A Special Baby Quilt

This is a baby quilt that my daughter started a few months ago for her baby.  She picked out the fabrics from my sewing room stash and sewed charm squares together to make a pretty quilt.  Because she doesn't have a sewing machine at home, she worked on it when she came over to visit.

I helped her cut out the squares and she sewed them together into rows.  She picked out pretty pinks, some old and some new fabrics and some soft teals along with some teal-colored minky fabric.  I like how the colors all blend well together.  

Once the squares were all sewn together, she never got a chance to come and finish it.  So I found a pretty bright pink for the border and finished up the quilt to give to her at the baby shower that I had for her at my house.  I put soft pink minky fabric on the back with no batting in between the layers and quilted it along the edge of each of the rows.  This blankie is SO soft and warm.  I just know the baby will love cuddling up in it.

The special part about this quilt is that we both worked on it together.  My daughter started it and I finished it up for her.  My daughter is not much of a quilter, and that is what makes this little baby quilt so special.  

 

Vintage Holiday Quilt #4

I've been working on some of the UFO's (unfinished objects) in my sewing room during this time of quarantine from the Corona virus.  There's quite a few in there, but at least one more is done! 

A couple of weeks ago I finished this Charm Square quilt that I had started about a year and a half ago.  The fabric came in a monthly sampler box called Sew Sampler from the Fat Quarter Shop.  I cut the charm squares in half and sewed them into rows and then put borders in between the rows. 

It is certainly not a hard quilt to make, and I wanted something to go in my vintage trailer.  I love these colors and this fabric called Vintage Holiday from Bonnie and Camille. 

For the quilting, I quilted stars and swirls onto the quilt.  I did it on my domestic machine and it did take a while to get all of those stars on it. 

I'm really happy with how it came out and I'm looking forward to summer to do some camping.  Hopefully campgrounds will re-open by then!  :)

Blue Batik Quilt #3 Just for Me

I love to start quilts!  Finishing them, well... not so much.  There are a lot of unfinished quilts/projects hanging around in my sewing room. 

But I'm on a roll!  This weekend I finished up this beautiful Blue Batik quilt that I started a couple of years ago.  I had seen this quilt in a Missouri Star video and wanted to make one like it just for me.  Check out the video here if you'd like the pattern.  She calls it Super Simple Squares Quilt.  It's actually the same pattern that I used for the Soft and Pretty quilt in the last post, only in this quilt, you can see the square in the corner around each block.

I chose a soft blue batik collection called Yumi that I found from a quilt shop online.  And get this, I've never used batiks before.  I don't really like them, but I thought that they did really look good in this quilt.  :)

I made this quilt for me to to in my family room.  It has deep blue accents in it and I thought it would look nice as a throw in there.  I even like the back of the quilt which is a lovely blue batik.

Honestly, I'm really proud of myself for finishing this quilt.  I just really love it.  And guess who else really loves it?  Ginger thought it looked great in the family room.  She has christened it and it's already full of kitty cat fur.

Quilt #2: The Soft and Pretty Quilt

So this year I decided that I would like to make each of my friends a quilt!  I know, it's hard to believe, because in the past I have not been known to finish a lot of the quilts that I have started. 

But I thought, if I keep them somewhat simple, perhaps I can get one quilt done every two months.  So my goal is to finish 6 quilts this year and 6 next year for each of my friends. :)

This quilt, called the Soft and Pretty Quilt features some soft and delicate fabrics that I though went together very well.  Most of them have been sitting on the shelf in my sewing room for about 20 years (!) and I figured that it was time to use them.  :)

This quilt is for a friend of mine who has been going through chemo treatments.  Although I should have given it to her last year, I actually finished it and gave it to her in February.  She is a pretty woman with a very gentle spirit about her.  That's why I picked out these colors for her.  She loved it.  :)

It's made from 5" squares with 2" sashing in between the rows.  I used a set-in square for each block to keep it all lined up even though you can't really see the set-in squares.  It came out so pretty.  And to think, I've finished up two quilts already this year.  :)

What do you think?  Is it better to make simple quilts/projects that you can finish or more complicated ones that take a long time and often don't get completed?

Oh, My Stars! Quilt #7

 I've been wanted to put together a quilt with Pat Sloan's "Oh, My Stars!" pattern for a while.  I started this quilt for my son last summer.  I cut up a bunch of teals, greens, blues and grays for this quilt from some fabrics that I picked up in Houston at the Quilt Show a year ago.

I had to put the squares up on my design wall so that I could see where to fit in the gray blocks to form the stars.  Then it sat in my dining room (yes, dining room!) for about 6 months.  Finally one day, I put in the gray star points and sewed the rows together.

It certainly is not a hard quilt to make, but it does take a little planning on where you want to place your stars for the most impact.

I finished this quilt in time for Christmas and gave it to my son.  He loved it!  It's so nice to have quilts to cuddle up with that are made for you by your mom.  :)

I used the teal palate to coordinate with the teal afghan that I made him last year.  I machine quilted  free motion swirls for the quilt pattern, but if he looks closely at the quilt, I "wrote" a message in it near the the top corner that says, "To Chris, Love Mom."  Clever, huh?

Here is the quilt when I was putting borders on it at my quilt retreat in Oct.  Why is it so hard to actually finish up a quilt when it is almost done?

This is the 7th (if you count the Baby Quilt that I made last year) that I finished for 2019!  That's a new record for me.  :)

Now to get started for 2020...

The Bright and Cheerful Quilt

I've been busy finishing up a quilt for my niece who is getting ready to go off to college in just a couple of weeks.  I have been working hard on it to get it finished in time!  For those of you who know me, you know what a feat that is!

I chose these bright, cheerful colors for her to wish her bright and cheerful days at college.  I hope that it reminds her of home and those that love her when she gets lonely or homesick.

 I made this quilt using four packs of charm squares from Moda called Wrens and Friends.  Some of the fabrics have cute little birds in them.  Then I added a small white sashing in between the blocks to lighten it up.  I offset the rows just to give it a little visual interest. 

When I quilted it, I put a freeform flower in each of the white strips.  If you look closely, you can see the flowers in this photo.  This took WAY longer than I thought that it would when I was quilting it, but I love the whimsical look that it gives the quilt. 

 

On the back I put a light teal fabric that has little birds in it that I found at Joann's.  I love how the back ties in with the colors and brightens up the whole quilt!  I ordered some of the dandelion border from Moda to complete the border.  For the tag, I appliqued a bird cut from my Sizzix machine and signed the quilt on that.  It was a cute way to tie in the bird theme.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of that.

Oh, yeah- I also made her a key fob to match the quilt! 

I sure hope my niece loves her quilt!

Treasured Quilt for a Treasured Friend

I like to experiment with using different fabrics in my sewing and quilting.  While I was out on a quilt shop tour, I spotted some unique fabric in vibrant colors that I don't normally use. I brought them home and mixed them up with some of my other fabrics in my stash and this is the quilt that I came up with. 

I used 5" squares to make this quilt, so you could make a quilt like this using charm squares and adding a few from your stash to add variety.  I thought it had a simple, yet stunning look to it.

I gave to a dear friend of mine from high school for her birthday.  We have had quite a colorful friendship, doing many different things together over the years.  I thought the vibrant colors in this quilt reminded me of our treasured times together.

I cropped the photo so that you could see some of the fabric up close.  (Believe it or not, there is actually Christmas fabric used in this quilt, too!  Can you spot it in the close-up photo?)

What different combinations colors have you experimented with? How did they turn out?