Finished Fandango Charm Toddler Quilt

I started this simple patchwork quilt back in May in between all the traveling I was doing. I used about two and a half charm packs of Kate Spain's Fandango line that I've had forever.

I initially intended for this quilt to be for one of my nieces for Christmas, but when my four-year-old saw it, she asked if she could have it. She said, "Mom, it's so cute! It has pink!" (She's pretty much set with anything pink.) The size was too small for a lap quilt, but it's a perfect toddler size and covers her body if she's laying down under it. And since I *still* haven't finished the quilt for her bed, I figured I should let her have this one, especially because she was so excited about it.



This photo makes me happy because it includes so many handmade things in it: the quilt, The Middle's dress, and my skirt. Handmade makes me happy!

For the backing, I used this Anna Maria Horner Innocent Crush print that goes well with the colors in Fandango. It wasn't quite wide enough, so I included a strip of this Joel Dewberry print. The binding is more of the AMH print and includes some Heather Bailey Bijoux dots. I usually prefer to cut my binding strips at three inches, but this one I used two-and-a-half-inch strips. It works with the smaller quilt, but it was kind of a beast to attach. I think I'll stick with my three inch strips.

Holy WIP Wednesday Batman!

Hooray for Wednesdays! They give me a good kick in the pants to evaluate what I've been working on and make sure I'm on track to get the things done that I need to. This week, I feel like I've gotten a lot done. So let's get to it.

Granny Squares

I caught the Granny Squares bug (read more here).

I-Spy Swap

I cut up a couple I-Spy fat quarters into five-inch charms for a swap. I'll be getting back 48 unique charms I can use in an I-Spy quilt. It'll be fun to have another option for my kids to use on the couch so they don't fight over The Lorax quilt I'll be making soon.

Fabrics are:
Red Letter Day White Ducks on Pink in Feather by Lizzy House
Outfoxed Hedgehogs in Navy by Lizzy House
Metro Cafe Toasters Toast in Spring Blue by Monaluna
Going Coastal Crab Walk in Gray by Emily Herrick

Twin Quilts

My nephew and his wife had twins a couple months ago, actually about two months after I had my baby. (It sounds pretty crazy to say that I'm a great aunt, especially after just having a baby, but I'm only five years older than my nephew.) I've been meaning to make quilts for these adorable babies for a while now. They live in Chile so I think I've used the excuse of them not being close to put these quilts on the back burner. But, after seeing Jessica's super cute Baby Blocks quilt, I decided to finally get started and set to work cutting the fabric. In no time, I had two quilt tops done.

Sew Beautiful Bee Prep

April is my month in the Sew Beautiful Bee. I'm having the girls make Mod Mosaic blocks using Elizabeth Hartman's tutorial. I'll share more on this later this week as I get the fabric shipped out, but for now I'll share my test block.

So, there you have it folks. I feel like I put a good dent in my never-ending to-do list.

This Week's Stats:
Finished: 0
In Progress: 10+
New: 4

Quilt Tops Become Finished Quilts

A few months ago as I was preparing for my baby's arrival, I was really getting annoyed with all the projects in my sewing space that were in various stages of incompletion. I think it was part of my nesting phase. So, once the baby was born, I set out to turn all the quilt tops I had laying around into finished quilts. I finally finished the last one just before Christmas (which was sitting around without binding for several weeks).

First up is the zigzag quilt I made for one of my sisters. I started it some time in 2010, finished the top in July, and finished the quilt in November (?) so I could finally give it to her for Christmas. I used a charm pack of Blush by Basic Grey, a charm pack of Bella snow, and some Blush fat quarters. I densely quilted the white zigzags with free motion meandering loops, regular loops in the first border, and then large meandering loops in the outer border.



As I was trying to a) finish these quilts as fast as possible and b) use fabric from my stash, I used a single print from the Panache line (can't remember the designer). It was a hair too small to cover the whole back so I added a little strip of some green solid. The back doesn't look as nice as I would have preferred, but it works.



Next up is the quilt that I started way back in 2007 (my first quilt block ever!). I finished this top sometime in July too and decided to finish it up to give to one of my nieces for Christmas. With the exception of the solid blue (a Kona cotton), all the fabrics came from Hancocks and Joanns. I bought them all several years ago when I didn't think fabric quality mattered. You can really feel the difference when you compare this quilt to another made from quilt-shop quality fabrics.



I alternated between straight lines one-inch apart and meandering loops for the quilting on this one.



This one didn't get finished before my baby was born like I wanted it to, but we've been able to get good use out of it since I finished it. It makes me happy to see my sweet baby with it.



