A quilt for my niece

I have been wanting to try my hand at sewing triangles for the longest time, and was inspired by a quilt I saw on Pinterest last year. I loved the herringbone pattern as opposed to the more common chevron designs, so I pinned it and then started the process. I bought the fabric, cut all the squares, cut them into triangles, sewed half of the rows, and then set it aside. Once I'd started my yoga teacher training last summer the whole quilt making gig was moved to the back burner for a while.

This quilt is for my niece, Britny, and I knew we'd be seeing her when Carrie and I traveled to California last week. I really wanted to give her the quilt in person, so after Christmas I got back to it with sheer determination to finish it before our trip.

Oh my gosh I loved making this quilt for Britny! I loved thinking of her as I sewed, remembering what a sweet little girl she had been, and feeling so proud of the amazing young woman she's grown into. All those gray and white triangles came together nicely in a true labor of love.

It was so cool to give the quilt to Britny in person last week. She stayed in our hotel room with Carrie and me for the first two nights of our California trip, so I actually got to spend a couple of days seeing her wrapped in her quilt. It was so awesome to see it finished, off of my sewing table, and wrapped around the sweet girl it was meant for.

Next quilting project?
Well, I have a friendship quilt to assemble...

♥
Inspiration for this quilt was found here.
I used this tutorial for a quick and easy way to make half-square triangles.

Just a Quote for Friday

"Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages."

~ George Washington

A quilt for baby Carter

Today I'm sharing a few photos of the quilt I made recently for my nephew and his wife. They're expecting a baby boy after the first of the year - my first official great-nephew (I'm already a great-aunt on Doug's side of the family) and also my mom's first great-grandchild. Oh my gosh, she would be beyond excited for the birth of this little one!!! ♥



Don't you just love these colors? The baby's room is painted gray and is decorated with animals in this color scheme. I was so excited when I found this fabric!

I used a strip of washi tape as a marker so I could sew a straight line from corner to corner.

I can't wait to hold that little man next year, hopefully with this blanket wrapped snuggly around him.

♥ 

A Quilt Square for Denise

Oh how bittersweet it is to post the final month's installment of Fiona's Friendship Quilt exchange. For the month of October, we each made a quilt square for Denise.

♥

With every quilt square I've made for this project, I knew right away what design I wanted to use for that month's recipient. And when I found out that Denise was joining the exchange, my mind instantly went in one direction: Donny Osmond. You see, Denise and I share a fascination with Donny Osmond - a common ground we realized early in our sweet blog friendship.

(Here's the part where you can click on this link and it will open a separate page. Then you can listen to Donny's "Puppy Love" and come back and read the rest of this post while it plays in the background. I'll wait...)

But how would I make a quilt square with our beloved Donny Osmond on it? I tried my best to come up with another idea and kept coming back to Donny. Denise has sons close to Carrie's age...she loves Himself...and her dogs...puppies... PUPPY LOVE. Done.

I used my Cricut to cut letters to use as templates, then traced around them on the back of fabric after I'd ironed on some fusible webbing. The solid background fabric is from my mom's fabric scraps, and so is that little pink heart in the middle of LOVE. :o) ♥

And they called it...

~dreamy sigh~

I loved stitching this Donny Osmond inspired quilt square for Denise. :o)
♥

And I have loved participating in Fiona's Friendship Quilt Block Exchange. I have plans to join all my blocks into a fun quilt top after the first of the year, and you can bet I'll be sharing my progress here on my blog when that happens. Many thanks to Fiona for organizing such a sweet and meaningful project!

You can see the other squares I've created for this project by clicking here.

A Quilt Square for Sian

Hello, dear friends!

♥

It's time for this month's installment of Fiona's Friendship Quilt exchange. For the month of September, we each made a quilt square for Sian. If you know Sian you'll understand the choice of design for this square - Sian blogs at From High in the Sky and her blog emblem is a house.

Sian's color choice was whites/creams/linens so I went digging through my scraps. I also pulled some scraps from my mom's stash and was happy to find a few that worked well together.

I designed a simple house shape and constructed the quilt square using a paper piecing technique. The door, window, and flowerbox were all adhered with a fusible iron-on product then zigzag stitched around the edges. And the flowers and other stitching were done by hand with embroidery floss.

The woven fabric I used for the roof is from my mom's collection and it kind of makes me smile when I see it. When I first inherited my mom's scraps, I saw that fabric and was so excited to make something from it. It's a long narrow piece, and I wondered what my mom intended to use it for originally. Almost two years later, I still haven't come up with something in particular to make, but I did love using a small piece of it on Sian's square.

Sian was such a sweet member of Team Teal. Knowing that, and using my mom's fabrics, I'll admit to thinking about my mom the entire time I was constructing this house block. I just couldn't resist adding a small touch of teal to Sian's square in honor of my mom.

