Dog Days of Summer: Another Special Graduation Quilt

My youngest brother graduated from high school last month and I made him a quilt to take to college at Northern Illinois University. To keep the quilt feeling more masculine I kept a simple design with a large focal point. I also made it a twin x-long to fit a dorm bed, which meant I had to clear our living room of all furniture to baste it (please excuse the mess . . . my kids have been busy making memories).

My brother loves their husky logo so I made a 36 inch by 36 inch appliqued block for the center. I also added 2 squares on opposite corners of the block with some paw print appliques just to add some more visual interest.

I did echo quilting around the husky to really make him stand out in the center.

The gray border has simple straight line quilting with just a hint of free motion thrown in on the paw print applique blocks. 

I did some diagonal lines on the red border and some more straight lines on the white and black lines at the top and bottom of the quilt. The finishing touch was some free motion quilting on the licensed Northern Illinois fabric.

The back of the quilt was done using a pieced backing of gray and black. I also added some applique squares that were cut from my son's custom t-shirts that he would wear to my brother's high school football games over the last 3 years. 

I also added a little note to the quilt back.

I am so happy with the way this quilt turned out! It is the first quilt I have worked on in a long time where I actually thoroughly enjoyed every step of the process. Every thing turned out better than I had even pictured in my mind. Hopefully this will get me back into the swing of quilting more regularly.

I hope this quilt will give my brother warm memories of home while he is away at school! Until next time . . . happy sewing!

Missing in May: My Trip to Onederland

Wow! The month of May came and went and I felt like I was off in my own little world for most of it. Mostly because I was off creating my own little world. May was spent sewing and crafting for my daughter's first birthday which was hosted in "Onederland". Every bit of her birthday was made by hand from the invitations to the thank you cards and everything in between. 
But the most important bits were what took the longest. My baby's dress and her gifts. 

The dress was made using the Cottage Mama's Georgia Vintage Dress pattern. And let me just say, this dress was a breeze to sew. I was daunted by how complex it looked but was pleasantly surprised. Lindsay writes up beautiful, easy to follow instructions that make assembly a breeze. One could never regret purchasing one of her patterns! 

My daughter's gifts were the lengthiest projects last month, not much else got done. I decided to make her two memory dolls for the occasion, Alice and the White Rabbit. Alice was made to match my daughter's outfit, using the scraps from her outfit to complete the dolls dress. 

For the Alice doll I used the Miss Tippy Toes pattern from Dolls and Daydreams. Again, a wonderful pattern designer with beautifully written and photographed instructions that leaves so much possibility in each pattern as well. 

And the White Rabbit was created using another Dolls and Daydreams pattern, appropriately named the White Rabbit. I used an extremely furry and messy faux fur but absolutely loved the results. My daughter seems to love them too! 

We are now getting into the swing of summer and I will have a few more projects to share very soon! Until next time . . . happy sewing!

A Very Special Graduation Gift

A couple of weeks ago I finished a very special quilt for my brother's graduation. My brother is a huge Chicago Blackhawks fan so I knew I had to create a quilt for him using some of the fantastic licensed fabric from Jo-Ann fabrics! But I still wanted a little extra something for it. And that is when I lucked out. My brother had a jersey that no longer fit him. I was able to upcycle the jersey into an extra special block for the center of his quilt.

I decided to create this quilt using the quilt-as-you-go method since I wanted to make this as big as possible for him but didn't want the headache of trying to fit all that bulk into the tiny throat space of my domestic machine. So I began building out from this center block.

I love this method as I get to piece and then quilt and then piece and quilt some more. It keeps the project from being too mundane at any one point. 

I made one large mistake though. I chose a fleece fabric for my backing fabric, in hopes of making my brother's quilt extra cuddly and warm. However, I should have omitted the batting when using the fleece as a backing. The batting combined with the fleece made my seams extra bulky. Even serging the seam allowance did not help reduce bulk. So, unfortunately, the quilt does not lay as perfectly flat as I had hoped it would.

But, each quilt is an opportunity to learn something new and this one taught me to be careful with fabric choices when doing quilt as you go. Thank goodness it still turned out beautifully!

And it is just as cuddly as I had hoped it would be. This will be a great quilt to keep him warm on cold nights! A great bonus of quilt-as-you-go is that the back is just as visually appealing as the front.

I attached a very special note for my brother . . . he lives out of state so I thought the quote was perfect.

I hope it will be a keepsake for him for many, many years to come!

Until next time . . . happy sewing!

Elephants on Parade: A Gray Toned Baby Quilt

There is no kick in the butt like that of your husband telling you about a baby shower for his boss with only 1 weeks notice. Suddenly I could quilt with a baby hanging on my arm. Okay, not literally, but there were quite a few sessions at the machine with her on my lap . . . I can't believe I pulled this off in time. 

I quickly came up with a basic quilt design and let the fabrics do the talking. I added the baby's name and an elephant in Minky (I used scraps from the blue minky that I backed the quilt with) on the lower right hand corner and echoed the elephant on the top left corner. 

For the quilting, I also used the prints as inspiration mixing in some meandering, straight lines and some arced lines along the blue and gray print fabric. I am still amazed that I was able to finish in time seeing as I have been having such a hard time getting projects finished lately. I hope to have another finish soon on a much larger quilt! Can't wait to share the results!

