Baby M.'s Quilt

Some of you may remember this quilt I made last summer for my cousin who had recently gotten married. Well, guess what? Now she and her husband are expecting a baby in May so of course I wanted to make them a quilt. I think I have around 20 first-cousins on my mom's side of the family and as far as I know, Taryn is the only one with an interest in sewing. My mom taught her to quilt a few years ago, and it is fun to make gifts for someone who you know will appreciate them. 

I first got the idea for this quilt from a picture, I believe on Instagram, that Megan of Canoe Ridge Creations had shared. She was showing a quilt of hers that was being featured in an upcoming issue of Quilty Magazine. Just a few days later, I saw that Quilt Dad had written a tutorial for a similar quilt on the Art Gallery Fabrics blog. That pretty much sealed the deal, so I started pulling all the grey and yellow fabrics I had since those are the colors in Taryn's nursery. 

I was so excited when I found this yellow dotty fabric at JoAnn. I went there searching for backing and honestly didn't expect to find one that I wanted, but this was perfect! It is from the latest DS Prints line, a very pretty shade of yellow with small grey dots all over. I'm even thinking of making a little dress for Jill with my leftovers. I only quilted in the solid white (Kona Bone, actually) areas of the quilt, making various chevron shapes in each one. Honestly, I'm not that impressed with the way it looks but it wasn't bad enough for me to rip it out. The binding is a great charcoal-grey Confetti Dot by Dear Stella. 

I won't be able to go to Taryn's baby shower next month, but soon enough this little quilt will be winging it's way to Iowa. Hopefully, it will get there before the baby does! 

Baby Steps Quilt

I'm not quite sure how this has happened, but I have three finished baby quilts to share. So here's the first: 

I made this quilt for some really good friends of ours that are expecting a little boy in April. I'm quite sure that their little guy is going to have a good bit of John Deere in his life so I decided to stick with those colors. Before Roger even knew who the quilt was for, he remarked that he was glad to see me using such a good color scheme. 

For the most part, I just used single prints for each block, but there are a few composed of various scraps and I really think those are my favorites. For the quilting, I first went about 1/4" inside each seam of the white. Then, I just made zigzags at random widths, following the path of the blocks. Super easy and quick! 

 I used one of the newer Denyse Schmidt plaids from JoAnn for the backing, and this navy Joel Dewberry herringbone for the binding. I had a bit of a hard time choosing what color binding I wanted, but I'm on a bit of a navy kick lately. Once I realized that I had enough of this print I went with it, and am so glad that I did. 

I think I said earlier that I was inspired by this quilt by The Girl Who Quilts. It is a quick top to put together and zigzags are always fun, right? I know there are about a thousand tutorials out there for various zigzag quilts, but I am considering making one for this. Anyone interested? While that is honestly something I never thought I would do, I have used more than my fair share of free tutorials that generous quilters and sewists have put out there, so I kind of feel like doing one is a way to return the favor. Even if no one uses it. Does that make any sense? 

***Linking up with Heather and Megan at Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday***

The View from Where I Sit

Feathers for March dGS, free pattern by Anna Maria Horner

Two out of three dresses for Jill waiting for buttons.

First three months of Elizabeth's Lucky Stars BOM.

An old quilt laying out to dry

Random blocks/batting sitting on top the KitchenAid

Three baby quilts flung over a chair, finished except for burying threads

Random yarn/construction paper creations by the kids

Fabric basket thing confiscated from under Max's bed, containing stale bread and half an orange

Glorious wallpaper.

WIP Wednesday

I seem to be accumulating a lot of projects lately, so I thought it would be a good idea to organize them a bit. I seem to do WIP posts when I'm feeling a little scattered! 

I started this baby quilt for one of my cousins a couple of days ago. They aren't telling anyone what they are having, but the nursery is going to be yellow/grey so I thought this was safe. I know these are gender-neutral colors, but to me, grey and yellow says "It's a girl!". Maybe that is because I'm hoping she has a girl so I can send her Jill's clothes...

 
I started this quilt last spring, I think...I was in a sewing slump and trying to break out of it by pulling some fabrics for a simple baby quilt. Then the pile of squares sat around forever until I put this on my FAL list for this quarter. I just finished basting and I'm planning to attempt orange-peel quilting.



Here is what I have so far from the blocks I've received from my Always Bee Learning ladies, plus a few that I made yesterday. I am so excited to be able to keep this one for myself! I'm waiting to see if a couple of other blocks come in before I finish. I think I'll add one more row. Oh, and those scraps in the lower left are the beginnings of Wyatt's first improv quilt.

Basted, waiting for quilting:
Grey/yellow baby...choose binding
Patchwork baby...choose binding

Waiting to be basted:

 Max's quilt...find backing, choose binding

Baby Steps...choose binding

Tops in Progress:

Chicopee Herringbone

Future/Maybes:
Geese in the Forest
Orbit QAL?
possible tutorial for Baby Steps?

