A Quilt for My Baby Boy

When I found out in March 2010 that I was pregnant with a baby boy, I immediately started shopping for "boyish" fabric to make a quilt for him.  When I discovered this great blue puppy print fabric at my local Hancock Fabrics I knew it would be perfect!  I hit the jackpot by finding a coordinating paw print fabric and fat quarters of a tiny polka dot print in just the right shade of blue.  It's like these fabrics were made for each other!

The quilt top is machine pieced using a Disappearing 9-patch design.  It is backed with the paw print fabric and quilted with straight lines in a grid pattern to accent the piecing.  The chocolate brown binding is hand stitched on the back.

I'm not 100% sold on the brown binding.  It does match the brown puppies in the print, but it just doesn't look right to me.  Maybe one of these days I'll rip it out and replace it with something blue, but for now I'll let it be.

Oh, did I mention that Jake is 10 months old now and I only just finished this quilt this past weekend?  Um, yeah.  I guess it'll make a great gift for his 1st birthday that is right around the corner!

Just One Star

When I read this post over at The Happy Zombie, I knew I wanted to be involved in the Just One Star program.  The idea behind Just One Star was for a quilter to make exactly that...just one star...and drop it in the mail to Moda Fabrics.  From there, the fabulous people at Moda would trim your star block and include it in one of 100 quilts being assembled and donated to wounded soldiers as part of the Quilts of Valor Under Our Wings program.

This was my block...

I had enough fabric to make two red star blocks.  Both are signed with my name and state where I live.  I feel good knowing that some of my work will be included in a quilt that will bring comfort to one of America's heroes.

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend!

Keeping My Fingers Crossed...

...that this fabric magically transforms into a skirt for my daughter today.

Ok, let's be realistic. I would settle for finishing it sometime this week...or even this month!

Let's Play Ball Y'all!

Last summer Bailey played soccer (I use the term "played" very loosely, she had only just turned three at the time).  Much to the dismay of my husband, she was just not that into it.  So this year we decided to give t-ball a whirl.

The game face...

She squints one eye closed so she can keep "the eye" on the ball...

My little southpaw...

 

Check out that excellent form...

She's having a blast playing t-ball!  Her Paw Paw, a former softball coach, couldn't be more thrilled.  Do I smell a college scholarship in her future?

The Noah's Ark Quilt

Well, it only took 7 months, but the Noah's Ark quilt is finally finished and is listed in my Etsy shop!  Hooray!

I found this colorful printed panel at my local Hancock Fabrics store back in November.  I had never quilted anything other than straight lines before, but I thought the picture was basic enough that I could manage to outline the shapes using my walking foot on my machine.

Over the next two weeks I spent every spare minute of my time quilting around every shape in the picture.  I was determined to get it finished before Christmas.  Ha!

What I thought would be a simple, quick project turned out to be anything but (this seems to happen to me quite a bit now that I think about it, hmm).  There are a lot of lines, curves, twists and turns in this picture.  Which meant a whole lot of starting and stopping, moving the quilt around for a better angle, clipping threads, etc.

Believe it or not, I did finish the actual quilting before the holiday.  The only thing between me and finishing this quilt was sewing the binding onto the back of the quilt, but for some reason it got pushed aside in favor of other projects.  This weekend, just a mere 6 months later, I decided to finally sew on the binding and call it finished.  The Noah's Ark quilt is officially marked off my to-do list.  

It was definitely a challenge, but knowing that a child will play on it, snuggle under it, and (hopefully) love it to pieces makes the blood, sweat, and tears I put into it totally worth it.

A Charming Collection

Image courtesy of Twiddletails

I love vintage-esque fabrics that remind me of the quilts my grandma makes.  Anina over at Twiddletails now stocks 100 different 1930's reproduction fabrics and is hosting a fantastic giveaway in celebration!  Click here to enter to win one of four charm packs featuring fabulous 1930's reproduction fabrics.  I could easily see this collection turned into a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt or maybe a Dresden Plate pillow.  Vintage at it's best!

Hair Bows

Yesterday's ribbon rainbow was cut, stitched, and hot glued into hair bows this week.  A teacher at my daughter's school asked me to make five matching sets of hair bows to match five outfits for her soon-to-be adopted daughter.

This is what I came up with...

Now, I've only seen the outfits in photos, but I think these hair bows will match perfectly and look great.  I hope the little girl loves them!