Eleven blocks down and one to go as October will be the final month of Fiona's Friendship Quilt exchange. The end of this project will be bittersweet, indeed.

I loved stitching this house square for Sian. :o)
♥

You can see the other squares I've created for this project by clicking here.

A Quilt Square for Jo C.

It's time for another installment of Fiona's Friendship Quilt Square Exchange.

This month, we all made squares to send to Jo C.

♥

I wanted to make Jo's quilt square with a traditional pieced design and I have always wanted to try my hand at stitching hexagons. These hexagons were the perfect stitching project for a road trip we took back in July.

I'm making two of every square so I can have one to keep for myself, and the photo of the square in progress is the one I actually kept for myself. I made that one first so I could practice, and by the time I got to stitching Jo's (on the road trip back home) I forgot to take photos.

A while back my friend, Becky, shared this scrapbook page she'd made with hexagons and I was instantly inspired when she mentioned that she had cut the shapes with her Cricut. I emailed her right away to ask what cartridge she'd used and kept my fingers crossed that it was one I already owned. I knew that stitching hexagons required precision, so having the shapes all cut from the same source would be to my benefit.

Becky's reply made me happy, as the cartridge she'd used was one I had in my collection (Accent Essentials) and she also told me about this this website she uses for searching for shapes. It's cool - you type in the shape/item in the search field and it brings up a list of cartridges that contain that shape. Very handy!

I cut 2" hexagons from some scrap cardstock I had and they worked perfectly for my templates, and I used this tutorial for stitching my pieces. I have to say that I really loved sewing these hexagon squares. A bit time consuming, it gave me a real appreciation for quilters who have the dedication to stitch enough hexagons together to make a full quilt top!

I loved stitching this hexagon quilt square for Jo. :o)
♥

You can see the other squares I've created for this project by clicking here.

 

A Sunflower Quilt Block for Jacky

Hello, dear friends!

♥

It's time for this month's installment of Fiona's Friendship Quilt exchange. For the month of July, we each made a quilt square for Jacky. Now, there's one person I know on this planet who loves sunflowers as much as me, and it's Jacky. So when I read that her chosen quilt colors were rust/terracotta and green, I knew right away those would work well with a sunflower design.

Before I started cutting fabric I made a mock-up of my design with paper. The petals were cut randomly by hand and I placed them here and there until I liked what I saw.

 

Then I cut the pieces from fabric and used an iron-on fusible webbing to adhere the fabric to my base square. A zigzag stitch finished the edges.

The original center circle I'd cut just didn't look right when it came down to using that piece, so I cut a larger circle out of a lighter colored fabric and used that instead. I also put a piece of thin batting under that center piece to give it a little more dimension.

 

Oh, and the solid background fabric came from my mom's fabric stash. :o) ♥

It is bittersweet that this project is going to end in two months. I'm excited to show you my last two creations, but need to wait until the recipients have them first. :o)

You can see the other squares I've created for this project by clicking here.

♥

The Angel Baby Quilt

One of the {many} perks of being me is that I come from a long line of quilt makers. I am the proud owner of a few precious quilts, lovingly made by the hands of my grandmothers and great-aunts.

 

Another perk of being me is that my Grandma Bessie's youngest sister, my great-aunt Jonnie, is on Facebook and she reads my blog {hi Aunt Jonnie!!!}. I love that we have reconnected through social media, and that she reads my words here and knows what I'm up to these days.

♥

I've had this little angel baby quilt since the beginning of my time, and I'd been wondering about its origins. I thought that my grandma had a hand in making it but I wasn't sure, so I sent a message to Aunt Jonnie and asked about it.

I’m so glad I asked! What I discovered from Aunt Jonnie was that my grandma hadn’t really helped with the quilt due to arthritic hands, but that it was a joint effort on behalf of her sisters - my three great aunts that I grew up with and adored as a child.

I learned that my great-aunt Floy, the eldest sister, “tore” the squares. And the middle sister, my great-aunt Mary, cut and sewed the angel shapes on. And the beautifully stitched embroidery that I had long admired? It was all done by Aunt Jonnie herself. It's so fun to know that they each had their own special part of the quilt making process!

Once the embroidery and applique work was done on each of the blocks, Aunt Floy sewed them together. The quilt tops were then assembled and quilted by all of my aunts during their weekly missionary meetings (quilting days) on Thursdays in the church basement. {I blogged about that here.}

Aunt Jonnie told me that they made these quilts to raise money for their church, and they also made them “for free” for each of their first grandchildren with the idea that they would be passed down and used by all of the kids.