I quilted loops in the white sections and then flowers, swirls, and snails in the Freebird sections. I used a brown and cream dot from the Freebird line for the binding.



My first quilt-along, in 2010, was for a jellyroll sampler. The mister's aunt is like another grandma to my kids so I wanted to finish this quilt up so I could give it to her for Christmas. It was well-received as she now considers herself part of the family. =)



I quilted meandering loops in a red thread for this one and really like the contrast it adds to the quilt. The binding is smaller than what I normally do, so I struggled a bit with it. But, I wanted to use the leftover jellyroll strips, which are 2.5 inches. My usual binding width is 3.25, which I'm much more comfortable working with.



Next up is my final quilt of 2011. I love it so much that I almost had a hard time giving it away. Good thing I love my dad so much.

Finished Weihnachtsstollen Quilt

I started this quilt back in the summer, but then put it away to work on other projects. I wish I hadn't because then I had to scramble last week to finish it. It was a Christmas present for my mom and I wanted it ready for her to have out the entire month of December. We set up her Christmas decorations yesterday.

This was my first try at a disappearing nine-patch pattern. I like how the design worked out and the colors are great for my mom.



For the quilting, I straight-line quilted 1/4" on each side of the sashing strips, then I quilted concentric squares within each set of blocks. I love the design it created on the back.



It was a nice surprise for my mom Thanksgiving morning. My dad told me yesterday that my mom stops to look at it on her way to the bathroom, which is saying something since she usually doesn't stop for anything when she's gotta go.

Finished Coins for Clara Quilt

I had another quilt-related marathon this weekend. I finished the Coins for Clara quilt. I wanted to try straight-line quilting on a larger scale - since I've only done a little bit on one quilt and a nametag - and I love how it turned out. I thought it would take way more time than it did (I think it was only about an hour and a half's worth of work).


I upped the stitch length to 7 and I think the longer stitches are the look I've been trying to get when I've attempted this in the past. I sewed two seams down each white sashing strips, about 3/4" apart, then turned the quilt and made a grid pattern that mostly outlined each coin section. I then added a few more lines to the middle sections.


I didn't worry about marking the quilt at all. I just let my lines be as straight as they wanted to be. It's a bit organic-looking and I love the non-rigidity of the not-perfectly-straight lines.


The quilting really accents the stacked coin design. Although I want to improve my free-motion skills, it's nice to have a quilt with quilting that looks decent.


In lieu of a separate label that I attached to the quilt back, I opted to write directly on the backing. But then I accidentally stitched right through my name. Oops.


I had some solid green in my stash and it happened to match the fabric collection perfectly so I used it with the brown print for the backing.


I tried a new binding method this time. (I've done the binding differently on every quilt I've made.) I've settled on the width that I like (3 inch strips), but haven't decided on the attaching method. This time, I tried Red Pepper Quilt's machine method. It made the front look pretty good, but I didn't catch the binding underneath a couple times so it looks a little funny. I guess if I had pinned the binding down I wouldn't have had that problem.

So far, I think the binding method I like the best is to attach the first part of the binding to the back of the quilt, then I fold it over to the front and topstitch it down. I've gotten pretty good results with even/straight stitches the last couple times I've used it so I think I'll stick with that method. I want to try hand stitching sometime, but my problem is that I'm too impatient. Even though I think hand stitching looks great, the thought of spending hours doing something by hand that I can do much quicker by machine makes me a little crazy. I'm making a doll quilt for my quilt group's color challenge so maybe I'll try hand sewing the binding on that small quilt.


The quilt measures about 43 inches square, before washing. My washing machine decided to go kaput this weekend and not spin the water out of the clothes. The new washer won't arrive until Friday. I love the washed look so I'm antsy for Friday to get here.

Do you wash your quilts after you've finished them, but before gifting them? There's a good discussion here that I'm totally on the same page with.

Make sure to check out Sew and Tell this week.

Coins for Clara Quilt Top

My SIL had a baby back in July. She's the first baby born in the family since I've started quilting so I thought it'd be fun to make her a quilt. I was going to give her this one originally, but I gave the mama a choice between Freebird and Tweet Tweet. My SIL wanted fabric that was a little more juvenile (this is her first girl after having three boys, after all), so she opted for Tweet Tweet. I had bought a couple charm packs a while back to make Crazy Mom Quilt's stacked coins quilt, but then opted to do something more similar to Oh Fransson's charm square baby quilt.

(As a side note, I folded the top up last night and really should have pressed it before taking pictures this morning, but I'm lazy and this will have to suffice. Just squint and try to pretend there are no wrinkles.)


