Needle and nest cute quilt finish...

Michelle submitted this super sweet little star quilt, it has the sweetest little fuzzy cut prints. Love it! Want it! Michelle has a great lifestyle/sewing blog. She is expecting a little baby, congrats! She has a cute etsy shop, and Michelle just won first place in a contest for her pin cushion! Yeah! Be sure to check out her blog, needle and nest...


It's been nearly four months since I finished this beautiful baby quilt for my dear friend. I had originally planned to give it to her at her baby shower back in February, but Master W. got sick and I had to stay home.

I spent a day or so debating with myself as to whether or not I should wait and hand deliver it or simply drop it in the mail (she lives two hours away so we don't see each other often). In the end, the quilt was just too special for anything but a personal delivery, so it sat wrapped and waiting until the baby was born and we could arrange a day to visit.

Flash forward to this past weekend when hubby and I were finally able to meet the sweet and super adorable Miss I. for the first time... and deliver her quilt in person!

I'm so pleased that my friend and her husband loved the quilt.

My friend S. has a great love for rabbits, so when I was dreaming about making her baby's quilt I knew I had to somehow include a rabbit print. After hours of searching online fabric stores for inspiration, I finally stumbled upon Sarah Jane's Dolls print for the Children At Play collection. Not only did I fall in love with the sweet scenes of little girls playing with their dolls, but there was a little rabbit popping up in one of the doll prams!

That single image sparked my imagination and led to the design of the quilt you (finally!) see here. I decided to do sawtooth stars (a first for me) with fussy cut centers containing images that reminded me of childhood. If you look carefully at the stars, you'll find cuts from:

• Dolls for the Children At Play collection by Sarah Jane
• Round and Round for the Little Apples collection by Aneela Hoey
• Trees for the Little Apples collection by Aneela Hoey
• Scooters for the Sherbet Pips collection by Aneela Hoey
• Dogs for the Sherbet Pips collection by Aneela Hoey

All the of the star points were made using coordinating prints I picked up at JoAnn, with one or two prints pulled from my scraps. I pieced the back using up all of the leftover strips of fabric, along with a few other prints I picked up for the project (Balloon for Children at Play and Tortoises for Little Apples). The binding is some leftover pink polka dot fabric that I happened to have sitting in my stash at the time. 

Many thanks to the super sweet Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts who helped me out with some great advice during this project. If you haven't been to her blog before, be sure to stop on by. She is awesomely talented!

This is by far my favorite quilt, and it's the one that brings me the most pride... so much so, that I've entered it into this year's Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side. 

Out to Sea by Sarah Jane

If you fell in love with Sarah Jane's debut line, Children at Play for Michael Miller, then hold on to your chair...you're about to see some unbelievably darling fabric if you haven't already.  Her newest line, Out to Sea, is out-of-control sweet and whimsical, have I let you know that I'm smitten??

Heather and I have so many plans going on for this fabric, so exciting!  Several new patterns featuring this line will be coming out by August, so excited!!  The fabric should be available online and in shops starting in August.

Now as much as I tried to control myself, I couldn't.  I tried to finish up a couple of other projects before I got my chubby little fingers on this...but it wasn't meant to be.  Sigh.  I just had to cut into it!  I found this tutorial (thank you Pinterest!) and knew it would be perfect little project to finish up fast.  With a few little changes/additions I made this super sweet dress for baby girl:

I added sweet little pleats in the front, that was my first time doing that and I think it looks so cute!  And of course I added the bow :)

Since my little one isn't here yet I'm doing my best to ensure everything I make will actually fit, lol!  So I added a couple of button holes and buttons to make the straps adjustable.  The size is about 6-12 months, the pink anchor elastic will hit her just under the armpits.

And the back view.  Two little sailboats.

Yes...I do stop to look at it several times a day.  That fabric is just so cute, I could throw a scrap of it on a stray dog and want to adopt it.  Right??

Thanks for indulging me!  Soon this blog will be titled "Megan's Unborn Daughter...oh and Quilt Story" :)

Operation Wood Hollow project...

We got a sad email yesterday from Julie from Having fun Quilting.

She is from a town here in Utah that is having severe wildfires. Read news story here.

As of yesterday 29 homes have burned down!

Julie has made a goal to get a new quilt to each of these families.

She needs our help!

You can donate quilts, quilt tops, blocks, money. Anything will help.

Megan and I are donating the quilt from one of our first patterns, Mod Tweet.

I imagine it will go to a sweet little girl in need of some snuggling.

If you would like to help out, contact Julie here, also read more of her project here.

