a pile of finished quilts for the cottage

Of course getting a new cottage last summer meant that I "needed" new quilts for every bed (and any other possible surface).  And it just so happens my girls have a pair of bunk beds in the "girls' room".  Four twin quilts were in order!

I decided to do coordinating but not matching quilts.  They will all be in one room so I wanted a bit of a colour theme but not looking too....orderly ;)  Keeping it carefree! So, I planned two quilts using Briar Rose for The Middle Child's bunks, and then two quilts in a variety of yellows, oranges, pinks and greys for the bunk beds for Last But Not Least.  I got 3 of the 4 pieced by last November's Loon Lake retreat....but then they sat...and sat...

Well,  while enjoying a lot of this over the past few weeks...

....I have managed to baste, quilt and finish these three!

Only one of the Briar Rose ones done, but here it is:

Did a bit of a lattice, and quilted it with an all over daisy and loop pattern.  Bound it in some Flea Market Fancy green seed print and made a simple but cute cottage label, just using a Sharpie.

Then it was on to LBNL's quilts.  I kind of favour these, I admit.  First, a granny square quilt with some stippled quilting:

Loved how the orange binding on this quilt matched the front and AMH back so perfectly.  Again with a label.

And finally, a fun equilateral triangle quilt!  Straight line quilting along either side of the seams for this one.

A happy yellow Kate & Birdie binding and one of my favourite backings...love those big pink flowers! And another label!  Go, Me! ;)

And here are the two coordinating ones together.  Love how they compliment each other.

Phew!  Now it's time to sit back and drink some wine and have a rest, wouldn't you say??  Back to the lake I go!

a quilt fit for a princess

It's been 2 years since I bought my Far Far Away 2 fabrics.

And one year since I promised a birthday quilt for The Middle Child.

And 6 months since I started the quilt.

Anyways, it came one year plus a couple weeks after the birthday deadline, but all was forgiven when I presented her with her own very Mama-made special quilt :) My girl is now SEVEN, and full of fairy tales and fashion and make believe and creativity and helpfulness and caring and so many wonderful attributes. I lucked out getting this kid, I tell you, she is so much more than the sum of the best bits of her dad and me. Love her to pieces.


I finished the quilt while away at the cabin, and spread it out on the grass and had her sister lead her over with closed eyes for the unveiling. Big grins from ear to ear!


She spent time studying all the blocks and declared the owl running away with the underwear as a favorite, along with Rapunzel.




For the top, I used Kate's Fussy Cut Fairytales pattern, which I modified to make twin size. It is a great compliment to these fabrics, and I adore the distinctive floating border! On the back I used some leftover pieces and pieced them together with blocks of pink and green solid.


I quilted with an overall stipple. Man, it was a heavy quilt to move around given all that linen content in the Heather Ross prints! The quilt was hand bound in a Kona solid. Don't ask me to remember which one. It made a nice and cheery frame!

She loves it. I love it. I really do think it is my favorite quilt to date. And it looks fantastic on her bed. Just need to make a matching sham or two! And the sweetest part was, that night as she tucked her in snugly under her new quilt, she said, "The thing I like best about my quilt is that you made it for me, Mom!". A true princess.

Shared at Quilt Story.

Far Far Away quilt top completed

At long last, I have completed The Middle Child's FFA2/3 quilt top!


I used Kate Conklin's Fussy Cut Fairytales pattern, a lap quilt pattern which I then modified to make twin sized. This is a great pattern as Kate uses a stack and slash method which allows you to do fussy cuts with essentially zero wasted fabric. But it is the floating squares border that really does it for me. It is a bit time consuming, but I think it makes the quilt.


I am not yet sure how to quilt this....Kate's is hand quilted but I am not sure I want to take that on. I think I may wait until my Juki arrives and quilt it on that!

My daughter loves it, and has already requested matching pillows!

Linking up to Sew Modern Monday.

Rainy Days and Mondays quilt complete

Welcome, visitors from Blogger's Quilt Festival! Thanks for stopping by :-) Today I am going to share my latest finished quilt, which I am calling "Singing in the Rain."

It has had several other names during its construction, like "Stupid D#*m Thing" and "IhateyouIhateyou," but, Singing in the Rain it will be!

I started this one a couple months ago, as a birthday present for my 4 year old daughter. She has an April birthday, so, as "April showers bring May flowers," I thought this would be the perfect fabric for her special twin sized quilt. I designed it myself, inspired by one of the fabrics of the line. I wanted it to look like random, swirling, dancing umbrella tops!
It has definitely been the most time consuming quilt that I have made in my {relatively} short quilting career. Not so much difficult as tedious...each umbrella top you see here involved the following:
cut, sew, cut, press, square, sew, press, square, cut, sew, press, square, cut, press, applique. Times 48.

Anyhoo, at that point I was going to name the quilt "The Hangover," you know, for that spinning feeling you get right before you vomit...with all those twirling colors I was seriously doubting how this thing would not come out looking like a dog's breakfast. Thank goodness for white sashing, that tempered it quite a bit! So after another marathon of cut/sew/press etc to add the sashing, I finally had a quilt top! And...I liked it {phew!}.

