Fabric Tuesday and a Quilt a long...

Hi everyone! Hope you had a fun Memorial weekend. Megan and I had a great week. She left yesterday. We cried lots of tears. It is a lot different when she is moving across the country, rather than a 12 hr drive, or a 1.5 hour plane ride. Just sad. Depressed...

In other good news...

"Announcing a brand new quilt along featuring Pearl Bracelets by Lizzy House! One of my sponsors, Christa Quilts, is starting her 6th in a series of complete quilt alongs on her blog. String of Pearls will launch Wednesday, June 5th at ChristaQuiltsBlog.com. Christa will have a limited number of kits available with 10% off any kit purchase through 6/30. Just use the coupon code CQA2013 at checkout. For complete details along with the quilt along schedule, visit ChristasQuiltAlong.com. Sounds like fun!"

Here is what you talented folks came up with this week...

A modern Sunbonnet Sue, I saw this come together on instagram. Cute! From Made by ChrissieD

Color Blocks from Quilty Habit, love the overlapping circles quilting...

This amazing block, english paper piecing, from The Quilting Dee...awesome!

Gentle Art quilt from Lily Patch Quilts, just bright, happy and pretty!

Hexagon pillow top. Cuteness! From Sewn by Leila...

You are all amazing!!! What have you done this week???

Lilabelle lane Medallion quilt...

Are you loving Medallion quilts lately? I have been seeing these everywhere lately! By the time I will make one it will be about a year or two after the trend. (like my unfinished granny squares quilt...sigh... Anyhow, Sharon from Lilabelle Lane made this amazing quilt. I am in love with it!  Sharon makes some amazing quilts over at her blog. Here are her last  year finishes, and the year before, be sure to visit...

I must admit that I just LOVE this quilt.

What started out as a project on a whim, inspired by the beautiful

Liberty Love Book.

 

These quilts started to appear over on Instagram and I just knew

I had to make one.  This quilt took me outside my comfort zone

and I had no idea how it would end up.  I was thinking scrappy

but didn't think my scrap containers could pull off what I had in my head.

I started with the two fabrics in the center and just let it grow and evolve.

I think that the addition of this black border was a defining point for this quilt.

It gave me more of a direction that I wanted to head in.

Front and back (with the help of Aiden) 

90% of this quilt top has come from my scrap buckets so it seemed

appropriate that the back be pieced from scraps and stash also.

Huge thank you to Linda at Ladybug Quilting for the custom quilting.

I just love how the details show on the black on the back.

(next quilt sent in for custom quilting is having a solid back to show off the quilting more)

I LOVE that I have feathers and pebbles on the same quilt :o)

Our Millrose Bloggie get together is in a few weeks

(all the details are on Shez's blog, right hand tab)

Guess what I'm taking for Show and Tell :)

This Quilt finishes at 59" x 59"

and when you ask your 15 year old to help,

well you get "googlie eyes" over the top of your quilt :o)

Thanks Aiden :o)

Have a fantastic day,

hugs Sharon

FRESH POPPY REPOST: NURSERY REVEAL...

Before Megan and I started QuiltStory we had another blog called Fresh Poppy Design. Because of a few reasons to boring to list, we started QuiltStory, and poor little Fresh Poppy Design has just been sitting over there, neglected. Over the next year or so we will have reposts from that blog, ones that we love and want to remember, and then we are going to delete the blog...Hopefully many of you are seeing these posts for the first time....

Okay, he is only 15 months old,

 but his nursery is finally finished...

let Little Dude take you on a personal tour...

These were an easy fix. Just bought Ikea white panels, and added the cute Amy Butler fabric to the bottoms. I plan to add a tutorial to the blog. Super easy...

My Husband did the board and batten (is that how you say it?) Walls. Well, he did the woodwork. I did all the painting and caulking. NOT FUN! However, I am in LOVE with how it turned out. I want it all over my house. But easily over 20 hours on that project alone...

Seriously! How cute is he sitting up there? There is the cute elephant painting my Mommy dear made for him. Also the quilts are from me and my aunt. I don't have all his baby quilts here. There are 5 of them. (If you count Megan's. And should we? I mean she still hasn't finished it!)

My Father in law built me this book case years ago for my girls. I repainted in this pale aqua. I need to give my Mom a little time to get her life back in order from her vacation, then I plan on putting her to work. I want gray fabric liners for the baskets. Pretty please Mama?

I found this vintage window frame at a little craft fair about 5 years ago. It has never looked so cute! I put some cute Rylee Blake fabric to back it, and I love how it turned out. Then I just added some little cup hooks to hang his hats. Cute?

I found this little shadow box at TJMaxx. It is so hit an miss there, but sometimes  you can find the perfect little gems. Inside are the hats I knit for him when he was a newborn. Heart pang...sparkly tears...  We want to freeze him in time and it isn't working!

My Mother in law made me the CUTEST baby blessing sailor outfit ever! It fit him for the 2 seconds he was blessed, then off it went. How were we to know he would be so huge? But I knew it would make for darling decor. The dandelions are made with vinyl on one of those cricuts I don't have but want desperately! I had a super nice friend make them for me :) 

I have a tutorial for this too. This cute fabric chandelier. It is from Ikea. I just remade the shade. Super easy, super custom, super cheap! ($13 bucks)

These frames above his bed are from Ikea too.  I took the photos inside. He was only 2 weeks old...man what is this salty discharge coming from my eyes???

