Baby Callen

Baby Callen

A friend of mine had a baby boy last week - her second one.  She waited 3 years for this little miracle and he's finally here!  Since second children tend to get hand-me-downs I modified a fat quarter pattern to make this crib sized quilt for Baby Callen.

Christmas Stockings

A few years ago, I started a tradition of making stockings for each of my cousins when they get married. However, I just got ours done in time for Christmas this past year. The picture doesn't look great - I blame it on the cloudy day and poor lighting in our house - but they did turn out cute!
I also finished these two in time for my cousin's shower tomorrow.

I'm done, I'm done, I'm DONE!

My blogging has fallen behind but . . .    This morning I finished the binding on my mom's quilt JUST in time for Christmas. We spent the night with my dad last night and today we'll head to my mom's for dinner. It took me an entire year to work on this quilt (with interruptions for the baby quilt and to finish our Christmas stockings). I lost track of the number of hours sometime after I reached 80. It was worth it though because it is going to look great in my mother's southwestern theme bedroom.

I got the pattern idea from:
www.swdecoratives.com but had to change the size and borders quite a bit.

 

My mom's cat is already enjoying the quilt

 

More Quilting

My little sister's quilt

 

The large squares were 8 1/2"
The rectangles 4 1/2" x 8 1/2"
The small squares 4 1/2"
I made this two summers ago for my sister's graduation gift but never took a picture of the finished product. Finally, here it is!

Baby Lincoln's Quilt

My sister-in-law is having a baby boy in January. This is the quilt I made for her baby shower.

This was my first time ever doing free motion quilting. For the most part it went very well. I got better at regulating the stitch length but there are definitely some interesting spots.

I made the pattern up myself but ended up being short a couple of each yellow strip. Instead of trying to find more matching fat quarters at JoAnn I just did the corner strips gray.

I bought the material first and then created the pattern so I wasn't very precise on the amounts I purchased:
The gray and animal squares were 8 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches. I bought a yard of each and had left over.
The checkered squares were 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches. That used a very small amount of fabric, less than the fat quarter I bought.
The rectangles were 2 1/2 by 8 1/2. I bought a fat quarter of both yellow colors. I was 2 strips short on each color. 1/3 of a yard would have been better.
I used warm and natural, 100% cotton, prepackaged crib size batting which was just about perfect with a little left on the side and a few inches on the bottom.
The binding I pieced together strips of 2 1/2"

My newest project

 This is my recent project that has been keeping me from updating my blog.  My mom has a "Southwestern" theme in her bedroom.  I googled for patterns and found one for free...sweet! It's from Kokopelli Quilting Company. Only problem is it was a small quilt so I had to do some calculations to figure out fabric and size.  I have yet to make any of my quilts from a pattern besides the dog "rag quilt". It seems I am not the best at figuring out how much fabric since I'm always making mistakes. Luckily my sister helped me out when thinking this one through.  I was on the right track until I cut WAY more blue squares than I needed . . . whoops . . . we'll see if I have enough for the border but I'm guessing I'll be substituting or buying more fabric. I also used very different colors because my mom likes the jewel tones that are on her current comforter. I found these really fun batiks at JoAnn. I got them on sale and used my teacher discount. { That is one of the best perks I get for being a teacher . . . 15% off anything?! (When not using a coupon) Yes, please! }  Can't wait to show you the finished product. I'm hoping to be done by the time the local fair rolls around in July.

busy . . . busy . . . busy . . .

It was a busy spring and I had a lot to think about besides moving. I finished my dad's quilt. It was supposed to be for Christmas - or at least that was the plan before I got my teaching position. Things got delayed a bit and I finished it at the very end of March.

Baby Violet's Quilt

I also had to get a quilt done for a college roommate's baby shower in April and a ragtime for my sister's graduation party in June.  I managed to finish all of them on time only because my sister's party wasn't until June 30th. It's extremely difficult to finish a quilt while the person is living with you but I discovered shutterfly books were a bit easier to conceal. I was waking up at 5:30 in the morning to get things done before she woke up to go to work with me. And this is why there were no blog posts in April, May and June :0)

Alisha's Quilt - finished pictures to come later. I guess I forgot to take any!
Click HERE to see the finished product.

Alisha's shutterfly book - I took her senior photos in summer 2011