Julian And His New Quilt

This is the fun part of selling on Etsy!  It is a total rush when I get a sale, excitement that someone appreciates my craft.  Getting to see something you made put into action, is a whole different feeling!

Back in April I was contacted by Taylor (also my son's name) wondering if I could make a quilt like the one in my shop, but with different colors.  They didn't have to be dyed fabrics (which is what the listed one was...and thank you for not saying tie-dyed Taylor!), just different and no pink.  We went back and forth on colors, figuring it out was pretty easy. This girl knew what she wanted for her baby.  She wasn't in a hurry.  We had plenty of time. The special day wouldn't be until August.  

The quilt came together months before birth, just waiting...and waiting.  Why?  There would be a monogram patch added after all the stats were known.  A perfect special touch! 

32" x 43"

Lots of straight line quilting, bright bold colors and believe it or not...not one single hand dyed fabric to be found!

And now, let me introduce Julian...

World, meet Julian. 

Julian was born on August 18th at 11:47 p.m. (he seems to like late nights).  He weighed in at 7 lbs. 15 oz. and was 20 3/4" long!  I healthy, happy and 'oh, so dang adorable' baby!

See how he outshines this quilt?!  I don't even see the quilt with him in the picture!  Taylor, you better watch out...this guy is going to break some hearts!

I was very happy that Julian's Mommy took the time to share these pictures with me.  

It made my heart skip a beat!  It made me smile.  It made my day and then some!  Thank you Taylor for finding my shop.  It was such a pleasure working with her!

I would like to thank my friend and fellow Guild member Stefanie.  She was kind enough to monogram the patch with Julian's stats for the quilt!  Stefanie is also the owner of

Cotton Bliss, a fabulous online fabric/notions shop!  Please check it out!      

Pull Up A Chair & Have Some Hot Cocoa

It's crazy how fast the weather can change.  From a perfectly pleasant summer evening, to chilly with a light jacket required night!  Sleeveless to sleeves.  Shorts to pants.  Lawn mower to leaf blower.  All in a blink of an eye!  Or so it seems.

I won't say it's quilt weather.  To me, every day is quilt time!!!!!  I seriously have a quilt by my side 365 days a year.  And I actually use them too!  What about you?  

I will say that I may choose the colors of a quilt depending on the weather.  Spring fever may bring on some lovely bright colors, summer some cool ocean blues.  Which brings me to a couple projects that I have finished to back that theory up!

51" x 72"

The dark chocolate brown paired with the woven stripes is one of my favorite combinations.  The colors become electrified against the dark background.  Kaffe Fasset woven stripes are pretty amazing! Most of the stripes in this quilt is older Kaffe, hard to find now.  I purchased a good bit of it a few years ago, but my stash is dwindling with each project...and I do use these a lot!  

Because the fabric is thinner, I always use spray starch.  Same with Shot Cotton.  I makes it a little more stable and easier to work with.  Unless I'm doing Improv piecing.

The back is Kona Cappuccino and the front is Kona Chocolate.  I machine stitched random wavy lines from top to bottom in a dark brown thread.  For some reason every time I make this quilt, I quilt horizontal wavy lines!  Not sure why.  But I do love it!

As with most of my quilts, I always have a few left over pieces, blocks or panels!  Many times I will add them to the back of the quilt.  If I don't, I tend to immediately make something else so they don't 'go to waste'!  Of course, that usually leads to having to make even more to finish the left-over project...such a viscous circle!

32" x 39"

A sweet little baby quilt was conceived (no pun intended) from those inevitable left overs. Again, chocolate and cappuccino on the front...

...and espresso on the back.  I used a woven stripe for the binding just for something different.  

What size binding does everyone use?  Me, I prefer 2 1/4".  I like it to be a little smaller.  I know 2 1/2" is pretty popular and I use to use that a lot.  Plus, if you use a jelly roll, well why would you cut it down?  Just sayin'!

You can see I machine quilted a geometric design for some of it and decided I had to try some free motion as well.

After finishing these, I wanted to get a couple more pillows put together.  I followed my pillow pattern from the Fresh Quilts feature.  Seriously, I cannot follow patterns...even my own!  Which makes me wonder why I could even think I could write a quilt pattern!!

18" x 18" Khaki

18" x 18" Off-White

Isn't that orchid gorgeous?!  My son got me that for my birthday!  Nothing like a beautiful photo prop and fantasic son!

After seeing all of these pieces together, it reminded me of cocoa!  Yummy, sweet and warm!  

Linking:

FABRIC FRENZY FRIDAY

CAN I GET A WHOOP WHOOP

Pretty Much Caught Up

The start of September has been pretty hectic.  My son had a birthday, I had a birthday, I went to a Quilt Show, spent 4 days getting new windows put in the house and lastly and most importantly, I finished 2 beautiful custom orders!

