Hexagon quilt #2

Hexagon Baby Quilt #2

Ugh!! Just a side note- I'm so sick of blurry quilt photos! They make me sad. So, my apologies. Have a few older projects to post and from now on my photos should be better as I have finally purchased a nice camera... now I jut have to learn how to use it and I'll be on my way... to stardom! JK.

Close up on cute baby elephants

I was so happy when my old roommate from 2004-2006 emailed me requesting a baby quilt! I had made one for her baby last year, but it was a gift from me and another friend, so I never got to talk to her directly. It was so fun to catch up, and also make something for her brother who is expecting a baby with his wife. Fun fact, they met at Loyola and used to come to parties at our apartment when they were freshman and we were juniors! Good times. I really love making quilts for people that I know, I tend to think a lot about the recipient as I sew, so it was nice to remember people from my past this way.

Baby's name

We went with a girly yet slightly whimsical feel and it was fun to pick out fabrics! I like all the little objects hiding in the quilt, from elephants, to balloons, to bees, and flowers, and feathers. I hope babies like looking at those things as they grow. 

Headed to Kansas City!

I used a Cloud 9 voile for the binding, which is so soft and nice. I also did straight-line quilting to echo the lines of the hexagons, and used my little knee bar on my sewing machine for all the pivot points which made it a thousand times better than having to manually lift the foot on every corner!!

Close up on the back

I really love the back too, I think all the fabrics are so sweet! As you know I adore this elephant balloon print, the bows are great, and I love that top fabric with the kids and the animals, and I think they work really nicely together, and the pink quilting thread shows up well but isnt too bright.

All done!

Another fun baby quilt in the books for 2015! Thanks, Lauren, for the order :)

Triangle Baby Quilt!

Triangle Baby Quilt!

I've made a million of them (maybe 10 of them, really), but I do love a good triangle quilt! I just think it's a modern version of patchwork, a great way to showcase fabrics, and there is just something fresh and simple about them that I really like.  An old co-worker and quilty supporter of mine brought his pregnant sister and her husband into the shop a while ago so that they could chose fabrics and have a baby quilt made. I always love seeing what fabrics people pick out, and how people combine the fabrics I have. I honestly am always surprised and delighted!

Close up

Just when I think I've exhausted all possible combos, people come in and shake things up for me, and I think that's fun. Two of the fabrics they chose, the red, pink, and brown on, and a grey and peach chevron, are probably 2 of the last fabrics I would have ever used in the same project. They chose a few greys as well, and then I added some Japanese fabrics and a few others from my stash at home to round things out. Also, they hadn't found out if they were having a boy or a girl and I think these colors are a very interesting option for a gender neutral quilt without relying on green or yellow.

Cotton and Steel lions

They also chose this great lion print from Cotton and Steel's first collections, which I think gives the quilt a great pop of color and whimsy. Gotta have whimsy!! Anyway, I love how this quilt turned out, in what I think is a really unique, special color palate. I hope their future baby loves it!

Hexagon Baby Quilt

Hexigon Baby quilt!

I recently got an order for a baby quilt from my friend's aunt- she has a new granddaughter and saw this quilt that I made for Angie and wanted to order one to match her granddaughter's nursery. The only pic I saw showed lilac walls and some embroidery hoops on the walls with blues, greens, whites, and browns. It was cute, and not a palate I normally work with, so it was fun to branch out.  

Half- hexis.... cheating?

I've also been wanting to make something with hexagons for ages, except they are usually hand pieced because of all the weird angles. I did briefly try hand piecing when I first moved to Nashville and was in my apartment for a week without any of my stuff. But... it did not go well. Then I remembered I'd seen them made by making rows, and each row is made up of a half hexagon. Then, when you sew them together they make the full shape. 

Close up

So I made a template that was 3" tall, which makes the finished hexagon 5" tall. It did take a while to make, but it was fun trying a new shape. I also experimented with using other fabrics besides just quilting cotton. I used that plus cotton lawn, voile, and double gauze. I must say these were not super easy to work with, especially the stretchy, shifty double gauze, but I like the look in the end!

CIrcle Quilting

I also had a lot of fun quilting this! I used my walking foot but did concentric circles instead of my usual stand-by of straight lines. I traced 3 circles in 3 places on the quilt, that did a circle 1.5" out from all of those, then just kept moving outwards until I liked how it looked. The 3-4 inner circles were kind of a pain to do, but after that it went pretty fast. 

Embroidered name and birth date

I also hand-embroidered the baby's name and birthday, which I think is really cute. I like that its inside a circle too :)

The back!