Monthly Projects:

Lucky Stars BOM

Sugar Block Club

Woodland Sampler 

Weekend Sewing

For the most part, I would say I have had a successful weekend of sewing. 

Yesterday morning I finished February's Exploding Star from Elizabeth's Lucky Stars BOM. I really just can't get enough of these colors lately. So not my usual thing, but navy, teal, grey, and a bit of apple green just look so good right now!

Then yesterday afternoon I started a baby quilt for some good friends that will be having a little boy soon. I have the hardest time deciding what quilt to make sometimes. I can literally spend hours scrolling through my Pinterest board designing quilts in my head and never getting anything done. I did that for a little while yesterday afternoon during nap time, then got annoyed with myself and grabbed some graph paper. Why yes, I am high tech, thank you very much! After just a bit of math, I had my plan and got to work.

I was inspired by this quilt by The Girl Who Quilts. I thought it was a fun variation on a zigzag pattern. This top came together so quickly, I can definitely see myself making another one sometime! 

Wanting to keep my sewing high going, I grabbed the beginnings of a zip pouch that I had started in December for one of the boys' teachers. I had made a few mistakes on it and gotten tired of my seam ripper, so I just threw it into my cabinet and moved on to something else. Since things had been going my way, I decided to give it another shot. 

After sewing on the left side of the pouch twice, I finally got the zipper how I wanted it, only to realize that the lining piece was too small! How I didn't notice before I don't understand, but I have a feeling this beauty is going to get thrown back into the cabinet! 

Now I am taking a bit of a break, though I just ordered the pattern for this quilt, so I'm about to get up and start digging through my green scraps. My plan is a low-key Christmas quilt, doing a few blocks here and there when I feel like it. My only indecision right now is what to use for the background, Kona Snow or a mixture of low-volume prints. Thoughts?

Twins!

I'm finally getting around to showing you these quilts I made for our friends' sweet little baby girls. I think I finished them in early January! 

The first quilt I made was inspired by this quilt by Jessica at Twin Fibers. I love simple patchwork and the Trip Around the World setting is a fun spin on that. I had a bit of a hard time choosing prints for this quilt. I knew that I wanted to use the aqua FMF print along with some coral and grey, but I went back and forth several times on the center two prints.

I originally had a grey print in the center and a lighter coral for the first ring, but thought it needed something a little more bold, so I chose the dark FMF print and the coordinating yellow/pink one, and it looked so much better! I was a little worried about the brown print sticking out too much with the others, but I think it works.

I had originally started this quilt for another couple that was having a baby girl, but I was still loving this color palette so I decided to make another and give them to our friends that were having twins. I obviously don't have twins nor am I a twin, but for some reason I have strong feelings that twins should not have everything match. Coordination is good, matchy-matchy not so much.

Let's just ignore those wrinkles, okay?

I love classic hourglass blocks, especially with these colors mixed against the crisp Kona Snow.



I added a few more prints in this quilt, then had a hard time choosing a binding, but once again, DS dots to the rescue! On a side note, do you start a quilt knowing what fabrics you will use, or do you figure it out as you go? I am definitely the latter which makes it a little more stressful adventurous. Especially since I am stubborn and almost always use what I already have rather than wait on shipping.



I backed both of these quilts with the AMH's Folksy Flannels. I just love how snuggly  and soft it is for little babies!

And with that, I can check another project off the old FAL. I really should have listed this as two, shouldn't I?

**Linking up with the lovely ladies at Quilt Story for Fabric Tuesday**

3 Weeks

Three weeks since my last post. 

What can I say, life has been full around here lately. Mostly full of snot and antibiotics, but thankfully there has been plenty of fun stuff in there to balance out the funk.

At the end of January, this little girl got baptized wearing the same dress that her mom and grandma did when they were baptized. She took it like a champ.

Then, this little boy turned six which is just insane. Unfortunately, I was crazy-sick on his birthday so we had to postpone the festivities for another week.

In other exciting news, we had a little demolition in the backyard.

And even as I type this, our Amish friends are out there digging footers for a new barn. I think Roger is just a  little excited. 

On the sewing front, I finished my Triple Zip Pouch for Wyatt's birthday.

and have been finishing up a few bee blocks.

Four Scrappy Trip blocks in Loulouthi for Hettie in Always Bee Learning.

Two Road to Fortune blocks for Kelli in That Stash Bee

Bracket blocks in shades of green for Lindsay in dGS

Today I'm spending a good bit of time in the kitchen, making Debbie's granola, and experimenting with Slow Cooker Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal, and No-Knead Bread. Let's hope they're good! 

Have a great weekend, friends!