Yeah, so I actually made this quilt quite awhile ago but never really shared it. Since my latest posts have mostly been knitting, I’d thought it was time to share this one.
My friend Nicole had a baby girl in July and this is the quilt I made for her. It’s made from 2 charm packs and I grouped like colors together. I also did not over think the piecing or the layout. The quilting pattern is a bunch of little rectangles just free motioned across the entire top.
No joke on the amount of knitting I’ve done in the past few months. No. Joke.
I have more finished things to photograph and write up, but I wanted to share these two hats that were sent to my friend along with the Fancy Forest Quilt last week.
The story behind the hats… So back in the summer, Heather received a hat in one of her prenatal appointments. She asked me to make a matching one for Chad, her husband. I went to my favorite yarn stores, and I even looked at the Big Box Craft Stores, but couldn’t find anything that matched the hat she gave me. Figuring that the intent was matching father/son hats, I made a command decision (ha!) while wandering around Fancy Tiger.
The pattern is the Barley hat by Tin Can Knits which is very well written, even for a free pattern. I was able to make both the adult size and baby size with a skein of Madelinetosh DK in Optic – this nice neutral speckled with some grays and blacks. It is lovely and subtle.
On my Amish skein winder, you can see the color distribution better. About that skein winder. I actually like it. I found it on etsy for like $20 and it comes apart and stores very nicely. About that ball winder – I’m not a fan. I bought it with a 50% off coupon at Joann’s and it does an OK job. It seems pretty small, and winding standard hanks (roughly 220 yards in DK) results in a sloppy looking yarn cake. It works well enough, but I’m definitely in the market for a better yarn winder.
In spite of all the snow hitting the metro DC area, this little package arrived at my friend’s house yesterday. Just in time, and not on account of the weather – she’s about to have that baby boy. We’re crossing our fingers (she’s crossing her legs) to keep that kid inside until at least Tuesday!
Somehow, at the ripe old age of 38, it seems as if all of my friends are having babies. Which just makes me so happy. One popped out late summer, another one is due to arrive next week and two more babies are coming later in July. And on the family front, I’ve got one brand new nephew and another one coming next month! And more babies, means more baby quilts. Which I’m always happy to make.
The quilt is the Fancy Forest pattern by Elizabeth Hartman – baby size. Truly, I’m not sure how anyone would have the patience to make the larger size. Because this one, while adorable and cute finished, was a total bitch to make. So. Many. Pieces. As far as the pattern, it is very well written and the cutting instructions were really helpful. If you decided to make this quilt, follow the pattern suggestions! Even the one about separating the cut fabric into bags!
After making the first two blocks, I got smart and made pin labels to keep track of the different pieces. These are just cut up index cards scotch-taped to pins.
Once I had the pin labels, the remaining forest friend blocks came together relatively quickly.
I was snapping photos of the completed top when Miles jumped in.
I quilted a simple rectangular grid across the entire quilt to keep things simple and consistent with the geometric-ness of the blocks.
There’s a story to the knitted hats included in the package I sent to my friend… which will be another post. That awesome boob card is made by Craft Boner and I picked it up at a local craft fair last summer.
I’m finally getting around to posting the photos of my latest quilt! I made this for a special little one – the daughter of one of my West Point roommates. They live about an hour away in Colorado Springs, and I was able to visit with them and hand it off in person. Baby Joanna is beautiful and I’m so happy she’s here!
This is my third baby girl quilt of 2015, and my fourth (I think??) quilt finish of the year. Wow. I think that’s a record for me.
I bought two jelly rolls – Clementine by Heather Baily and Kona Blushing Bouquet – back in June during Pink Door Fabric‘s Open House. Honestly, I didn’t have any sewing motivation (or patience) for anything super complex so I settled on simple chevrons. I loosely followed this tutorial posted on Kitchen Table Quilting. The top came together super super quick.
Pin basting is always more fun with beer. The Liliko’i Kepolo is from one of our favorite Boulder breweries, Avery. We’d had it in their tasting room, but didn’t think they sold it for take home. JJ spotted it at our neighborhood corner store/pharmacy and brought some home.
I opted for some simple loopy quilting to keep it all together. The binding are just some strips from the Kona jelly roll. I machine-stitched it all the way around. It turned out better than my last few attempts! My quilt labels are the same, just change the names and dates.