Fabric Tuesday finishes...

Hello! Happy Fabric Tuesday!

Here are a few finishes of mine lately...

Our puppy has chewed through some of our pillows, so I whipped these up. I am sure she will chew these up as well...

I also finished this little baby doll quilt. I made it for a knit doll (not yet finished) for my little girls 5 year old birthday last week. Pretty and sweet. Can't remember the fabric line, Sophie something for Moda (I think)

What did you have time for? Are you all finding the time to get some sewing done this summer?

Mixed signals mini quilt from Fabric Mutt...

Heidi from Fabric Mutt submitted this little cute mini quilt. Heidi is a mommy who loves sewing and blogging. (Like so many of us!) She makes quilts and clutches and purses and even handwarmers! Much inspiration over at her blog! Be sure to visit!

This quilt is called Mixed Signals. When I first saw the Reunion collection by Sweetwater for Moda, I absolutely loved it. It made me think of summers on the pier at Huntington Beach when I was growing up here in Southern California. I really wanted to make a quilt that would have a nautical feel to it, but I also wanted it to have a distinctly modern vibe. Then one night it came to me: nautical signal flags! I looked up a flag chart online and immediately got to work with two Reunion charm square packs. 

Mixed Signals is a mini quilt; each block is three inches square and the entire quilt is approximately 24 by 36 inches in size. Every block's signal flag pattern stands for a letter of the alphabet; you can follow them in order from top to bottom, left to right as you look at the quilt. While it looks like the flags were paper pieced, I actually just figured out the measurements for each block as I went along, cutting out pieces and putting them together one at a time. Sometimes a quilt can be a little tedious to assemble when you construct the same block over and over, but this one was so much fun to do since every block was a new challenge. I had to throw in a small amount of an unknown black and white check print that I got at my local quilt shop for a few of the flags that called for a black element, and the sashing is a grey solid from the same source.

The quilt is backed in Reunion Baby Bunting in Ink, and I bound it in another Sweetwater print -- Town News in Cream from the Hometown collection. I absolutely love the way the grey solid and newsprint binding play off the colors of the Reunion fabrics. 

Looking at this quilt just makes me happy. I think of how much pleasure it gave me to put it together, and I think of all the childhood memories at the beach which inspired it in the first place. 

Galaxy Quilt from Blue Bird Sews

Great quilt feature today from Kelly of Blue Bird Sews.  The Galaxy Quilt is such a cool design made for a manly man!  Some good ideas and tips!  She shares some of the process here and here.  Kelly has a great list of tutorials, including some cool quilting ones I'd like to check out!  For some handmade goods check out her shop and for more inspiration see her flickr.  Thanks Kelly!


So this post has been in the works for quite some time now. Early last year my friend J and I started talking about a quilt for his bed. Only a few requirements: no flowers, dark man colors and it had to fit onto a queen sized bed. With those parameters I set out to make an epic man quilt; Nailed It!

The design part of Galaxy took a lot of thought. I knew it needed a bold geometric foundation...as this is a man quilt! The offset squares in dark/light values make a dynamic backdrop for 12" sampler blocks made from the 2011 Summer Sampler Series. I can't recommend this sampler series enough! Excellent directions and beautiful results. I could see myself making all these blocks over and over again. After making the six pointed string star block I felt like I could sew anything. 

The Minnesota block ended up being one of my favorites. I just love the way the colors and shapes play off each other.

Galaxy measures a whopping 90" x 88" and was quilted on a long arm by me. It was the 4th quilt I have quilted on the long arm and by far the most challenging. I sewed corner to corner on the dark/light background and then for the blocks did more detailed quilting to make an impact on each design. My best trick with the quilting details was to make a statement by not quilting some areas and heavily quilting others. This made for some cool effects.

The back of the quilt is completely pieced together with left over yardage. I had bought a lot of different colors and patterns and used up the ones with little flowers on the back. There was also a happy accident that made the back even more stunning. I had originally planned for a pieced scrappy boarder on the front but once it was on it just didn't work. So I decided to sew them up and use it on the back...as it turned out it was the exact width I needed. Amazing how things come together sometimes.

The way the quilt lies on a bed is magical. There is no way I could have known that the blocks would lie across the top pillows so perfectly, or that the center square would radiate so nicely from the bottom corner of the bed or that the blocks seem to burst out of the center gradually until becoming heavy on the outside. These are all wonderful coincidences that make me happy. 

Fabric Tuesday #91!

First let me announce the winner for our Southern Fabrics 1/2 yard bundle giveaway:

Amys Crafty Shenanigans said...