I made six rows of the coins, separated by one Moda Bella Solids jelly roll strip. To frame the rows, I cut two jelly roll strips in half lengthwise and made a narrow border. Then I took some of the remaining half charms, sewed the short ends together and made a final outer border.

Thanks to my daughter for being such a good helper in her jammies. (She turned two last Friday and we chopped her hair Saturday. She looks so grown up now!)


I think if I were to make this quilt again, I would use fewer fabrics so it's not so busy. Or maybe I would just pick a charm pack that had better contrast throughout. A lot of these fabrics kind of run together and make the quilt a bit busy. But, it should be good visual stimulation for Baby Clara, right?

Patching Up Quilt Top

Back in August, I posted about this straight-edge whirligig/tessellation cross quilt that I was in the process of making. I pulled the blocks out a couple weeks ago and pieced them together into a baby quilt top. I needed some comfort.


Making this quilt top was so therapeutic for me. I know this is a tad personal, but since I know many of you understand how sewing and quilt making can have healing effects on you, I think it's okay to share here. A couple weeks ago I was thrilled to find out that my husband and I were expecting our third child. Sadly, I experienced a miscarriage shortly thereafter. While I was dealing with the grief that comes with a lost pregnancy, I finished this quilt top. I'm calling it Patching Up, an appropriate name for a quilt top that came together under these circumstances.


I may add an outer border to encase those blocks and give an edge for the binding so it doesn't cut off any of the blocks themselves. The back will have a strip of five blocks between two pieces of the same fabric. I figure I have plenty of time to finish this one, so it will likely be something I work on here and there for a while. I'll continue to post my progress as I work on it.

Straight-edge whirligig block

*If anyone knows what this block is called, please let me know.*

While piecing Jessica's Freebird Picnic quilt, I played around with different layouts for the 4.5 inch squares and decided to try a version of a whirligig block with straight edges.


I used two charm packs, one Freebird and one neutral. This would be an easy block to chain piece by alternating sewing a Freebird charm to a neutral charm. Once you have a strip of charms 84 pieces long, you can cut in half of each charm, giving you your 4.5 inch squares.


I sorted my new squares by pattern and then by color. For this quilt, I wanted each whirligig block to be mostly the same color, or same two colors. I tried to vary the pattern in each block, but with the same overall color(s).


When I pieced the blocks, I made sure to align my center points and worry about trimming the blocks down to about 8 inches before piecing the top.


The quilt will consist of 30 blocks, six rows by five columns. At around 40x46 inches, it'll be a nice baby quilt. My sister-in-law just had a baby girl a couple weeks ago, so this little quilt will be perfect for Baby Clara.


I've been pretty MIA this last week. I'm trying to finish up Jessica's quilt so I can get it to her next Sunday at our family dinner. I have the free motion quilting to finish (which looks pretty sad when you see the white thread against the brown backing - there's definitely room for improvement there). I'm also going to try a different quilting pattern on the border to give it a little more personality. Then I need to make the binding and attach the label. I'll post photos of the finished product before I hand it off next weekend.

Freebird Picnic Update 2

I used my four nights of sewing time this week to almost finish the Freebird Picnic quilt top. I still have to add a four-inch border in the Nest Ovals fabric, which will also be the backing.


This is probably the most time-intensive quilt that I've worked on so far, aside from my first quilt, but that was probably because I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I laid out the border fabric along the bottom edge of the quilt and that brown is going to make the rest of the quilt pop.


I've really liked how this one has come together. The design isn't quite as clear in mine as in the tutorial I used because of my fabric choice, but I think I like the subtlety.

*Image from Moda Bake Shop, Avignon Picnic Quilt

The binding will be made out of this Nest Eggs fabric from the line. Although the binding will be next to the brown backing, I think the white oval dots will give it a nice definition.

Freebird Picnic Update 1

I finished sewing the jelly roll strips, cutting the 4.5 inch sub-units, and pressing the seams for all 436 of these babies. Let me say that ironing for two hours straight is not my idea of a good time, although cutting before pressing was easier for me. (My sister teases me that I love ironing so much that I take time to iron my underwear. So not true. And even if I did love ironing that much, I certainly wouldn't after yesterday's lengthy stint.)


I thought I might get to piecing them last night, but it took me until 9:30 just to figure out the layout. Here's the start of it, and please excuse the poor lighting. I used my point-and-shoot camera because I was tired and lazy and wanted to get the blocks organized.


Although my SIL picked this design, it was fun to play around with different layout possibilities. It certainly got me thinking about future quilt designs.

Tonight I'll start piecing these units and see how far I can get. Cross your fingers that everything will match up for the most part.