one of the other ladies could have come and picked up both from my freezer.  Luckily, no baby came, and I was able to attend and help with the shower as planned.  I made half white and half chocolate cupcakes all topped with the same buttercream frosting.  The recipe I used called for coffee creamer as part of the liquid.  I used white chocolate mocha flavor along with some vanilla extract, and I must say it was pretty tasty.  I sprinkled the tops with blue sanding sugar and white nonpareils to make them a bit more interesting.

I made the cookies using a dog bone cutter and the same frosting that I used on the cupcakes.  Royal icing looks much neater/prettier, but I’m not a fan of the taste compared to buttercream, and since I was making buttercream anyway, I decided to forego looks in favor of taste.  They still look okay, but definitely not as good as they would have in royal icing.  I packaged these up two per bag and placed them in a jar labeled “treats.”  I already had the big jar and cut out vinyl letters using my cricut.   I loved how it turned out, and it was a great way to display party favors.

For the rest of the food items, we used stainless steel bowls (supposed to be reminiscent of dog dishes).  All of the bowls were ones I already had, but the other ladies made all the other food as well as the paper table topper.  I made the banner using my cricut, and I thought that turned out really well, too.  I borrowed a couple of cartridges from a friend, but I’ve decided I need a banner cartridge of my own.  I would definitely use that for future kids’ birthday parties and for showers in the future.

This was an early picture of the gift table—it filled up much more after more guests started to arrive.   We used our inspiration dog fabric for a table runner of sorts.  This is all I have left after making her gifts.

And speaking of gifts, here’s what I made:  (please forgive the picture quality—I took these indoors at night)

A baby quilt, of course.  I’ve been trying to use up this fabric anyway, so I was thrilled that she chose it.  I used it as a backing in an effort to use more.  I started with over six yards of this fabric (leftover from a crate cover for a very large dog that I never made).  The stripe on the back was made from leftovers from the front.  This is the second baby shower quilt I’ve made from this fabric in two months.  I probably still have about three yards left, but at least it’s dwindling!

Since I had extra time (and extra fabric), I decided to also make some coordinating gifts.  I made a set of two burp cloths and a matching diaper clutch.  The burp clothes are just fabric rectangles sewn to towels the same size, turned, and topstitched around the edge.  They’re so easy that you really don’t even need a tutorial.  I bought two hand towels from the dollar store to use for my terry cloth.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have the color I needed in the bath towel, or they would have been really cheap to make!  Dollar store terry cloth is actually perfect for burp cloths.  It’s very thin, and you don’t want it to be too thick for a burp cloth—just enough to be a little more absorbent than the standard cotton fabric. 

I also printed out tags and sewed them on to both projects.  I thought it needed a little something extra, and tags just kind of make a project look finished.  I printed out several other styles and plan to add them to almost all my future projects.  In this case, I made the tags coordinate with the dog theme since I was printing new tags out anyway, but I also printed off some nice plain ones that should go with anything in the future.

The tutorial for the diaper clutch below can be found here.  I first pinned the tutorial on pinterest, and it’s very easy to follow with both a video tutorial and printed directions.  I did change a few things.  First, I decided I liked the look of binding around the edge rather than sewing it right sides together and then turning it.  I think it gives it a more finished look, but it might also have been easier, too, although it requires some hand sewing.  I like some hand sewing, so it didn’t bother me in the least.

I also decided to skip the button/elastic closure in favor of velcro.  I thought velcro would be easier to close one handed in a hurry, and tools for a mom should be all about convenience.  I did line the inside with a clear vinyl, so it’s easily wiped down, but I don’t think this would really be necessary.  I’ve had very few diaper leaks with my son, and when I have, it wouldn’t have been difficult to throw it in the wash when I got home.  I might make these in the future and use a laminated cotton on the inside.  It would be a little less stiff than the clear vinyl, but both would be fine, I think.