Until next time . . . happy sewing!  

A Touch of Hexies

I did it!! Despite colds and a flu bug that decided to attack each of us one by one, I finally played with hexies! And I must admit . . . I absolutely loved it. I think I will be attempting many more quilts with this technique. 

I began with rather large hexies as I figured a larger scale would be easier to work with for a first timer. Plus I loved that these hexies showcased the fabric print so well. Once I had a bunch of hexies prepped I began playing with different layouts. 

I had absolutely no intentions of creating a flower pattern with the hexies. I was actually planning on taking a more modern approach of lining them up in rows but once I laid out the flowers I just could not think of a better layout for a baby quilt.

And so I stitched the hexies together into their individual flowers and began hand appliqueing them onto the background fabric.

Once all of the flowers were secured, and the basting and paper backing removed, it was time to personalize the quilt. I began by creating an applique of the baby's name. 

It was pure disaster. Not at all what I had pictured in my mind. And too much time and hand work had gone into this top to leave it with such a disappointing touch. Out came the seam ripper and I carefully tore away the letters. It was time to take a different approach.

I basted the quilt and began to quilt hoping that a solution would come to me.

As I sat quilting a ton of echo lines it hit me. I would quilt the name. It would fit well with the soft design of the quilt. 

I decided to try one more technique while I worked on this quilt. I decided to try serging all the edges before binding. I absolutely hate binding . . . my binding never seems to turn out quite the way I would like. I was hoping perhaps serging all the bulk down into a neat little seam might help with the binding process.

Thank goodness, my thought process was right. My binding went on smoothly and nearly effortlessly. For once I was more annoyed with making the binding rather than applying it!

So why nearly 3 months to complete this project? Well aside from sickness and a stubborn infant, I had to create another quilt for this baby's twin sister. However, I knew I did not want to go the whole matchy-matchy route. Instead, I created a more modern style quilt with a matching name design and just a hint of hexies!

I am so thrilled that I can finally get these mailed out to the beautiful recipients! It took me far too long to complete them. But I must say, I hope they are well worth the wait!

Until next time . . . happy sewing!

Winter Wrap Up

Wow . . . it has been a long while since I last posted. Getting through the holiday rush with a newborn and toddler kept me pretty busy and lacking in time to blog (or to eat or sleep). Despite the craziness I was still able to create many gifts for our friends and family so I thought I would share some of the items that I was able to sew. Most of it was dolls for my younger cousins that I created using more of the wonderful patterns from www.dollsanddaydreams.com!

The first set of dolls were created for 2 sisters, made wearing their favorite colors with eyes and hair matching each girl. I added tutus below their skirts to really dress them up! 

I also added a bit of bling to this sister with a sequined bow and some tightly curled hair! 

This sister had a plain ponytail but I used glitter tulle for her extra special touch. As a side note, I now hate glitter tulle. It looked like I had taken my kids to a strip club for the day!

The real challenge came in creating something for a 5 year old boy . . . until I turned to my son and asked him what stuffie he would like to make for his favorite cousin. He immediately chose the reindeer as we were in the midst of anxiously awaiting Santa and his reindeer! By the time I finished this cute little dude, I didn't want to gift him anymore. There were many moments where I thought I might just steal him for myself. However, I think instead I will celebrate Christmas in July by making myself one then! 

My final cousin gift was for a high school girl. I wasn't sure if she would like a doll so I tried to make her as glam as possible while using my cousin's favorite color for a dress. I adjusted her bodice to create a more glam looking dress with silver ric-rac peeking out from the hem. I also tried some looser curls to create wavy hair and added sequined shoes and bows for some bling. 

My grand finale was creating a Cindy Lou Who doll for my mother who collects Grinch items. Ever notice that they never sell any stuffed Cindy Lou Whos modeled after the film? I designed her facial features myself and hand embroidered them on. But the true challenge was getting her hair to look right. 

Lately, I have been working on sketching some new quilts to stitch up. I hope to start on them this week! But in the meantime, I did a little bit of sewing for our house. I created a Valentine's banner for our fireplace. I simply sewed some burlap to felt rectangles and then created felt letters and shapes that I sewed on top of that. I absolutely love how it turned out!

I also created 2 stuffies for my own kiddos who requested some birdies. Okay, the toddler requested the birds but he was so cute picking out the fabrics for his bird and his baby sister's bird as well. I must say, he has quite the eye for selecting fabrics. 

I hope to be back to quilting this week. I also hope to take a stab at paper piecing hexies in the upcoming weeks! We will see if my daughter decides to start napping before I make any solid plans though.

Until next time . . . Happy Sewing!

There's No Place Like Home

Today I woke up and October was half over. When did this happen? I've been buried in Halloween sewing projects that have kept me from concentrating on my blog or any other sewing. But I hope to have some fun finished items to share in the next week or two. In the meantime, I can finally share my last project from September . . . a Dorothy doll that I made for a very dear friend of mine who loves "The Wizard of Oz"!

In keeping with my recent obsession, the pattern is a Dolls and Daydreams creation that I am completely in love with. I may need to make one for my little one for Christmas! 

I designed her face myself and hand embroidered it. I also created a skirt that was not included in the pattern. This one was perfect to make while sitting with a sleeping baby on me since it had a lot of hand sewing details!

Until next time . . . happy sewing!