John Deere Quilted Memory Wall Hanging

My latest completion is a John Deere themed memory quilt - its a rather "big" wall hanging measuring at 40x36" but still really cute.

The sashing was fabric supplied by the client and was initially intended for the backing fabric. When I went shopping for sashing, I found this great John Deere tractor fabric and we agreed to use it for the backing.

But my choice to make the wall hanging a little bigger - almost backfired on me. :(








In the end, I was able to keep all her items including a pair of socks, a knitted cap and the little cap the baby Brantley wore in the hospital. The exposed tabs were made from the same sashing and binding fabric. 

Current Memory Quilt for a little boy

Here is my most recent completed quilt and I loved the cuddle backing to the touch but it really was difficult to quilt because the meandering would run against the nap of the fabric. However, in the end its beautiful!!

You can purchase your own custom memory quilt in my Etsy shop by following this link:

Etsy Shop

You can check out my FaceBook business page for more pics of the progress.

Let's Hear it for the Boys!!

So after making all those girl quilts... I figured the boys can't be left out and made a few for the little boys that might need a little donation quilt. My first stop was for some Disney inspiration with some Mickey Mouse!

But this time, after suggestions from another lady from the Project Linus group, to keep the quilting a bit more simple and larger. I guess the tighter quilting makes for a stiffer quilt. Now with cotton batting, I would have to agree but the poly-batting is so "fluffy" that even the tighter quilting doesn't seem to make the quilt feel stiff. I am sure the little one will love it nonetheless.

And aside from my son's quilt, I have not made many boy themed quilts. It was a happy change to work with only blue fabrics.

More for Project Linus!

Well, I didn't give up after just one donation quilt. LOL

Here is another quilt I made from a bundle of fabrics that were given to me as a present. I thought they looked fun and had just seen a quilt with HSTs (half square triangles) that were just randomly sorted out and sewn together.

Now while I not much for "random" I did lay the pieces out on the ground to keep the like fabrics from collecting in one area. It was hard to allow the blocks to lay where they fell. 

But in the end, it was different looking and allowed me another opportunity to use my new Brother PQ1500s mid-arm sewing machine for FMQing.

I hope the little girl that gets this quilt loves it as much as I loved making it. 

Keeping up with the Jones's!

How do you keep up? And donation quilts for Project Linus

I always wonder how these other bloggers can keep up with their projects, family, Facebook and clients. Then I also have classes and now work study. This year I was qualified for work study and while I am happy to reduce my student loans... it is very time consuming. Everything has suffered - my grades, my housework, and my sewing.

But I still was able to get a few things done this year and I am happy with most of them. Before school started up this year - I was able to join the Project Linus quilting group where we get together monthly and share our projects and collect all our donation quilts. They are a great bunch of ladies. If you want to read more about the Project Linus, click here. It is a great organization!!

While I was only able to attend one meeting before classes started, I still collected some fabric and even made a few donation quilts. All the quilts are approximately 40x50 with a simple design and poly-batting that was donated to the group for this purpose:

For some variety, I decided to do a combination of FMQing designs with the solid fabrics. It came out pretty cool - but I hated working with the poly-batting. I think I'll spray baste in the future.

I don't even own a quilt...

Do you know that I don't even own a quilt? I mean, the first two I made for my in-laws and then one for a friend's baby. After joining an online forum specifically for quilting ladies, I realized that there are fabric lovers out there. And that these same fabric lovers will occasionally clean house and sell their left over fabric.

I fell in love with some Dr. Seuss fabric and was able to buy a small bundle. Using Pinterest and Google, I was finally able to decide on a pattern -- the wonky block. I got started right away as the tutorials said with different width strips of my fabric. This is very similar to a log cabin construction which I used for my first sewing machine cover. 

But... no one had mentioned to me anything about "waste." This is a term used by my fellow quilters to describe the pieces of fabric that are original cut for your quilt but then removed before the finished block is pieced together without a use afterwards. Really?? I have to cut away all these pieces and then just -- throw them away. I couldn't imagine that because quilting is not a cheap hobby. 