For the back I used one of the cotton voiles by Art Gallery and they are so luxuriously soft, so this will be a great quilt for a little baby to crawl around on! I also like how the circle quilting looks on the back, although my pics arent the greatest. Time to invest in a camera??

I bound it in Hoppy Dots by Tula Pink, which is kind of a grey-ish lilac polka dot fabric with little bunnies scattered about too. Can't wait to send this one off to its new home! Thanks for reading!

Star Patchwork Baby Quilt

Star and Patchwork Baby Quilt

Greetings! Well, fair warning, this post has kind of a lot of photos! I just really, really love this quilt and I was actually sad to send it away. My friend's cousin recently had a baby, and her sister ordered a quilt for me. I've known this family since I was in middle school, so it's always nice to make something for someone you know. The only directions I had were to use a little bit of green to match a nursery, still make it girly, and embroider the baby's name on it. 

Maybe my favorite section. Love that horse and carrot!

Honestly, I had some problems for a while coming up with an idea! I didnt know what pattern or fabrics to use, so I was stumped for many weeks. I did know that I wanted to use a Tina Givens print, "Elephant Flight," which is the center pink square in the bottom row above. It is pink with white elephants dangling from hot air balloons!! I've been wanting to use it in a baby quilt since I ordered it. I had also recently ordered some cute prints from the "Wee Wander" line , which are cute kids and horses and have some green. From there I gathered up 8 or 9 other fabrics from the store, and ended up with what I think is a really fun color palate. Though there is aqua in it, and grey, it still felt new and fresh for me to use, possibly because of the addition of yellow and purple, 2 colors I dont generally use, especially together. 

Embroidered Star

I hadnt made a patchwork quilt in ages, so I thought I'd go that direction, but and the last minute decided to ad a few stars in a light, contrasting print, and I'm really glad I did because it's my favorite part of the quilt now. I cut 4 1/2" squares, and then embroidered the name on an 8" square that would take the place of 4 of the regular patchwork pieces. 

Close-up

For the back I used the elephant print, which I love cut up but also love as a large print, and added one row of scrappy pieces I had left over from cutting the patchwork squares. I quilted straight lines on either side of every seam, which actually didnt take that long on a quilt this size, maybe 90 minutes, and then I also outlined each star, which was tedious and added probably another 45 minutes, but I like it so it's ok. 

The back

For binding I used a coordinating aqua polka dot by Dear Stella, which has a slight bit of stiffness to it that actually makes it really great to work with as binding. Although I have recently learned how to hand-bind, and dont mind it, I must say my machine-binding technique is getting pretty solid too! 

Machine binding

I also really like how the aqua binding looks next to the pink of the backing fabric. Its almost a lavender-y pink, and they look neat together.

More machine binding

I kept this quilt around the store for a few extra days before sending it out because I just didnt want to part with it! I was also able to use a few fabrics that I used in a wedding quilt for the mother of the baby, plus a few fabrics I used in the baby's cousin's baby quilt, so I like that they are all kind of tied together. 

In the harsh light of sunset. 

Also, I sewed these squares up in sections of 2 or 3 at a time, instead of piecing whole rows, and it made a big difference in getting the points to line up. Some still didnt, but a lot more did than normal. Check it out!

Beautiful point matching.... and above, point non-matching

I love every single fabric in this quilt, and I love that even though I've been staring at the same group of fabrics in my shop now for 6 months I was able to come up with a combo that felt new to me. It was a fun quilt to make and I hope baby Marie Elizabeth will love it for years to come!

Tumbler baby quilt

Baby boy tumbler quilt

Hello! Just wanted to pop in and share a recent quilt finish with you. An old co-worker of mine from Indy contacted me a while back because her best friend was pregnant (I also worked with said friend, briefly!), and she wanted to order a quilt. It is always really nice to hear from people I know, so I was excited to make her something. She sent me photos of the nursery, which was pretty clean, and modern, and decorated with orange, aqua, green, and grey, which I thought was a really fun color palate. 

Close up

It didnt take me long to chose the fabrics, which all came from my store, and I think are  nice blend of solids, polka dots, and fun patterns, but none of them on their own are really "baby"ish, which I like in a baby quilt. There is a little bit of Cotton and Steel, a few nice Art Gallery prints from the Safari Moon line, some polka dots, and some grey blenders. It took me a while to chose the pattern, and I debated making a "plus" quilt as well, but we ultimately decided on the "tumbler" pattern, and I'm glad was did. It's just a nice twist on patchwork, I think, and is just slightly more unique and interesting. And the fabrics can really shine through because the design isnt overly complicated. 

