"A Person's A Person No Matter How Small!"

...a Dr Seuss crib quilt

A friend of mine is soon to be having a baby, and she asked how much it would cost to have me make her a Dr Seuss themed crib quilt.  There was no way I was going to make her pay me for a quilt for her baby-to-be!  I told her I'd make one as a gift for her and baby.

So I found a variety of fabrics to put into this quilt...  One fabric was from JoAnn Fabrics, a couple I purchased on eBay, a couple others I purchased at Herrschner's in Stevens Point, WI, and a couple were found right in my stash!

The photos show what I came up with for her baby's crib quilt,
which I named after one of Dr Seuss' quotes:

"A Person's A Person No Matter How Small!"  ~ Dr Seuss

"Dancing Stars"

DANCING STARS

Last fall I was contacted by McCall's Quilting with the exciting news that my name had been drawn as a winner in one of their online contests.  "YAY!"
What I won was a Moda Layer Cake... "Atelier" by 3 Sisters for Moda, to be exact.  

I was super thrilled and couldn't wait to get started making a quilt with it!  I decided right away that I would make myself a quilt, as I'd never made one for ME before.  The fact that I won the layer cake made me decide to treat myself to a quilt called

"Dancing Stars"

... a pattern I found in the book

"more Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts"

by Pam & Nicky Lintott.

 

Progress went quickly, as I was very diligent at sticking to my guns on this one and not letting it end up on the UFO pile!

It took me one week to make the quilt top...

Then off to the long-armers it went, where it was on a waiting list to be quilted.

I just got it back 4 days ago, and finished it off with the binding, took a few pictures, laundered it, then took some more pictures!

Finished...before laundering...

a view of the back...

It is already getting a lot of use (by me!), and I couldn't be happier!

AND... it's Jasper kitty approved!  ;)

Here's a closeup photo of my quilt after I laundered it...

I just LOVE the look and feel of a quilt after it's been laundered!

Didn't the long-armer do a GORGEOUS job of quilting this?!?!

*Credit for the long-arming goes to Meandering Mary of New London, WI.

(Note: For first time washing of any quilt, I use and recommend Retayne to help prevent colors fading and bleeding, especially if the fabrics used in the quilt were not pre-washed).

"Lunchboxes"

Two years ago my son asked me to make him a food themed quilt, featuring some of his favorite snacks and food.  I struggled with how to go about doing this since the only patterns I could find were canning jars.  I didn't feel that a quilt with canning jar blocks would be appropriate for a boy... Haha!

Then I found a pattern called "Lunchboxes" and just had to buy it! 

Today, January 27th, 2015, my son turned 15... We celebrated his birthday over this past weekend, and I gifted him the long awaited for food themed quilt.  I am so glad he still loves it and didn't feel too old for it!

Here are some pictures...

The next two photos are closeups right after it was long-armed, but before binding was added.

The next three photos are pictures of just the quilt top before it was long armed.

"Candy Store" - A Scrappy Quilt and Bloggers Quilt Festival

I'm so excited!  Today starts the 2014 Bloggers Quilt Festival...

...and I'm entering my recently finished "Candy Store" quilt in the Scrappy Quilt category.

 The picture below shows the back of the quilt.
It's hard to see in the picture,

but both the gold and the aqua fabrics are brick patterns.

I used all sorts of scraps and leftover fabrics from my stash to make this quilt.

I saw the pattern for this quilt in my Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting, May/June 2012 magazine and knew I had to make it.  I LOVE this pattern!  Plus it was a fun quilt to make.

My son and I like this quilt so much that we are keeping it for ourselves.  (I say this because I never keep any of the quilts I make...I always sell, donate or give them as gifts).

I'd like to thank Amy Ellis over at AmysCreativeSide.com for coordinating the Bloggers Quilt Festival!  And I'd like to thank the the prize donors for all the wonderful prizes each of us has a chance at winning!

Having Fun With Spoonflower!

Have you ever heard of Spoonflower?  It's a company that allows you to create and design your own fabrics, wallpapers, decals and gift wrap!  I recently began playing around with photos I've taken... one example is a photo I took last year of a bucket of sour cherries... did some editing... and created a few unique kaleidoscope designs for fabric!  I've taken photos of objects...like a wine bottle for example, and removed the background images, then edited the photo using PicMonkey.com to create a cool wine bottle image on a blue brick wall design for making fabric!

