Cherry Sherbet Baby Quilt

 Hello Quilters,

 

Hope you're all having a great extended weekend! Today I have to show a cherry red version of the lime sherbet quilt I made for my friend Cari. This one is a commission for a very special baby. Click each photo to enlarge.

 

 

You can see the grey elephants, hedgehogs and kawaii animals with balloons, all imports from Japan. There's also a Joel Dewberry bird and Heather Ross fish (times two) and weiner dog.

 

 

You can see the back here, flannel, like the red on the front. Satin binding with one corner left open for little fingers.

 

 

These are my two favorite blocks. Heather Ross from the mermaid line and Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail eating blackberries. I tried a smaller needle to see if indeed I got smaller stitches and I did! Enlarge and check out my tiny quilting stitches. Well, tiny for me, anyway!

 

 

Cheers!

Lime Sherbet Baby Quilt

Updated 9/6/11: photo of Braelynn on the quilt!

I made this little sherbet baby quilt to take to a shower for my friend Cari. She wanted pastel yellows and greens and also forest animals. Well there are lots of forest animals, plus some other fun stuff, like cupcakes! Yum. I used my favorite piecing method: fussy cut the inside square and then add enough fabric around to make the right size. Oh, all hand piecing and quilting as usual, of course.

I happened to have the perfect backing fabric in my stash, this chandelier print by Tina Givens. It is just the right color of yellow-green. I used yellow satin for the binding and it's perfect too.

Here's a boy for scale.

And a closeup of one of my favorite blocks, some dancing frogs by Heather Ross via Kokka Japan. That's Cari, Clay and the baby in the meadow. I previously used the rabbit family from the same fabric in this modern baby quilt for another friend, Sarah.

These colors don't really match each other but I wanted to put the owls in some trees :)

And of course some old Heather Ross prints on top, because I love them, and a cute big doggie.

Enjoy!

Four Patch Baby Quilt Finish

I had so much time over the Thanksgiving break that I whipped up this simple little baby quilt at Mr. Babyquilts' request for a customer/friend of his. Here in slower than molasses all-by-hand-land, you don't often hear the words "whipped up", but I really did! It only took me about four days to finish it.



I was extra proud that I made it all from stash, except the silky binding. I had just purchased those cute dogs and thought they'd be perfect for a baby boy. Yes, those are the same gray Japanese elephants I used for the baby pants I made last month. I even used some of my precious Heather Ross goldfish bags, just to be nice :) You'll also notice Heather Bailey, Joel Dewberry, Jay McCarroll and of course, Amy Butler making appearances.



The back is Amy Butler Love dots that I had in stash for just such an occasion. I embroidered the year the baby will be born, since I don't know his name yet. Click photo to see embroidery better.

Enjoy!

A Finish - Starry Starry Night

Yay! A finish! A big deal here in all-by-hand land. I finished this Starry Starry Night quilt for our son Corey and his soon to be born son. I found the inspiration quilt on the internet and saved it for years, then when Corey chose it I had to figure out the measurements and directions. It was easier than I'd thought!


I quilted it in an all over diagonal pattern to give it some movement.


Love the Valori Wells Urban Flannel on the back! I love that entire collection of flannels.



Enjoy!

Amazing Quilt History Website

Wow, check out this great website! It's the International Quilt Study Center and Museum.

Click here to go to the quilting timeline exhibit. Click on "explore the timeline" then grab the blue box at the bottom and drag it all the way to the left to start. Then slowly drag it to the right to travel through time. If you want to know more about something, double click the photo. I was really interested in the "silk premiums" from 1890, I'd never heard of them!

When you're done, click over to the Quilt Collection to browse some amazing stuff!

Enjoy.

A Tiny Baby Quilt

After I finished Amber's commission quilt I wanted to make a small present for the baby using up some scraps. To make this tiny quilt I took a cue from my sister who makes these for babies to use while strapped into baby seats, like this baby below.

They are just the right size to fit over their laps and keep them warm while providing a satin edge and minkee backing to feel. Then when they are older, they can use them to put dollies night-nights like my daughter does.


I found the perfect green minkee for the back to match the green in the fabrics. I'm not usually fond of animal prints but the green matched perfectly! I got the minkee at the most FABULOUS quilt store in all of Central Texas. It's called the Quilt Haus in New Braunfels and they have probably 500 bolts or more of exclusively designer fabric! When I walked in and saw the ENTIRE collection of Nicey Jane in every single colorway and print I just froze. My brain said 'turn around and walk out before you spend the rent!' Anyway, I digress.


Here's the back, I just quilted it very simply.


