Strip Pieced Baby Quilt finish!

I've had a busy week in my sewing room.  I'm gearing up to work on some custom quilts using baby clothes and needed to get some loose ends tied up before I get myself going on those.  But before I get into that - let's have a winner for my giveaway from Monday!  I had 16 people leave a comment on my blog post, so I went to random.org and plugged in the numbers...and the winner was comment number three!

Congrats, Mary O - I sent you an e-mail so you can let me know where to send that pretty spool of thread :)  Thank to everyone who took the time to enter - I appreciate it!  I'm having a little difficulty with blogger not sending notifications of all the blog posts to my e-mail so I couldn't answer all the comments :(   But I do appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to do that, and for reading my blog.

So - one of the quilts I've been working on this week is made from 2 1/2 inch strips.  I finished the top earlier this spring, but haven't had time to get it quilted, so now seemed the perfect time to get it out and finish it up.  I found the backing in a pile of fabrics I had purchased for a different project that ended up differently than I originally planned - yay for using up some stash!

Aren't the colors fun and cheerful?

It took almost exactly two bobbins of thread to do the machine quilting and the binding for this quilt.  I used Aurifil Natural White (2021) 50 wt because it just blended in so nicely with all the brights, giving this quilt great texture in a subtle way.  I did loops and heart quilting because it's so much fun!

It's hard to get a good full on shot of it, but you can see how fun and colorful it turned out!

I have this quilt available for sale in my Etsy shop - you can just click the picture to go there!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend and get to do some quilting!  I have a stack of quilting ready to go for my weekend - so I'm off to get started.

November UFO number one: Monkey Around In Jungle Fabric

I finally feel caught up enough to give myself permission to work on some of my own projects over the weekend - I kept walking by the quilts tops I had ready to quilt and sighing because I couldn't get to them last month!  I am challenging myself to get as many of these quilted as I can by the end of the year.  Somehow I keep trying to clean out my sewing room and it feels like quicksand, the more I thrash around trying to get free, the deeper in I get!

This is another version of my Monkey Around pattern.  I made the top as a shop sample and it never got quilted - then when it came home it got put in the finished top drawer and it took a while before it got chosen to be finished!  I believe the jungle print (as well as some of the others) is a Sandy Gervais fabric.  The green fabric has a subtle banana print - don't know how many times I've picked up this piece to use in something than put it back because I didn't want banana's in my quilt.

Part of challenging myself to get these tops all quilted up is also challenging myself to use up the odds and ends of thread that I have accumulated.  You know, those partially used spools that you don't know if you have enough to quilt a whole quilt with?  I wasn't sure if I had enough of either of these greens, so I used one on the top and one for the bobbin thread.  And you know what?  I had plenty to finish the quilt and still have thread on both spools!

I quilted this in a swirl pattern, the orange swirly design in the trees inspired my choice.  My goal for most of these quilts is just to get them finished, then put them up for sale in my Etsy shop.  I purchased a roll of 80% pellon batting and am really liking the feel of it.  It's a little loftier than Warm and Natural.  I haven't washed one up yet to see how I like it after washing it.  I'm a big fan of the way Warm and Natural crinkles up after washing!  I'll let you know when I do get a quilt washed with the Pellon, though.

 My photo prop, Mr Bear approves of this quilt!  He says it would be perfect for a little boy to snuggle with!

The backing is a reproduction print with toys.  Do you know how hard it is to find a fun back that doesn't have flowers?  I was so pleased to pull this one out of my stash!  It's now available for purchase:  Monkey Around in the Jungle.  It would make a great Christmas gift for a little boy, I think!  47 x 47 is a great toddler quit size.  Use the coupon code ILUVQUILTS to save 10% - or look for my storewide sale next week.  Time to get some quilts sold and off to new homes!

Saturday Summary

Well, it's been another busy week here!  I managed to complete and deliver a custom order quilt made from baby clothes, worked on a peacock wedding gown, and completed a few other random sewing projects!

The baby quilt came out great, but my pictures were definitely lacking.

The color palette was so sweet, pink, gray and mint green.  It was challenging finding some fabrics to go with it, but I did!  The pink and gray chevron was used for the back as well as the border.

It was so much fun to actually be able to deliver it in person!  Ella was visiting Coos Bay and came up to pick up her quilt this morning.  She said it was beyond her expectations, which delighted me, I hope to be able to make more quilts for her in the future!

Here is a picture of the "peacock" wedding dress.  

The colored strips were added to create this fun look!  The tulle was cut in spirals and sewn in straight lines down the skirt, so it wasn't too hard to replicate the spirals  and add the colored tulle in between the rows of white.  

That was an interesting job!  

I also made this monogramed journal cover:

Looks like next week will be a busy one as well - I have 3 identical custom quilts to finish up (feathered stars, very pretty!) some wedding gowns to bustle, a custom curtain job as well as getting ready for the Island Batik "Summer in the Country" blog hop!  Here is the list of participants so you can join in on the fun:

8/17     Island Batik!

