The Princess and the Pea

I had fun making this one.  I have fun making all my quilts, otherwise I wouldn't be a quilter, but I had mucho fun with this one.  I don't think I ever hated this one.  I pretty much always have a moment of doubt bordering on what was I thinking quilt hate; but I can't think of it with this one.

 I used nine different pink patterns for the mattresses, a light pink for the "background," white for the bed frame, and yet another pink pattern for the backing and roll over binding. 

 I hand quilted of course.  Pink around the pinks and white around my appliqued bed frame.  (The white and light pink are easier to distinguish in real life.)  I patterned the bed frame shape off my daughter's bed. 

 The sheer amount of pink in the border and edging was kinda a bit much to work with, but my pink sister assures me there is no such thing as too much pink.  My mother, who had three boys before little me, agrees that for a baby girl there is indeed no such thing as too much pink.

 I hand stitched the border and mitered the corners.  I did a piano key border in the nine pinks of the mattresses.  I like the play of the patterns all together.

And of course I love the pea.  I used some green from my stash (read closet pile of random fabric) and it was the perfect green to go with these pinks.  I dryer sheet appliqued it again and the seam allowances shoved inside function as make shift stuffing and give it extra poof.  It's a perfect little pea.

This is another blanket for my etsy shop.

linking to tgiff

For Grandma Birdie

Our daughter loves birds.  She always has.  She got a pair of bird feeders for her first birthday and has been known to cry when they are empty because the birds are hungry.  She makes sure our feeders are always full.  Consequently, we have a lot of birds in our yard, especially in the winter. 

A month or so ago I was watching the birds out the window with her and apparently I think in terms of fabric.  I saw the birds on the fence and thought quilt.  I so had to make one someday.

And who better to make a bird quilt for than my Grandma Birdie. 

I had thought I'd make it for her birthday next year.  I mentioned it to my mom and she thought it sounded great.  So I added it to my mental list.

 Then, a week or so ago, I couldn't shake the feeling to make it now.  So I checked my stash and actually found the perfect brown.  I don't do brown so it was pretty amazing.  This quilt was one thing after another that was amazing.  I began to joke to my husband that the quilt would quilt itself.  No such luck, but despite three little ones, it did come together in less that a week.

 And now some details on the Quilt That Took Less Than A Week, I appliqued the birds with dryer sheets again.  My new favorite method, by the way.  I hand quilted along my seams on the fence posts and made little Xs at the white intersections of my plaid sky.  I couldn't stomach the idea of blue binding framing my fence or brown in the sky and I couldn't envision some other color, so I bound each in itself; fence in brown, sky in blue.

(this little birdie is my favorite, I think his paisley looks like a sweet little wing.) 
They are all scrap material from various things over the years.  The pink on the far right is actually from a dress my mom had made for Pie when she was teensy.

I used a flowery blue on the back.  The selvage said Disney on it and then I had a total moment of panic that there were fairies on it somewhere I had missed.  False alarm, no fairies.
This quilt turned out great.  I am really pleased with it.  And I have a crazy love of the plaid sky.  If I ever make this design again, I'm making it all plaid.  It will likely be too much, but I seriously love the plaid sky. 
This is one of my favorites so far.

linking to tgiff

Monsters Squared and a Plan

Periodically, my in-laws tell me I could/should sell quilts.  I know somebody somewhere buys quilts, but I sure don't, I just look until I figure out the pattern and then go at it.  Anyway, seeing as I do love quilting and I only know so many people I can give them to, I decided to go ahead a give it a try.  So I opened up an etsy shop. 
  I figure I'll quilt for fun, to try out new things, and just because, and then list them on etsy and see if anything happens.  If nothing happens I already have a home picked out for my quilts.  They will be heading to Project Linus if they don't leave for somewhere else first. 

I've never made a quilt for anyone and no one before, it was a bit of a different experience.

It started out as just a bunch of squares, but as that's lacking in the pizzaz department, I added some monsters.  I did something different for each one; three eyes, bow tie, glasses, two heads, horns, that kind of thing.

I blanket stitched around all the applique stuff and then couldn't decide  how to quilt the squares.  I thought about a few different things, but nothing felt like it really went with the quilt.  I ended up blanket stitching in contrasting thread around all the patterned squares. 

I used my first ever striped binding and really had fun with that.  I liked that I was able to place the seams just right that the joins were hidden.  It was dorky fun.

And here's a sneak peek update of the one with all the pink rectangles.  It's destined for an elsewhere home, too.  It's about half way done, it had to wait while I made a Secret Quilt.  I'll show you that one soonish.

Remember This One...

This quilt was the "girl" quilt I made when a friend was pregnant and not finding out gender.  I had left the center blank, thinking that I would add the kid's name. 

Well, that baby ended up being a boy and he got monsters instead.  So the girl quilt sat waiting, like patience on a monument as they say. 

Our Kindergarten teacher is having a baby in February, and score, it's a girl.  Check it out, she is so getting a quilt.  Done and done.  But we really weren't all that sure we would manage to find out exactly how they are spelling the name (I'm related to an EmmaLee, so even a "usual name" can't be assumed) and coordinate that with when she is at school considering maternity leave and all that. 

So we went with Plan B; and around here, B is for butterfly.

 The butterflies are all applique.  I used dryer sheets as the underside of my applique, I read about it here.  It worked out great!  I like the bit of dimension it gave the wings.  I am all about poof, remember. 

The thing that surprised me, and really if I had thought about it I should have seen this one coming, but it smells a bit more spring-time fresh than you'd expect in my full on winter.

 The butterflies are all a bit different as I didn't use a pattern or anything.  I just drew a wingish shape for each of the four wings on the butterfly.  I then stitched those together and voila, a butterfly.

 I had planned on hiding my stitching, but it was taking way long, so I switched to visible stitching in purple on all the butterflies, as opposed to pink on pink and blue on blue.  I ended up really liking the way it turned out.  I think it fits with the visible purple stitching in the little square border. 

 We are going to be gifting this one, along with some cookies or whatnot, to our teacher for Christmas.  Here's hoping she likes butterflies...and the smell of fresh laundry.

Someday Soon...

my sister will be jealous of this.