I had promised myself, this time, to do a SIMPLE BACK. If you click on the icons on the left sidebar of my blog and peruse my finished quilts from this year and last, you will see that I tend to make "reversible" quilts, with the backs more intricate and often preferred to the fronts! Anyways, I did tone it down a bit but couldn't resist adding a couple really special features to this quilt back.
All the details have meaning. First off- a strip of orange, my daughter's favorite color. Within the strip, I added some "raindrop" blocks- four, in honor of her fourth birthday. I used the final raindrop as a label, and included this special message:
Happy 4th birthday, L-! I wish you a life full of sunshine, but if a little rain should fall, I will always be your umbrella. All my love always, Mom (date, place).

In one of the blocks I included and image of her kitty, which is her very special stuffed toy she has had since a baby (more on that here), floating off with an umbrella. I have to say the kitty thing really did not go well. I had the bright idea to print using my printer directly on the fabric...thought it would work as it was permanent ink, and even sent a sample through the wash to test it before piecing one into the quilt. Then, when all was said and done and I put the quilt through the wash...well, kitty's image basically faded away. Ugh! So, I used transfer paper to add the image to a scrap of white fabric and quickly hand stitched it on top, TERRIBLY, but will need to replace that at some point as well as I don't find those transfers to be super durable. Maybe will send something off to Spoonflower to try and fix? Not. Happy. I was really disappointed in this, as it was to be that special personal addition for my baby girl. At the moment, she adores it how it is and is none the wiser, but my mind continues to whirl about how to fix this little blip.

But, all that aside, the quilt has already been lovingly adopted by my daughter and, much like childbirth, memories of what hassles may have occurred during the process are already starting to fade, and I am eager to jump in and start a new one :-) I am actually also planning to make a pattern for this one and some of my other designs that I am often asked about- this is something I will work on over the coming months. I think this quilt would be fun in rainbow solids, don't you?

Here are some quilt stats for you:

Finished size: twin (84 inches by 64 inches)
Fabrics: Rainy Days and Mondays by Riley Blake, with some from my stash by Amy Butler, Urban Chicks, Barbara Jones, etc and solids from local quilt shop.
Design: by me
Quilting: stippling by me, by machine
Binding: Green dot from Rainy Days, attached by machine to front and hand stitched to back

Cuties

I love to make things for other people. I feel like in this day and age, when life is so full and busy, spending time says "love" much more than spending money. Not everyone views "homemade" that way, and fair enough- I don't love every gift given to me, either. But it does warm my heart when a gift I have made is received with excitement.

My first set of twin quilts went to a very dear friend's boys. When she was pregnant, I asked if I could make quilts for them, and she was so excited! She was involved in the fabric selection, design and redesign (x3). She even modelled the entire nursery around the quilts, and hung them on the wall when they were complete.

They recently had professional photos done and decided to use the boys' quilts as a backdrop for the photo shoot. I was so touched! The photos are in-CRED-ible! They were taken by the extremely talented May Arason-Li. I will definitely be calling on her to photograph my children, so that I can pull out sweet pictures like this when they are driving me nuts in real life :-)





Aren't these boys the most precious things ever?? Or at least in close competition with their crazy-cute Big Sister!

"Japanese Dinner" twin quilts

Phew, I finished! Here they are, Twin Quilts, Take 2!

I had so much fun making the Riley Blake Wheels twin quilts, and it was fun to start fresh with a totally new design for this set for another pair of good friends who also recently had twin boys. Like the "original" twin quilts, I wanted to make something coordinating, yet individual. To do this, I decided to use the same colors, but vary the design.

For the first quilt, I used a Bento Box design, framed by white sashing. For the second, I used the same concept, but in circles instead of squares. Due to the round shape, I named these "Mixed Sushi Rolls" as a nod to their square cousin. Together....a nice Japanese dinner :-)
I used entirely blue and green solids (inspired by this quilt), just purchased from my local quilt store. I love love love this color scheme! I threw one print into the mix on each quilt top just to catch the eye- the square patterned Monaluna Mingle for the Bento Box quilt, and some Amy Butler Sunspots for the Sushi quilt.

To further tie the two quilts together, I added a patch of squares on the sashing on the Sushi quilt, and then circles in the same region on the Bento Box quilt. These patches in the sashing were mirrored on the backs. I even pieced in some of the patch material in the binding to give the illusion that it wraps around, resembling a tab. I personalized the quilts in these squares and circles with hand stitching in bright orange.

Aside from that small detail, the backs are otherwise identical.