Ohhh I love the Aviary in Lilac by JOel Dewberry collection - yum!! Looks like a wonderful shop :)

JUNE 14, 2012 5:33 AM 

Congrats!! Send us an email and we'll get that out to you!

*************************************

Welcome to Fabric Tuesday! Not too much to say today other than getting to your projects!  There were so many great link-ups last week I'm going through the list to get some features out of it!!

In other news, a few weeks ago Kimberly from Fat Quarter Shop asked Heather and I to make a blogger bundle!!  We were so flattered and excited!!  We got to choose from all the new lines and combine 12 prints and 3 solids to make a fat quarter blogger bundle!  It was more challenging than I thought, but way fun.  Can't wait for it to come in stock (August).  Here it is:

Fabric Tuesday #91

see here for more information

Let's see what you've been crafting this summer!

Charm Pack Quilt from Katie Mae Quilts

Last week was busy for Heather and I.  Heather was on vacation with her family and I was hosting our mom, dad, a niece and nephew!  Phew!  Sorry for not getting the winner of the Skye Reve Fabrics $25 giveaway as promised.  Drumroll....

Kirsten N said...

I like the Secret Garden bundles - the blues are so lovely.

JUNE 7, 2012 7:37 PM 

Congrats Kirsten!!  It's always fun to see familiar readers win. Send us an email and we'll get you your prize!!  Now for the feature...

Sweet and simple quilt today from Kate of Katie Mae Quilts, a quilt that she made from a QAL.  I love the colors, so sweet, perfect for a girly :)  Kate is a mom, wife to a military man and has two cats, as she describes one annoying and one fat! :)  She's got a great list of her finishes and soon to be finishes...see her Tops Waiting to be Quilted, Finishes 2008-10, Finishes 2011 and Finishes 2012 for some great eye candy!

I don't have a song title name for it yet, but I'm taking suggestions.

It was started over the summer (with the actual quilt along) but obviously wasn't a priority until I made it one.

I wanted to avoid the bulky seams, so I quilted straight lines in the white. It's bound with rick rack (so fast and easy!)

 It's 70x70", made with Deb Strain's Love U and white Kona.

The wind didn't think I should take a flat picture of the back. It's lemon Kona and that random yard of Love U.

And now it's off to my niece, who instantly declared anything pink and butterflies as hers.

Southern Fabric giveaway!

Southern Fabric Giveaway!

This week our lovely new sponsor Southern Fabric is giving away an awesome half yard bundle of the darling new Kate Spain line, Serenade.  One half yard of each of the fabrics shown below...and

a charm pack from the same line, including all the prints below! AWESOME!

Southern Fabric has been in business for over 7 years and have sold to over 75,000 happy customers! They cater in Pre-cuts. If you are looking for charm packs, Jelly/Design Rolls, Layer Cakes, Fat Quarters or Fat Eighths they have them. They often post a "sale of the day" on their facebook page, and you can keep up with the latest and greatest news by Southern Fabric on twitter.

2 ways to enter: 

(separate comment for each please)

"Like" Southern Fabric on facebook

Visit Southern Fabric and tell us what you loved

This giveaway is now closed.

PS Southern Fabric is having a 10% sale until 6/16. Use coupon code: tenpercent

Fireworks quilt...

Great HST quilt from She Taught Me to Love it. Myra is a mother of 5, she home schools them all.  Then in all her spare time, she quilts! I love this great quilt inspired by patriotic quilts and American history. Be sure to check out Myra's quilt finishes and her lovely blog...


Since I have been bitten by the quilting bug again, I am determined to sew!!! During Spring Break I told my kids that "I" am having Spring Break and am going to sew! I made two baby quilts for other people that week and started a quilt that I’m actually going to keep! Fun!

I love patriotic quilts (some of them anyway) and I am crazy-in-love-with America and her history. I have one patriotic quilt at the long-arm quilter right now, (one I started 4 years ago and am finally finishing!) and another patriotic quilt that is on my UFO list and I will hopefully finish it soon. (There's some hand-stitching on it that is a bit intimidating to me...)

Since getting bitten by the quilting bug again, I've been dreaming about and waking up with visions of quilts in my head! Thereby came this quilt idea for Fireworks.

And this is one of things I love best about quilts…

This is my hubby reading a bedtime story to my daughter. : )

Ahhhhhh, there’s nothing like reading a good book with your kids while snuggling up under a nice quilt.

“Tickle Kingdom” by Robert D. Harris is one of our favorites!