The clutch features fold in pockets for diapers and wipes.  I put little dog appliques on the pockets just because I thought they looked cute and trimmed the pocket edges with matching binding to make it a little more colorful.  These steps are purely decorative, though, and could easily be skipped.  I also added a tag to this project but set it off with some black fabric to give it a more finished look.  Without the button closure from the original tutorial, it looked a little naked on the front.

Overall, I’m quite happy with the way these all turned out.  I had been thinking about making diaper clutches as shower gifts for a while and wanted to test one out.  I think I’ll make a few modifications to the next one, but this was a very successful trial run.

I also love that all the gifts coordinate.  I don’t know if I’ll do quite this much for every gift recipient (I really like the mom-to-be), but the burp cloths were so easy that I might add those to my standard repertoire of gifts.  I usually make a quilt, but I’ve been considering branching out into other blankets/accessories instead.  It seems like so many ladies at our church crochet, etc. that the mom gets TONS of blankets, so it might be a better idea to branch out in another direction.  This was especially true this time.  She got two quilts, including mine, and at least four crocheted blankets—the baby will never be cold!

I’ve had this quilt finished for a few months now but haven’t gotten around to taking pictures of it.  It matches the other bedding I’ve already posted about here.  Once his room is finished, I’ll post more pictures of everything all together.   My husband is sanding the wood floor in the baby room as I type, and it looks like we should have the floor finished within a couple of days.  That’s the last major step, so once the finish cures for a day or two, we should be able to start moving furniture in, hanging curtains and pictures, etc.  It will definitely be nice to have things more together than they have been.  We’re really cutting it close on this one—my due date is two days away.  However, with my luck, the baby will go late (ugh), and we’ll have things ready and waiting.  At this point, I don’t even care what’s finished and what’s not.  I just want this baby OUT!

Onto the quilt—I chose a chain-link type pattern.  There are several patterns for sale, and the one that I followed most closely for mine was from Cluck Cluck Sew and can be found here.  I did not buy the pattern because I wanted to make several changes to it for size and visual reasons, so I thought it would kind of be pointless since I wouldn’t be following the actual pattern anyway.  I first saw this type of design in a very different quilt on flickr, which led to some googling, and this quilt was born.

For the back, I had hoped to be able to make it work with just one width of fabric across the quilt, but it turned out to not be quite enough, so I added the polka dot scrap strips down the middles.  I like the look, though, so it probably worked out for the best anyway.

For the quilting, I again went out of my stippling comfort zone and did right angles intersecting each other in box shapes.  I thought this mimicked the quilt top better, and I’m very happy with how they turned out.  However, since I don’t have the skill to do right angles (and keep them straight!) with the free motion foot, I had to use the walking foot, which involved LOTS of turning, which was soooo not fun.  However, I’m happy I suffered through it because I love the end result.  Maybe one day I’ll be good enough to do that with the free motion foot, which would make things a lot easier.

I bound the quilt in a gray matching print, and I haven’t added the label yet.  I think I’d like to make one with his name and birth information on it, so I’ll just sew that on later.

A little over a year ago, I fell in love with Sarah Jane’s “Children at Play” fabric for Michael Miller.  I bought a few fat quarters without a real plan for what to do with it.  Later I decided to make a crib quilt for Damon (my oldest) for when we turned his crib into a daybed.  The blanket that came with his crib set is too small to use in anything other than a crib.

I started the quilt but didn’t finish it.  Fast forward to finding out I was pregnant—we now have different plans for that crib, and my oldest will be in a twin bed.  So, I was left with a half-finished quilt.  Instead of leaving it on the shelf, I’ve decided to make it up for my new little boy and use it as a car quilt.  Damon has a Dr. Seuss quilt that we keep in the car, and I’ve loved having one there to throw over him during the cold months.