With the above quietly behind me, I am hoping to stay on track for a while!  That means getting back to blogging!

I finally finished this quilt!  Yay!  After a pretty long process of deciding on fabric, we settled on Rapture by Pat Bravo.  If I ever get to writing the pattern for this quilt design, it would look like this.  For this quilt however, I added to the sides making it larger. 

Something like this:

57" x 80"

It will now fit a little bed for a little girl!!  I think this will take her through many cold nights and grow with her.  Not too childish!  

I included a panel across the bright yellow back and quilted the heck out of it!

It feels good to finish quilts.  It feels even better knowing it is going to someone who will have many, many years of warmth and joy from them!

Since the little lady (she is 6) receiving this quilt is an avid reader, her mom asked if I would include a bookmark using some of the fabric from the quilt.  I was delighted!  What better way to put a smile on a little face...while encouraging them to explore the world with a book?!

Double sided whale bookmark.  I created this design with children in mind, but that certainly doesn't mean any 'big kid' wouldn't love it as well!  Bookmarks like the whale are available in my second Etsy shop:  Twiggy & Opal Too!  I also have some cute little snakes!

Linking:

ANYTHING GOES MONDAY'S

This is crazy!

Finishing a quilt is the best!  Finishing a quilt that I just discovered has been in limbo for over a year is even better!!

This quilt was the brain child of my daughter Britt.  She had a vision.  A very specific vision.  Knowing that I love a challenge, she got me to collaborate with her.  I love working with her.  She is one of the most creative and gifted people I know.  (Yes, I am biased!)  

We started this one in July of 2013!  Yep!  That's right!  I was shocked after going through my Flickr photos to learn that!

This quilt required a few partial seams.  I shy away from that sort of thing.  Partial seams, Y-seams, pretty scary stuff!  It all fell on Britt's shoulders!  And she did a fabulous job!  

So, this pinned quilt hung on my quilt ladder forever.  I waited and waited for someone to quilt it.  Someone who started this thing!  I kept waiting.  Hoping.  Obviously for over a year until I couldn't take it any longer!  I pulled it down and made a quilting plan.  

The big square is a tightly quilted cross-hatch using a coordinating thread.  Very random. The lines are extended slightly on to the blue.  I went vertical and horizontal with the remainder of the quilt.  It mimics the cross-hatch, but on a bigger scale.  

I do love how it turned out.  Simple and modern.  I am sad to say that Britt and I don't do much quilting together now-a-days.  We use to have our 'power' quilting times.  Both machines whirling away on the table.  Laughing, talking and just spending time together.  I think its time to do it again...I wonder if she remembers how to use her machine!  

On a different note!  I received an early birthday gift.  Again, Britt was the mastermind!

My little card!  Guess who's going to the AQS Chattanooga Quilt Show?  That would be me!  And Britt!  It will be the first quilt show I have been to and I'm looking forward to it.  I have often thought about entering a quilt in a show.  This will be a research mission. Could I, should I?!  

I do have a couple in progress quilts to show off.  

This one is almost finished!  I'm sewing the binding on right now.  It's a modified version of my 'soon to be' pattern.  

Woven stripe baby quilt.  Ready to quilt once I figure out what I want to do!

LINKING:

LET'S BEE SOCIAL

WIP WEDNESDAY

CAN I GET A WHOOP WHOOP

FABRIC FRENZY FRIDAY

Graphic HST

I haven't been slacking!  

Making HST 'everything' has become another go-to project for me.  The color combinations, designs and finished pieces are endless.  Just when I think I'm over it...another idea comes to me and I have got to get it out of my head!  Does that ever happen to you?  I feel like I might be hitting the 'enough is enough' already blog posting about HST's, I cannot help myself.  I really can't!

So with that being said, here is one of the things I have been working on.  Featuring more hand dyed and shot cottons.  

The blue is a combination of navy and a piece or two of indigo blue.  

Knowing I wanted to get my graphic on, I started laying out the blocks and began to assemble the top.  I love just grabbing HST's and placing them without thinking about it.  This was meant to be graphic and random.

Quilting this was predetermined.  I knew lots of little straight lines would be throughout this quilt.

I quilted 1/2" lines in the three blue squares using a dark blue thread.  The rest of the quilt I used 1" lines.

I struggled with what color of thread to use on the rest of the quilt.  I didn't want dark blue lines going through the blues and greens so I decided to use a aqua for the front and dark blue on the back (the back fabric is navy blue).  I don't usually use two different colors of thread.  But this time I felt I needed to. 

Always looking for a twist on quilt backs!  Modern and keeping with the graphic nature of the front!

This quilt finished at 45" x 62".  I totally love the colors and the graphic design is just what I was hoping for!

Linking:

LET'S BEE SOCIAL

WIP WEDNESDAY

FABRIC FRENZY FRIDAY

WHOOP WHOOP