The back

I was excited to discover that I had a nice print in the store that used all the colors as well, this fun design by Michael Miller, so I used that with a vertical stripe of leftover tumbler squares. I made my own tumbler template that I believe was 6" tall, 3" wide at the top and 5" wide at the bottom, then just traced it out of cardboard and used it for cutting. 

The whole back, and binding. 

I quilted it with straight lines on either side of the angled tumbler pieces, which you can kind of see in the close up picture of the back. I thought that part turned out really nice, and then I used a nice green and white polka dot for the binding.

All her glory!

Although the mom/baby hasnt received the quilt yet, my friend was happy with it, so that's good news! It was a fun, simple, but really happy quilt to make. I may end up doing more of these in the future! What's your favorite easy go-to quilt pattern?

Pixelated Heart Quilt

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Heart Quilt[/caption]

The great thing about patchwork is that it can be turned into so many different things. You can make it random, make stripes, make diagonal lines, and also make shapes, like this heart! I have always loved this quilt, by Blue Elephant Stitches, and always wanted a reason to make one.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="570"] Neon Dots binding and Dear Stella fabric on the back[/caption]

I'd had a pile of fabric set aside for awhile that was pinks, corals, oranges, that little bit of aqua from one of Jay McCarroll's quilting lines, plus the neutrals and the few little bits of neon and strawberries. I thought about making some type of star quilt but never did. Then one my my best friends had a baby girl and I thought this would be the perfect color palate for her quilt. I used 3 1/2" squares and the quilt finished a little smaller than I normally make my baby quilts, and I also fell in love with it and didnt want to give it away. Is that bad?! I realized it would look perfect in the empty space above some of my shelving in the store. Not to worry, I made Mary another baby quilt (the orange and pink one from this post), and I kept this one for myself.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="586"] Keeping watch over the store[/caption]

I really love the way it looks hanging up there, so I'm glad I kept it even though it did feel a little bit wrong... I am normally really good about giving quilts away, but there was just something about this one I didnt want to part with :) Plus I'm teaching a patchwork quilt class, so I definitely need an example in the classroom, right?!

Half Square Triangle Baby Quilts!

Fabric Pull!

Recently I got an email from a friend requesting a baby quilt that will be for a little boy. The only restrictions were that it be modern, crisp, and use the color scheme of navy, turquoise, and grey. I added a little black and white in, and was set! I love this color palate so much, in fact it's one of my faves in recent memory. I have been wanting for ages to try a quilt made with randomly placed half square triangles (like here, here, and here), and so I thought this would be the perfect time to try!

Pieces cut and ready

I started by cutting my fabric into 7" squares and then dividing them into 2 piles of light and dark fabrics (28 square of each). I matched a light square up with a dark, right sides facing, for my favorite half-square triangle method, and drew a diagonal line across the square.

Chain piecing

I happen to have a 1/4" foot for my machine, which is very handy for this method. Just line up the diagonal line you've drawn on the fabric with the blade edge of the foot, and you'll get a seam that's 1/4" away from the line. I chain pieced my squares and then sent them through the other way, getting a second seam 1/4" away from the other side of the seam. Before I had this foot I simply used a ruler to draw lines 1/4" away from the center line, then sewed over those. But this method was faster!

Trim blocks!

I must admit that for the first quilt I didnt trim my blocks, so the seams did not exactly match up. I can get a bit lazy at times. But I made the quilt again, for a baby girl, and I trimmed down the finished half-square triangles to 6" squares. Much better.

Baby boy half square triangle quilt

I just laid out the squares in a manner that I thought looked random, but wasnt actually random because I tried not to have the same fabric right next to itself. It mostly worked out, though I didnt realize until later that one row had three triangles of mustache fabric in it. How do those things sneak past?

Straight line quilted

For the blue quilt I did diagonal quilting about every 2 inches. I didnt want to do anything that relied on the seams, since they were no where near perfect, so this was a good option. I used Michael Miller's Domino in navy for the binding, and I cant for the life of me remember what the backing is called, but it is from Spool, in Chatanooga, TN.

Girls half square triangle quilt

I made the second version in a  really fun palette of pinks, orange, yellow, gold, and a big of white and neon and I really like this one too. It seems cheerful and warm and a good summer picnic/play blanket. (they both measure around 42" x 48")

More straight line quilting

I did the quilting lines 1" apart and 3" apart on this one, which I think I like a little bit better, for whatever reason. The binding is a cute pinwheel pattern by Anna Maria Horner, and the back is an extremely soft Micahel Miller print called Pollen. Sending them off to the recipients this week, so I hope they like them!