And here it is next to the one my sister gave me that I patterned it after. I LOVE the Heather Ross one, you should click the photo to see it bigger!

Enjoy!

A Finish! Wonky Japanese Squares

It's finally done! The commission quilt for Amber which is a copy of this one where I used Heather Ross fabrics. On this one Amber chose a bunch of Japanese and organic fabrics. I like how it turned out! It's unisex, as her sister doesn't know the sex of the baby yet. Do you likee? Click any photo to see it large!


I just quilted around all the squares inside and outside.


And put little surprise faces in the cornerstones.


Oh! Here's the back!





Edited April 2010: Here is a photo of the recipient, John William, with his new quilt!
Enjoy!

Gabby

Today's cat, #2 of 5, is Gabby! Gabby was described to me as solid black with gold eyes and a brown collar. Isn't she just sweet?

Half Done!

It's half done! The ginormous quilt I'm making for myself and Mr. Babyquilts is halfway there. It's ten 12-inch blocks by nine 12-inch blocks, not counting sashing!

This is "his" half, the blue and green half, all sashed and ready to go. It also includes the 'snuggling' row on the right which are blue/green combined with red/pink. Now all that's left to do is four more rows of red/pink to attach to the right hand side.


Here's a six year old child and a koala for scale. It's huge! Click a photo to see the square themes better.

You know, it looks all innocent and fine and dandy now, but boy was I mad last night. I carefully pinned and sewed one whole sashing the long way, all the way down. Then when I opened it out, guess what, it was sewed onto the wrong side of the block strip, so the seam was on top! I was hopping mad! I had to then hand rip the whole seam, re-pin and re-sew. It took me several hours to get back to where I should have been. Oh well. Days like that really make me want to buy a machine, especially with all of these straight seams. I like piecing the blocks by hand, but sashing and borders by hand are straight up boring!


Wolfie says hi. "Hi!"

Today I am Loving...

These quilts! Click the link to check them out, they so rock. Kind of like my current one, but with a huge improvement using the white framing. It makes a world of difference. Perfect! Love the light grey and love the munki of course. Good job filminthefridge!

I actually like the backing on her other munki quilt (above) better, the one in her shop. I love it! So inspiring. Click to see it bigger, it looks way better. Also, check out her cute shop!

Quilt Festival Entry - Finn's Quilt!

Hello All and welcome to my blog! I do everything by hand, I don't own a machine. So feel free to browse the completed quilt gallery on the left side of my blog for more hand made goodness!

For the Fall Quilt Festival, I'm featuring a quilt I made last month for my friend and boss, Angela (no blog). It's an all Heather Ross wonky square quilt, with gnome cornerstones and a pieced back. Above is Finn with the quilt!

Here are the front and the back, click to see bigger - they really do look better bigger!


And in case you're wondering who's back there holding it, it's this guy:


When I was quilting it, I got the idea to put in a small quilting detail on every block. Here I circled the mom and boy (that's Finn and Angela), the girl on top of the VW (that's Avery) and the man throwing the ball to the dog (that's Scott and Bailey the dog). The whole family! Minus the cats and ferret, of course. Click to enlarge.


On this one, I highlighted a fish - can you see the highlighting?


And here, a gnome.


It's hard to see, but on this one I wrote the baby's name. I quilted it instead of putting on letters like I usually do, since I'm now superstitious about "shouting" the baby's name on a quilt until he's older. This is more like a whisper so you don't alert bad luck that he's here. Click the photo to read the name.


Here's a closeup of the back so you can see the quilting better. Thanks to Chen for the idea to add white strips around the brown. I didn't add a detail to the ones on the back as they were quilted over.


Enjoy and thanks for visiting!

Wendy

Night Prowling Cats on a Fence

Hello all!
Hope everyone is having a great week. Today I'd like to feature a quilt I made for my boss and very good friend, Angela, and her daughter Avery. The photos were taken outside so they sort of "wash out" the real colors a bit, the blue background is actually very evocative of the night sky when seen in lower light. These are supposed to be cats out on the prowl by moonlight all lined up on fences (you can't see the fences of course because it's dark!).

Angela asked me to make this couch snuggle quilt for her and her daughter, using fabrics from some of Avery's favorite dresses she no longer wore. All of the cats were made using these dress fabrics, except for the red and purple floral, we bought that new. I love how it turned out. The yellow moon fabric I used as binding gives it a glow of moonlight around the edges. All of the cats have black button eyes, except for two which have blue eyes. These represent Angela and her daughter, but it's a secret! Shhh! I also quilted their names into the border and quilted in the ditch around the cats.

Enjoy!
Wendy