The Crib Quilt That Was The Greatest Adventure

My closest and most cherished friend is expecting her first baby and I was beyond honored that she entrusted me with the task of creating her baby's crib quilt. But what made it my greatest adventure? This quilt took me completely out of my comfort zone, and in the end I fell in love with the finished product. 

My friend sent me a large selection of fabrics that she liked and wanted as many prints and colors that we could get into the quilt. At first I was daunted by the task at hand but once all the fabrics arrived they fell into place. I spread them out on the floor and started grouping them and suddenly a whole pattern popped into my brain. 

As I stitched each piece together, and then each row, I found myself falling in love with every fabric and the quilt as a whole. Everything just started to work so well together.

The quilting lines also just came to me while looking at the pieced top. I knew I wanted the large rectangles to really stand out and I wanted the thin repeating strips to flow through the quilt. Some straight line quilting through the larger rows and wavy lines in the thin strips brought the whole quilt together.

I was so nervous and excited to gift this quilt and am so very pleased to report that my friend was very happy with it. I am hoping it will wrap her baby in all the love that we have for her family!

I couldn't just stop at one for my dearest friend so, I decided to make a small surprise for her husband to open as well. He is a huge Buffalo Bills fan but finding Bills goodies in our neck of the woods is not easy to do. So I created a small baby quilt for him.

I love appliqueing so this one was a lot of fun to put together. There is something so satisfying about creating images from fabric. I simply created the Bills logo on the top portion of the quilt and then wrote their name in white applique on the bottom portion.

Echo quilting was perfect for making the logo pop from the quilt.

Some basic straight line quilting finished off the bottom portion. I lined the back in a super soft minky fabric for a little bit of textured fun while doing tummy time on the floor.

I cannot believe I was able to finish these two quilts as quickly as I did but they were such a pleasure to stitch out. And I think I will have to take more adventures with lots of prints in the near future! 

Until next time . . . happy sewing!

Monkeying Around In July

Is it really August already?! This year is slipping through my fingers faster than I thought it would. I would normally complain that the kids are keeping me from work but I actually have been enjoying them thoroughly this summer. We have been soaking up good weather and just having fun together. But do not think that we are spending all of our time monkeying around . . . I have still been working. It just so happens that I was working on a special monkey gift set this past month.

This is my favorite way to work on quilts. I love the generic requests that allow me to really get creative and play! This one was so simple; pink, purple and monkeys. And I really got creative with my free motion quilting this time. 

I created a flower design on the main block and used scallops and waves through out the rest of the quilt. 

To go with this one I made a few goodies. For one, I had to follow the only guidelines I was given; pink, purple and MONKEYS! I never found monkey fabric that struck me but I decided to make a monkey as an accessory to the quilt. 

The monkey pattern from DIY Fluffies was the perfect choice. A little more complicated than my usual stuffie sews . . . suffice it to say there was a monkey before her that just didn't make the cut. 

I topped her off with a matching bow, skirt, and tutu so she would be the perfect compliment to the quilt.

Finally, I completed the set by playing with my newest toys and creating two onesies. 

Not going to lie, the necklace one is my favorite! I may have to make a shirt for my daughter now. 

I am very happy with how this gift set turned out. One of my favorite to work on thus far! 

Until next time . . . happy sewing!