Here are some of my fabric designs on Kona Cotton...

 I realize it's hard to see the designs in the above pictures, but you can see them better if you go to my Spoonflower shop and see them there.
Not all the designs I'm showing here will be in my Spoonflower shop, because some of them will never be for sale.  But I just wanted to share with you the cool stuff you can do on fabric!

I have many other designs on Spoonflower that aren't for sale, simply for the fact that I haven't yet ordered a sampler of them.  Before Spoonflower will allow me (or anyone wanting to do this) to make my fabric designs for sale to the general public, I have to make the first purchase to see it in person...they require that I either order a swatch, a fat quarter, or BTY before it can be for sale to the public.

Below is an old auction poster I had printed onto a yard of Kona Cotton.

The poster was from when my boyfriend's parents sold their farm back in 1969.

I plan to make a memory quilt from this, along with some old photos.

This will be a fantastic way to preserve a piece of his family's history!

After getting written permission from the poster company to replicate one of their posters onto a quilt,

I had a Lake Mills Town & Country Days poster printed onto a yard of Kona Cotton as well.

With all the colors in the poster, it's going to be a fun quilt to make!

So...this is just a taste of what you and your imagination, with Spoonflower's help, can accomplish!
Now get out there and start creating some of your own fabric!  :)

A Little Catching Up....

I haven't had much time to Blog the past couple of months, so I'm falling behind on my posts.  Here's just a quick recap of some projects I've been working on and have worked on that I didn't get a chance to Blog about.

 Above: "Modern Christmas Trees" - Still needs a border yet before it can be quilted.

Below: Shadow Box Airplanes - Still needs a border, too, before it can be quilted.

 Completed Christmas Quilt

(Left and below)
This was a Star Point Quilt Guild group effort...

members of the guild made the "pinwheel" blocks,

I won the blocks at our 2012 Christmas party,

and I made this quilt using those blocks as the basis of the quilt.

Quilt binding was hand sewn on by Rona, our Guild President.

Quilt was completed in early 2014

 

Below: "Candy Store"A fantastic stash buster quilt to make!

This is just the quilt top. It's been sent over to Meandering Mary for long-arm quilting.

Pattern is from Fons & Porter's Love of Quiltingmagazine, May/June 2012 Issue.

 

Dreaming of Tinker Bell

For the past few weeks I'd been working on a quilt that a cousin of mine asked me to make for her daughter's birthday at the end of this month.  (She has three daughters, so this is the first of three quilts that will be made for their birthdays).
Pinks and purples were the main colors requested for this quilt, which was an easy request to fill!  I already had the Tinker Bell fabric in my stash, which just happened to be Tinker Bell on a PURPLE background!  So that gave me a great start!  I matched up the rest of the fabrics with the colors in the Tinker Bell quilt and it turned out fantastic!  I am just thrilled with this quilt!  I had a little bit of leftover fabric, so I decided to make a pillow to go with it.

First off...here's a photo of the first block I made...

Next is the finished quilt top before it was quilted...

And here it is finished...

And here's a shot of the back...

...and a closeup of the strip on the back...

Here's a closeup of the quilting on the front...

(Long Arm Quilting done by Jan S. of Weston, WI)

The pattern that I used for this quilt is actually titled Playtime, which was designed by Susan Marth, and it can be found in the Winter 2014 issue of Quilt Trends magazine.

Finished quilt size is 52" x 66".

Silhouette: A Black Rose Quilt

Now that Christmas is over, I can finally start posting some pictures of my most recent projects!  One of which is this queen bed quilt "Silhouette: A Black Rose Quilt" and the matching shams & bed pillows.  This was given to my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas.

*You can buy the pattern for the square white pillow with the black center & bow, from Lilly*Blossom on Facebook and her Etsy Shop.
*You can get the pattern for the Box o' Chocolates Heart pillow free from Sew4Home
*You can get the pattern for the Gypsy Romance (triangle shaped) pillow free from Sew4Home