She said they lost count of how many of these quilts they made over the years, and she guessed over 50 of them. They even made one for their grandchildren’s first children, and Carrie has this same quilt, done up in green and yellow and not nearly as worn, safely tucked in my cedar chest.

 

One of my very favorite things about this quilt is that my mom wrote my name in permanent marker in a corner on the back to identify it as mine when I took it to school. This quilt was also used by me in Kindergarten as a nap-mat. :o) ♥ 

 

I love knowing the sweet history behind this angel baby quilt! It has always been a treasure to me, and knowing all those sweet details makes it even more special.

♥

A Quilt Square for Fiona

Hooray! I've completed another square for Fiona's Friendship Quilt project, and this month's square actually went to Fiona herself. I loved creating this one for Fiona! I wanted her square to not only represent her love of sewing, but also to represent the way she has inspired so many of our blog friends to come back to fabric.

I had played around with paper piecing when I made the cat block for Beverly in March, and I knew from past experience that if I wanted pieces this small in my final block (finished size is 6.5" square) that it would have to be done by paper piecing. {You can watch this video for an idea of how paper piecing is done.}

I started by drawing a 3.5" shape and mapping out where I wanted the spool to land inside that square. Then I made copies of my drawing, cut it apart and started sewing. {Don't you just love my fluffy pink pencil? Carrie gave that to me years ago and I use it only in my craft room. Love it!}

Of course. Whiskers Jay is always on the scene while I'm sewing. Always.

I'll admit that this block took a bit of trial and error, but once I got the hang of using my own pattern (ha!) it all came together. The duplicate square that I made to keep for myself was my first try and...well...let's just say that these spools got better with practice.

The tan fabric on the spools of thread came from my mom's scraps. ♥

Ah ~ I love this friendship quilt project so much! I have very mixed feelings about the fact that the months are ticking by and this project is drawing to an end - only four months left. But you can bet I already have other ideas to keep me busy when this project is done.

You can see the rest of the squares I've made so far by clicking here.

♥

A Quilt Square for my friend Deb

It's time for another Friendship Quilt update.

:o) ♥

I'm participating in Fiona's Friendship Quilt Project, and each month we create a quilt square to send to that month's designated recipient. May belongs to Deb{s14}.

I knew I wanted to create a strawberry quilt square at some point during this exchange, and when I saw that my friend Deb had requested the colors pink and green I knew she'd be the one to receive it.

My mom loved strawberries {her kitchen was decorated with them}, and Deb was a sweet member of Team Teal, so it felt even more right that she would receive this square. And! The best part? All of these fabrics came out of my mom's scraps!

I created strawberry and leaf shapes and traced around them on the back of fabric after I'd ironed on some fusible webbing. Here's a little tip if you use this fusible stuff - it's tough to peel from the edges without fraying your fabric a little, so I take a straight pin and scratch the surface in the center. That makes a nice little cut that you can work your fingers into and peel off from the center of the shape.

And speaking of fraying, I also use this handy stuff called Fray Check on the edges of my squares that I will be handling more than normal. I knew I wanted to do a little hand stitching on this piece, and I didn't want the edges to look frayed and tattered, so I added a little Fray Check to the sides to keep them neat and tidy. This stuff is also great for the ends of ribbons that tend to unravel.

I loved making this quilt square for Deb, and I know my mom would be so very pleased that I was able to use her fabrics to make it.

♥
{You can see other quilt squares I've made for this exchange by clicking here.}

This friendship quilt...

When I signed up to participate in Fiona's Friendship Quilt Project I knew that I would need to create some extra blocks in order to make my final quilt a larger size. So every month when I make a square to send to that month's designated recipient, I make a duplicate square to keep for myself.

With the exception of Beverly's quilt block in March, all of my duplicate blocks have been made from the same fabric as the recipient's. I didn't have enough of Beverly's fabric to make two blocks, so I created one to keep for myself with a gray cat to represent my Whiskers Jay. {You can find the pattern for this kitty-cat block here.}

April was the month designated for me to receive squares from the other participants in the exchange. Imagine my surprise last week when, on my birthday, I received a package from Fiona in the mail. Not only did her package include a quilt square from her, but there were seven other squares from sweet blog friends who created them in honor of Team Teal! Oh my gosh - I was speechless when I opened that envelope! And I have also received surprise squares from two more Team Teal members since then.

My final quilt top is going to be the epitome of a friendship quilt, and I am absolutely blown away by the love and generosity of my blog friends! I will share more about all of the squares I received in the future. :o) ♥

This quilt block exchange runs through the month of October, so I'm planning on assembling my quilt top after the holiday season. It seems weird to have a sewing project already on my list of things to do in 2015, but oh how I look forward to that!

♥

PS: You can see all of the quilt blocks I've created so far by clicking here.