I used the large scale Michael Miller Megatropolis print on the backs, which is funky, bright and fun. This print was actually the inspiration for these quilts....planned the back first, a little "backwards", I know! I bordered the print on either side by blue solids. The print is trimmed by strips of black dots that match the binding. I love this fabric and its soft little grey dots, just picked it up at my local quilt store. I think the black adds a bit of maturity to the quilt and grounds it, as well as really complimenting the Michael Miller print.
Quilting was a true lesson in frustration. I had originally intended to do the Sushi quilt in free motion curves, and the Bento in straight line boxes. Turns out my Bento Boxes were a little more wonky than I had planned...don't know how/why things don't line up when I cut them precisely, and use a 1/4 seam foot to piece, but hopefully down the road, experience will help with that. Anyways, the wonky factor made it very difficult to sew straight lines, because it either looked straight against the front and crooked on the back, or vice versa. More than a few cringes during this one! The vertical lines looked fine, but the horizontal ones were looking shabby, especially since the back panel did not seem to line up (looks like I suck at basting, too!). Anyways, ended up tearing it all out (ugh.), which took about SIX hours. In the end I decided to do free motion stippling for both to better camouflage the glaring errors! Oh, how I long to be a straight line goddess like Rita at Red Pepper Quilts! But I think it all worked out for a reason, the quilts better suit this randomness. This was only my second go at free motion (I also did it for the other twin quits) and I was much more comfortable and consistent (that is a very relative statement!). Funny thing is I realized after I was done that I had forgotten to drop my feed dogs...how did it even work?? Who knows, but I am happy with how it turned out. Especially once washed- so nice and crinkly!

Finished them off with little labels hand stitched onto the back:
Can't wait to deliver these to two very adorable little guys.....hope they like them! I will take payment in the form of snuggles, please!

Sharing with my friends at Quilt Story and Sew and Tell!

Plugging away...

It's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side! I love this festival, it is the reason I started this blog, back in the spring. I entered my very first quilt! Now, just 5 months later, I am working on quilts 11 and 12....see, it really is OCD!! These next 2 quilts are the "Twin Quilts Take 2" that I promised. I will be plugging away on these over the next few days and hopefully will finish them up in time to join in on the festival fun! Be sure to go and check out all the amazing entries!

Back to work!

The twins are here....and so are their quilts!

After 39 weeks, followed by 2 days of labour, one natural birth and one c-section (S., you are my hero!), two cute little bundles of love have finally made their way into the world!

And, at long last, so have their quilts! So, without further ado, here they are:

Evan's quilt...... ......and Sam's quilt! I loved working with the Riley Blake Wheels line. The fabric had a great retro feel to it and strong colors, which made them feel so rich. Evan's quilt was made as a strip quilt, with a vertical strip intersecting the horizontal, like crossroads! I used a chocolate brown color as sashing and binding to add to the "man factor." For Sam's quilt, I modified this quilt design to allow for rectangular blocks, to best suit the fabric for fussy cutting these cars.I opted to use the Wheels blue dot fabric as a base, and paired it with the same chocolate brown sashing for continuity with his big bro's quilt. I was striving for 2 complimentary quilts, but with individuality, just like these boys. The backs- I will abandon all modesty here and just say....I rocked it!! :-) I couldn't take a picture that did these justice. These turned out even better than expected. At some point in the process I came up with the idea of the stop light, using each of the lights as a way to record the birth information- name in the red light, date and time of birth in the yellow, and weight and height in the green. I love how these are now embedded in the quilts as a keepsake. I hand stitched these in brown embroidery thread (though I wish I had used a slightly darker brown), using the same method as I did for the Mckinley quilt. I used a circle cutter, then attached the embroidered circles using Heat and Bond, with some stitching around the sides with Perle 8 thread. The edges are raw, and I love how they frayed up a bit after washing. Quilting- my FIRST go at free motion. I was so scared! But I knew the design of the quilt called for it, so I sucked it up and went for it. This is where I was glad I had a "third" twin quilt.....remember how I didn't like one of the originals, so I made another? Anyways, the third quilt became my guinea pig. During the course of it there were many s-sharps uttered, tons of spikes and loops in the stippling, and let's not forget that basting/puckering fiasco.....Up close it kind of looks like crap (to a quilter's eye), but when you look on it as a whole, the imperfections kind of fade....that is what I love about quilting. So, not bad for a reject. For the second/third go round at free motion on the "keeper" quilts, I tried out 505 spray adhesive for basting, and it was a dream. I know it adds cost, but in the end I will pay a premium for my sanity! Not a pucker on any quilt since (I have used it on 4). My free motion vastly improved as I went, and I can honestly say I enjoyed it by the end. I love how the stippling adds that puckered feel, and the brown thread looks great highlighted against the blue solids on the back. Some people have asked me what I intend to do with the third quilt. Well, when I started quilting back in the springtime, it was in response the the amazing Quilting for Babes program started by my friend Kathy at Magnolia Designs. Baby quilts were made and donated to the NICU at the Children's Hospital from all around the world. I had planned to make 3 to donate, in gratitude for the health of my 3 gorgeous kids. I donated 2 "girl" quilts (my first quilt, plus another), but had yet to contribute a "boy" quilt.....so, here it is. Hopefully it will give some joy to a family who is in need of comforting.

In other twin news....2 more twins have just arrived to another good friend of mine. Yes, it is true. Something in the water up here?? And boys again. So that means...."Twin Quilts 2" will be coming to a blog near you (er, right here, actually). New designs, but (hopefully) equal Awesome Factor. I'll give you a hint: I will be using the stack of blues and greens.....

Linking up at Sew and Tell and the Crafty Soiree and Quilt Story Fabric Tuesday :-)