Here it is friends! My last baby quilt for awhile. The baby shower was this weekend, and I can’t wait to meet this special little girl!
I love this one – truthfully, there are not many projects that I don’t love. Because if I’m not loving it, I don’t finish it. Why waste my time?
I have always liked the look of flying geese quilts – especially the ones where all the geese are going in one direction. And I knew I wanted this last baby quilt to incorporate that. I started by pulling a few prints and then cutting the squares, then subcutting the triangles – for both the ‘geese’ part and the ‘sky’ part of the rectangle.
Once I had a decent amount of flying geese finished, I auditioned a few layouts. Deciding on keeping like prints together in a row, I sewed them together. Some strips of coordinating solids completed the quilt top.
For the back, I choose a different print and made slightly larger flying geese, framing it with the same three solids.
I added a label too!
The quilting is simple stitch-in-the-ditch to just hold it all together. And the binding isn’t separate; it is part of the quilt back folded over. I had never done that before, and I actually really like how it looks.
I used the same fabrics as in the other baby girl quilt, but the two projects look so completely different. I love that about sewing – the same basic material can be turned into so many unique things!
Whew! My second quilt in 2015 – I’m laughing about it though, because I have a feeling that it will be MONTHS before I finish another quilt this year…..
Hello! What a weekend! It started off fairly uneventful – gym, crafting, cooking and football playoff watching. I woke up on Sunday morning, walked upstairs into the kitchen and realized that the heat wasn’t on. We have heated floors in the kitchen (pleasant surprise 6+ months into living in this house!), and the floors were COLD.
Went to check, and yup, what I suspected. The boiler was inop*. A few calls around town (not too many since it was Sunday. At 8am.) and scheduled a service call for Monday morning.
*sigh* so. Off to my sister’s to hang out! We packed up some snacks; I packed up my sewing and knitting; Carol vacuumed the shit out of her couch/blankets/rugs while I took every allergy pill I have. And that worked, by the way, her cat didn’t really bother me. And we were there for 6+ hours… crafting and watching more football playoffs. Sucks about the Broncos, but Peyton really does not do well in the post-season.
Ok, enough about all that.
I put together the flying geese I stitched up on our New Year’s craft date with Heather. And then cut into the solids Chelsea from Pink Door Fabrics pulled for me to finish them off. I am determined to not overthink this quilt. It is colorful and bright, perfect for the baby girl it is going to. Which, by the way, is the last baby quilt I need to make for a few months.
And I have a sleeve! It is almost finished. This is for the Strokkur I mentioned in my previous post. I actually ripped this out because my knitting gauge was way way off. My stitches were really really big – too big to follow the pattern. I think I just was not used to knitting with this particular yarn. This second attempt is coming along much better!
Why the sleeve first? Well, one of my Ravelry friends commented that she makes the sleeve first to check gauge, and if she’s spot on, then she’s partway done with the sweater. So I thought I’d try it out.
What is gauge? You non-knitters might be asking yourselves – or more realistically, probably NOT but I’m gonna tell you anyway. Gauge is simply stitches per inch. Each pattern calls for a particular gauge specific for that pattern. Tension variations in knitter or yarn yields different gauge, which can lead to ill-fitting garments if my knitting gauge differs from the pattern gauge. Changing needle sizes usually fixes gauge.
But hey, my gauge is off from the pattern! Even with 2 different needle sizes. I did find this handy online calculator that shows how to modify the pattern to match your gauge. The good thing is that while my row gauge is short by a few compared to the pattern, my stitch gauge (left-right) is spot on. That is a bit trickier to modify than the row gauge. Row gauge is pretty easy to fix – so the website tells me!
I’m almost done with one sleeve, and I’m liking how this is knitting up so far.
Warning: Photo Heavy Post!!!
I finished this one up awhile ago, but I wanted to wait until the little one received it before blogging about it.
What a special little girl this is, and I’m so so happy that she’s here.
This quilt came together quickly, as I had the blocks finished already. These blocks are part of Amy Gibson’s 2014 Sugar Block of the Month club. I love the fabric and the colors are perfect for a sweet little girl.
I kept it simple with 1″ sashing between the blocks and for the border. For the back, I ordered some yardage of one of the fabrics from the collection. And the binding fabric came from my stash.
I’m most proud of the quilting. I did all the quilting myself on my Juki AND I’ve finally figured out how to machine quilt with Aurifil thread (hint: thread on a cone makes a difference vs thread on a spool).