8/18     KISSed Quilts
8/19     Kauffman Designs
8/20     Adele Mogavero
8/21     MooseStash Quilting
8/22     Pamela Quilts
8/23     Freemotion by the River
8/24     The Patchwork Pearl
8/25     Fun Threads Designs
8/26     For Quilts Sake
8/27     Lemon Tree Snippets
8/28     Bejeweled Quilts
8/29     Tamarinis
8/30     KISSed Quilts – Part 2
8/31     Beaquilter
9/1       Purrfect Spots Designs
9/2       Maria Michaels Designs
9/3       Mary Mack Made Mine
9/4       Made In Scraps
9/5       Happy Cottage Quilter

Don't forget, you have a few more hours to enter into my second August Giveaway if you haven't already!  Check back in tomorrow for Giveaway #3!

Travel Themed Baby Quilt 2

This is the second travel themed baby quilt - the border fabric in this one is so cute!

As you can see, this one is a bit brighter!  I thought the yellow was a perfect accent for it.  Some of the fabrics in the center are from the Riley Blake detour line.  I got a charm pack of that and split it between the two quilts.  I am trying to find out who makes the border print because it is so adorable - I know that there are some of you who would love to have some of it!

 I tried to keep the fabrics a little more bright and cheery on this version of the quilt.  I used my Baby Nines pattern for this one as well.  It's super easy and fast to make!  Plus I love playing with charm squares for a scrappy look.

Make sure you take a look at Connie's Our Favorite Things blog post today - her sewing space is so charming!  And if you haven't already, go back and look at mine - comment to be in a drawing to win a strip bundle of Island Batik fabric!  I will draw on Friday, so please make sure you get your name in for the drawing.  Also look for an announcement of the plans I have for August - another blog hop and some birthday fun coming up!

Travel Theme Baby Quilt

I love getting custom order requests, and baby quilts are the most fun of all!  This request was for a travel themed quilt.  I do have some fun Paris fabrics, but needed more international landmarks for my quilt so I got to go shopping for fabric - woohoo!  I found a couple of prints that I thought would work for the feature fabric so I bought a yard each of them.  I ended up making two quilts because I couldn't decide which one I liked best!

Here is the first one.  I thought this one looked more earth toned.  It is supposed to be gender neutral, so I think I hit the mark on this one for sure!  I just did my usual Baby Nines - very simple, but a fun way to use a variety of fabrics.

I remembered to add one of my tags to the corner this time.  I've seen some really cute ones you can order, but I made these using printable fabric with a bit of fray-check on the sides.  I have quite a few more to use up.  I think next time I will order some cute ones, but these work for now!

I think it turned out lovely!  The machine quilting is loops in a gold Auriful 50 weight thread.  Just a bit less than 2 bobbins worth for this size, so the quilting doesn't take too long.

Today I will quilt the other quilt and you will see how different it looks even though I've used many of the same fabrics.

Today is Christine's turn on the Our Favorite Things blog hop - she does a great job making use of the limited space she has for quilting!  Here is Christine's post.  She also has a Juki, and says it is fast and furious - that's why I love mine!  I guess I'd better go do some fast and furious quiting and finish up that second baby quilt now, have a great day and make sure to hop on over to Christine's blog - she is having a giveaway as well.

Giraffes, Elephants and Hippos are finished!

Thanks for this finish has to go to Project Quilting!  This weeks challenge was to finish a UFO - the hardest thing about that for me, was deciding which one.  Since this was the quilt I intended to finish for my UFO challenge in December and I did not get it done, I thought it was a good idea to work on it.

The first thing I had to do was to piece my back.  I had a nice chunk left from the original yardage of the fabric in the borders (Michael Miller's Zoology in black) that I wanted to use, plus another largish size orange stripe that I thought would work, plus a strip of the fabric I used in the narrow borders.  Since the Zoology piece wasn't quite long enough I cut it in two pieces and inserted the strip of the border fabric.

Since the stripe was about 27 inches by the width of fabric I cut it in half and sewed the two pieces together to make a large enough piece to add to the side of this.  It was the perfect size at that point for the back!

At this point I had to dig through my batting box, and ended up having to piece this as well!  I was glad I found a strip that was just big enough to add to the piece that was not quite large enough.  I got the layers pinned andstarted quilting.  I though t about using a fun lime green thread, but ended up going with the slate gray, and think that it was a great choice!  I just quilted this in a large meander since I just wanted to get it finished up.  I think part of the reason this has been a UFO for so long is the fact that I just could not figure out how I wanted to quilt it.  The allover design looks just fine on it!

 It was a rainy day today, so a bit hard to get the right lighting....

 When I finished the quilting I realized I had managed to get the backing on upside down.  Whoops!

 Here is a close-up so you can see how all the animals are blanket stitched down.  They were fused first with fusible web.

Hurray for a finished UFO...A month and a week late, but I got it done!  I am still working on my November quilt (hand-quilting), and it should be finished up as well before long.   Still thinking about my goal for this year, but I have something in mind.  

This quilt is available in my Etsy Shop - here!