After completing a couple dozen of my blocks, I tried to start organize them in a random way. Did I tell you how difficult it is to be "random"? Well, it is. Unfortunately, as I started moving my blocks around, I found out that I cannot even cut them randomly. The last two dozen had all been cut in the same direction. :( I was so sad and forced my self to make the remaining blocks in the other direction. And some good came from this discovery, I was able to use much of the "waste" in my blocks. In the end there was very little left over and certainly there wasn't any Robery Kaufman Kona White left to use later. 

For some reason, these first quilts just didn't get that much flash time and I have very few pictures of them. However, I do still have the quilt in my home and could likely take more images for this blog. Maybe I'll do that -- I have been meaning to get to the beach and take some along the walking piers we have here on Carolina Beach.

In the end because I cannot sew straight to save my life, I decided to use free-motion quilting again. This time it is a bubble in a bubble type quilting. You can see it better here in this photo.

My son loves his Dr. Seuss quilt and we use it on the family bed often in the winter to keep extra warm and I find it dragged all over the living room in the colder summer nights. The quilt is being used just as I had intended. LOL

My second Owl Quilt

From all the reading and research that done, working on the bias is SCARY!! I am a perfectionist and the fear of my squares not matching up is enough to keep me from making HSTs (half-square triangles). But my friend wanted chevron and most tutorials show using HSTs.

However, I was able to find another version that uses strips cut into squares and turned to make my chevron quilt. She also requested the owl applique with little birds. And her final request was to make the quilt run the length of the quilt so she could hang it over her couch. WOW!! When I start listing it like that, she seems a little demanding - but she is a paying customer.

Her favorite colors are coral and aqua but we had to add in additional colors for the fabrics for the owl to coordinate. In the end, I fell in love with the completed quilt and I hope you love it, too.

Hoo! Hoo! Loves you!!

I was really excited to read on Facebook a couple months back that my friend was pregnant. She has one little girl through invetro over 10 years ago and this one is a little miracle baby. I wanted to make something for the baby but we did not know the sex yet. Also, she has a love for all things "owl" because she associates them with the passing of her father.

As my tribute to her new miracle and to provide her with a connection with her father who cannot be here to see the little one - I decided to make an owl themed quilt. I saw a few examples on line and began designing my own version. The original owls has dark big eyes that seemed a little ominous - so I opted for cuter owls that I could give a bit more personality.

While communicating with her husband, I was informed that they had not decorated the baby's room yet but that they were going to find out the sex within a month. YIKES!!! I needed to get cracking. I got all my fabrics together and put my plan in action. I can tell you that I made just a "few" too many of the squares. After making a queen size quilt - it was hard to estimate what I needed to do for a crib size. :)

But it came out great and I really loved it. Even my LO wanted to use it. Obviously needed to make him his own. *hehehe*

 I loved how it came out and you can see that I had to put all those extra squares on the back. So, it is actually two quilts in one.

The happy owner was very delighted to get her package and I was glad that I was able to keep it a secret the whole time. The quilt has attracted more interest from others wanting the same thing. The squares are just stitched-in-the-ditch. 

My first quilt for 2012

I conquered my first true quilt, even if its only 56in by 50in. Hopefully, my sister-in-law loves it, too. I was surprised to see that I was able to actually get the squares to line up. I did three borders (maybe not that conventional) and a ton of free-motion-quilting. The small squares are pebbles, the larger squares are full of random swirls, and the lavender border are leaves (first time I have done those and it shows).

The outer white space are feathers with an echo. I loved it BEFORE washing it. But after the washing, it all shrank up and now you an barely see the feathers. :( I loved the wrinkles in general but wish they were not as prominent. I will try prewashing the cotton for my mother-in-law's quilt. Its going to be a quilt-as-you-go because my husband wants it to fit a queen bed. My daughter is going to make the log cabin blocks for this quilt. 

Anywho, here is the final product - hope you enjoy it!!