It's A Quilt Party!

Ok, maybe it was Jimmy's 8th birthday party. But to me it was a giving-him-the-patriotic-quilt party! Jimmy (center here) is the oldest stepson of my oldest stepson. We took all the kids to an Easter egg hunt, then to McDonald's for the playscape and then later over to our house.

I made him his requested strawberry cake from scratch with scratch frosting. I managed to find a recipe that didn't have boxed mix, jello, corn syrup or food coloring at all, which wasn't easy! I finally found it on the blog of a fellow Austinite, Confections of a Foodie Bride. So funny to search the whole internet and find what you want a few miles away. It was very easy to make and all the strawberry flavor and color comes only from frozen whole berries (no syrup).



Jimmy has four brothers, you can see them all in the photo. From right to left they are Gavin, his fraternal twin Tristan, then Jimmy, then my son Wolf, then Linden and finally baby Axel who will be a month old tomorrow. My 15 month old, Gigi, is missing, already in bed. Here they are eating Jimmy's favorite meal, breakfast for dinner! I made waffles from scratch in my 80 year old round waffle iron, scrambled eggs and thick-cut bacon. And yes, every room in our house IS painted a different bright color.



Jimmy loves his quilt!

double click any photo to make it larger and enjoy! Wendy

Jimmy's Patriotic Quilt Finished!

Yay me! It's finally done! There must be thousands of stitches in this thing, all by hand. If I were to give this quilt a nickname it would be "the quilt that almost convinced me to buy a sewing machine". It took what seemed like forever, but was more like six weeks. If you want to see the individual blocks closer up, here are the stars, the flags, and the Sams. Here are the photos of the quilt party where I presented it to him! With cake photo!

This quilt was supposed to be a twin size, but if you'll notice, I put the sashing in only one way and not the other way - it was already too big I discovered. This gave it an interesting medallion effect in the center four blocks. As it turns out, his new bed is actually a double, so it fits perfectly and the flags don't hang off the sides as they do here.

I also didn't add the four inch border all the way around that I had cut, so I pieced it to make a piece big enough for the pillow. I put his name on the pillow in felt letters, lower case. I forgot that I don't want to use flannel for the letters on the back anymore, as they tend to shred. Oh well, I'll replace it when that happens. Also, his pillowcase was supposed to be the Texas flag, but sharp eyed viewers will note that the red and white blocks are supposed to be top and bottom to each other, not left and right. Oh well again! I'd never made a pillowcase before, so I taught myself how from this internet tutorial. It was easy.

I used an orphan 400 thread count sheet for the back and I love it! It's all smooth and silky and sheety. Mmmm. Wonderful sheetiness.... I tied it in red, white and blue embroidery floss. Enjoy!

A Twinkle of Stars

My mom just bought me the book Stars by Magic by Nancy Johnson Srebro. It was perfect to make some stars for the patriotic quilt. I love all three of her "by magic" books and many of the things on this blog are made from patterns I found in them. Her "magic" is using only cut squares and rectangles to make all the blocks. So the diamonds you see here started out as rectangles.

Sharp-eyed blog followers will notice that the blue star on the lower left is the one I featured in this post as unintentionally wonky. I lived with it for a few weeks, but eventually I couldn't stand it and I had to fix it!

Enjoy!

A Wave of Flags

A wave of flags flapping in the breeze, waiting to go into the patriotic quilt!

A Gaggle of Sams

Might it be better to say a pride of Sams? A clutch? A herd? If you can think of a better word, let me know. At any rate, the Sams are all lined up, ready to go in the patriotic quilt. Click to make them larger, they really do look better big.

Tomorrow I will feature some flags, and the day after, some red, white and blue stars. He wants YOU to tune in tomorrow to see them!

Wendy

Sneak Peek of a new patriotic quilt

This is the beginning of a new quilt for a special boy I know. Click to see them larger.

I got out my quilt books and asked him what a fictional seven year old boy might like on his quilt (it's a surprise) and he chose Uncle Sam and flags. I was like, uh..are you sure that's what he'd want? He was very adamant that this fictional boy would not like pirates, cars or dogs, just patriotic blocks. Ok....so here we are! Can't you just hear the Star Spangled Banner playing behind old Unkie Sam there? I guess it's appropriate in our first year with a new president.

You'll notice one star is unintentionally wonkified. I was using Stars by Magic by Nancy Johnson Srebro, and the cutting directions were easy but the sewing directions were more complicated. I decided to leave it. What do you think?



My own little fabric hog/thief Gigi says hi, she kept trying to swipe my blocks while I was trying to get a photo! She swiped them about 30 times before I just let her do it. She's not naked, by the way, just can't see her diaper. Swiper no swiping!



Wendy