I made the label using Adobe Illustrator and printed it on iron-on transfer paper on my inkjet printer. I’m not sure why I’ve never done that before.
The fabric is Kate Spain Daydream – warm colorways. The pattern is the 2014 Sugar Block Club blocks.
Yikes! This one was a rush. We hosted a shower for my dear friend Christy on Sunday. Guess what I was doing late Saturday night? Yup, you guess it. Quilting and binding this mofo.
And actually, I love this little quilt. It’s about 35″ square and I mostly used my stash of blues and grays to finish it. I did buy a few fat quarters of Art Gallery’s Chromatics in Triangularity but everything else came from my plastic bins of goodness.
I was aiming for a wonky log cabin of sorts, but then I ended up with these. I threw the blocks up on the design wall and then added the larger pieces of solids to make up the quilt top. I saved two blocks for the back and pieced them in with the lighter gray. I quilted straight lines going one direction for most of the quilt, then turned it 90 degrees and went the other way. It is bound with some leftover Cotton and Steel basic from my Weekender Bag and a teal solid. I finally used Susie’s Magic Binding that Marti keeps talking about. It really is magic. I can see why Marti keeps encouraging us FRMQG-ers to use it! Thanks, Friend!
The photos I have of the quilt aren’t that great. Since I finished it so late on Saturday night, I wasn’t able/engergized enough to take proper photos. And since we were working so hard to prep for the shower on Sunday morning, I forgot to grab more photos.
These are the ones I have. The quilt really turned out great. And Christ was so excited. She said, “Oh! I get a Norine quilt!” which was sweet. I’m excited for that kid to get here!
It seems like ALL of my friends are pregnant. I know that not ALL of my friends are expecting, but sheesh. It sure does seem like all of them are.
As I count, there are 3 little ones still cooking, and 2 little humans that are already out and about.
I have one quilt enroute, and another one already gifted. I’ll blog about those later this week. And I only have one more quilt to finish!
Here’s the top of one that I finished in November – for some reason, I do not have a photo of the complete quilt! What is wrong with me?? These are blocks that I’ve had complete for awhile, yet of course, I waited until the week before her shower to finish it! It was pretty simple to put together, and I kept that simplicity in a whole cloth back and straight line quilting. I attached the binding with my machine, partly to finish it quicker than hand binding but mostly for durability. This is a baby quilt after all. I expect a bunch of washes!
The baby shower was lovely, and when the mama-to-be started to open my gift, she said, “Did you make this?” knowing that I make stuff. I said, “yes” and then we both kind of teared up. The other guests were kind and lovely with their compliments of the quilt and of my work.
I forget that even though I might think it is simple, folks that do not quilt or sew do not. So, even though I kind of ‘poo-poo-d’ my effort – “oh, its just simple blocks and straight seams” the other ladies were impressed. And according to the mama, the quilt matches the nursery.
Anyway, the fabric is Bluebird Park by Kate & Birdie Paper Co (fabric I ended up not using in my 2014 Sugar Block of the Month) and the pattern is a loose adaptation of Stitched in Color’s Color Brick Quilt. Kona Celery frames the bricks.
My latest Work In Progress (WIP)
We had a lovely evening with my friend Christine and her daughter Caitlyn. While Miles and Caitlyn made a mess of the house – to include playing hide-and-seek in my credenza from Korea – Christine and I made a little progress on some sewing projects.
Christine is in the market for a new serger, and since I love mine, I convinced her to give mine a whirl. She made a super cute top for one of Caitlyn’s dolls. And let me just tell you how selfish a sewer I am. I don’t make Miles anything. Haven’t since his baby quilt in 2009. And Christine here is in the middle of making lots of super cute stuff for her kids AND their dolls.
I spent most of the evening slicing up 4″ cuts of fabric into triangles. Using the fabric stack I pulled earlier, I started cutting the triangles. What a process. It took me a lot longer than I thought to cut these things. A. Lot.
I made stacks of triangles by value order and then arranged them up on my design wall. I added 4 yellow triangles just to break up the pinks and purples that dominate most of the design. Keeping in mind the lessons I learned from Kari, I tried to keep some definite contrast between the triangles and less contrast in others.
I stitched them in record time (it seems!). I’ll play with the design for a bit and see where it ends up. I’m envisioning a lot of white space. And a polka dot border.
Linked up at: Freshly Pieced