The bedding I made with my Mother in Law. She is the best to craft with. I just cute and measure and she sews like a crazy woman in a labor camp. I let her have breaks occasionally, but not much. We had fun making them together. We didn't finish, so  naturally I send the crib skirt fabric back with her with detailed instructions and a deadline of when I would like it shipped back. She was several days early!

The children cracked me up goofing around in the corner (especially Sophie's face).

Okay, now that this post took me as long to complete as the room did...I am OFFICIALLY finished with his room and ready to move to another.

I am so happy with how this turned out. I kind of want to kick him out and move in myself. I had such a hard time with a boys room. No flowers or pink or ruffles. It took me a while to work it out in my head. 

What I love the most is that almost everything in that room is made by me or someone in my family. It is totally unique and custom.  The only problem with going this route, is that your baby may be 15 months old before it is complete.

Fabric Tuesday Folks!

Hope everyone is doing well!!  It's that last little bit of the school year that gets kinda crazy but exciting too as it warms up! And a little too warm in AZ :)  I (Meg) got back from a week long whirlwind first half of the week in Virginia/Maryland/DC and found a home in Virginia!!! Hooray!!!  Then we headed to back to Missouri to graduate. He'll be starting residency in July!

Happy Happy Day!! My face kinda cracks me up, it's like pure glee on the verge of tears. Hehe :)

And now I've got some lovelies linked up from last week, so fun!!

Birdie Sling from Gemini Stitches

Earbud Pouch from Making Life Prettier

Gorgeous WIP from Capitola Quilter

Tic-Tac-Tummy-Toes from Material Girl

Rose Star Quilt from Dee's Doodles

Mini Tote Bags from Geta's Quilting Studio

Your turn to link-up!! What have you been up to this week?

Fabric Tuesday #136

Bryan house quilt finish...Tribute Star Quilt

Becca is a super cute talented girl from Bryan House Quilts. This  Tribute Star quilt is just so eye catching. I love how it is offset. I also love the straight line quilting, it "moves" across the quilt. The color combination is great too!  Read her story about her Grandma Florence, really sweet. Such a great story to go with this quilt... be sure to visit bryan house quilts..

A few weeks back when my guild got word we would be working on a challenge using Denyse Schmidt's new line I was thrilled. I was more than thrilled when I found out the new line is called "Florence". Florence is particularly meaningful to me because I had a grandmother named Florence.  I actually never call her grandmother because she was always my mother's mother. She passed away when my mother was a young woman. But I'm sure she would have been a swell grandmother.

I wanted to make a special quilt in tribute to my grandmother Florence. More than a special quilt the process itself was special in it has allowed me and my mother to reflect a bit on our dear Florence. The fabric itself reminds me of the era in which Florence would have flourished (such great fabric!). 

When I think of Florence I think of the bittersweet memories of a mid-20th century woman.  A woman who was blessed with one child, my mother, late in life. And a woman whose last few years were spent battling a painful cancer when cancer treatment and palliative care were not what they are today. When I was a younger girl I didn't feel comfortable asking about Florence because of the sadness surrounding a death that leaves a daughter motherless. But as my mother says, as time passes the bitter becomes less bitter and the sweet becomes more sweet, and I've recently felt more comfortable asking about the grandmother whom I'd known only through the bits and pieces gleaned in passing as my mother casually wove her mother into conversation. 

My Grandmother Florence and Mom, Anne, at Belle Isle on the Detroit River 

I think of my mother, Anne, recalling how comforted she felt when as a little girl she would play with her dolls underneath the big quilt frame as Florence and her sisters quilted a big quilt overhead. It was apparently especially great during thunderstorms. (This sounds like a bit of heaven to me!)

My mom finds it remarkable that I have Florence's hands. I'm sure it was a trip to one day see your mother's hands on your teenaged daughter. I remember growing up my mom occasionally studying my hands in thought and shaking her head and saying, "you have my mother's hands." 

I remember my mother saying she loved to eat butter when she was little. As a mother I can only imagine Florence's surprise and bewilderment to find her daughter eating a stick of butter. And also the annoyance of having to clean butter off your child and having to buy more butter for cooking. 

(Really mom?!)

Florence was a very social woman and my grandparents would go out every weekend when Florence was healthy. She loved to laugh but never at someone else's expense.

Florence in the awesome, colorful (naturally) dress on the left, her sisters are next
and my great grandmother is on the right.

Florence loved the color purple and a particular pretty purple tulip quilt (that I will show you this summer). I like purple because it reminds me of my mother. My mom also loves purple and I guess  we share that same reason. Do we choose what we like? Or are we destined to become our mothers? And at what point do we want to become our mothers? Because there is a point where we do (sorry daughters, it's true). Do we want to become our mothers or are we wishing to be a part of their story? Or to pass their greatness to our children?

Florence used to love to sit in the back yard and gaze up at the stars. She knew the constellations and would point them out to my mom when she was a girl. (I would too, do you know how bright the stars were back then in that unpolluted, street light-less sky?)

 So, in honor of my grandmother Florence I give you my "Tribute Star" quilt.