I took out a few pieces to make the quilt more square instead of long, as I had planned it for the daybed.  This quilt is loosely based off this quilt designed for a quilt market when the fabric line was first introduced:

Original photo found on Michael Miller’s Blog

Isn’t it adorable?  There is actually a tutorial and downloadable template on the website for the airplane.  Unfortunately, I found the picture of this quilt on another blog and didn’t find the template until after I had already made my own—so, if you decide to make this, you’ll have a much easier time of it than I did!

I actually like this quilt better than my own, but I thought so much white space wasn’t very practical for an often-used baby quilt, so I incorporated more prints in mine, and I’m quite happy with mine as well.  The one thing I did do differently on this quilt was to give the airplane applique a trapunto effect so that it stands out more.  You can find the tutorial here.

I have several fabric scraps leftover, so I might make the version above as a baby gift in the future.  I love the colors and the fabric design.

I quilted this with loop-de-loops just like in the picture.  It echoes the airplane trails nicely.  I did not quilt over the applique because I didn’t want to flatten out the trapunto effect.  I also used the airplane print on the back—it was one of my favorites in the line, and I think it coordinates nicely with the front since I used the airplane as the main focus of the quilt top.

This was my first year of entering some craft/quilting projects in the adult section of our county fair.  I had a great experience and plan to do this again next year.  I even won a couple of prizes!

Here’s what I entered:

Zig-Zag Quilt.  This won me $25 and a silver plate for being quilted by hand.  I don’t think I had much competition in this category since most people don’t do much hand-work anymore.  Still, I was thrilled to win $25.

We were also really happy to get this baby back on our bed.  I used Hobb’s Heirloom batting in this quilt, and although it’s a cotton batting, it’s very light and fluffy, so it’s perfect for a summer quilt.  We were using a heavier one while this one was at the fair, and we were constantly kicking it off in the night.  This will probably be our go-to summer quilt from now on.

This Vintage Baby Quilt was also entered in the hand-quilted category.  It won the reserve grand and a $20 prize.  Again, not much competition in this category, but there were a couple of other entries.  This category was for smaller quilts, and people are much more likely to take on a hand-quilting job for a smaller project.  I do like this quilt, but I think it’s destined to be sold.  I would give it away as a baby gift, but I would have to be sure to find the right recipient as many of my friends aren’t really into vintage stuff and would prefer something a lot more modern.

I entered my Ruby Mosaic Quilt in the machine stitched category, and it won 3rd place.  I’m actually pretty proud of that because there were a lot more quilts in the machine-quilted category, and some of them were absolutely gorgeous, and their makers have machine skills far beyond my own.  I still can’t follow a pattern and keep even stitches, and some of the quilts had very intricate quilting designs on them.  This quilt was stippled with flowers added in, and while I do love that quilting pattern, it takes so little skill compared to some of the others I saw at the fair.  This is a quilt I’m keeping because I love the fabric and the design of the quilt, and it matches our parlor/guest bedroom very well.

My Central Park Quilt was my only entry that didn’t place, but I definitely understand why—it was a simple stipple design, and other quilts with more difficult/elaborate designs were far and above this quilt.  Still, I was happy with the way it turned out, and it’s currently for sale in a local shop.

This was a cross-stitch project I entered.  It received first place in its category, but all needle art projects are lumped together for the sweepstakes prize, and a beautiful handmade lace project won.  I have never seen such beautiful and tiny lace work before, so she definitely deserved the prize.

This is a tablecloth and napkins set made by my great great aunt Tressy.  It’s really pretty in person, and I keep it out on a buffet in my dining room all the time.  I’ve always loved this set, so my mom just gave it to me a few years ago when we moved in to our house.  It won first place in its category, but all collectibles are judged together, and a set of china dishes won the prize.  Next year I plan to enter some china that my grandmother got from the White House (she took care of an elderly neighbor who used to be a White House secretary around the Hayes administration, and they gave away the old china to the employees when a new administration came in and ordered  a different pattern).

Anyhow, I have lots of ideas for next year’s entries, and I really had fun entering things this year.  While we usually go look through the home ec. building anyway, it increased the fun to see some of my own things there.