WIP finish! YAY

I had this quilt top in my closet for several years now. ...

normally I don't get to the point of the finished top. I normally have several blocks done...

But this was done, just sitting there. My nice Mother in Law took it home and finished it. 

baste. quilt. bind. She is so nice to me. 

Not sure what I am going to do with it yet. But it makes me happy. A finished darling quilt just sitting there. 

The back. Love pieced backs. 

Manly Unicorn In a Bed of Flowers Quilt finish...

Today is my (Heather) day for a Quilt Story. This is the story of the Manly Unicorn Quilt. It all started about a month ago. I was browsing my Instagram feed and came across @thesewingchick. She was at a fabric store and found a secret stash of the very sold out Heather Ross Far Far Away line. I put aside all social etiquette and graces, and begged her on Instagram to buy me some. And not just a little, a lot! (I think that pile in the back is mine!) Bless her heart, without even knowing me at all, Tessa (The Sewing Chick)  risked buying all this fabric, crossing her fingers that I pay her back $300! My husband was all nervous, "you are paypal-ing a stranger $300, hoping she will actually send you this fabric?" I said, "yes, of course! what could go wrong?"  I wasn't nervous a bit! A week later a lovely package showed up at my door!

THANK YOU TESSA YOU ARE A WONDERFUL AND SUPER TALENTED FRIEND!

image borrowed from The Sewing Chick

Once I opened the package, Weston, my four year old son, went nuts! He was saying "ahhh" and "I like it!" and looked through it all with me with sincere excitement. (why is he my favorite you ask?) He grabbed onto the blue unicorn and took it straight to the sewing machind (not lying) and said "make me a quilt!"

The next day out of the blue in the carpool line he said "I love your new fabric Mommy." Melted my heart. He asked me a few more times to make him a quilt. What was I to do? I started immediately. 

But there was a bit of a problem, his favorite print was a Unicorn laying on a bed of flowers! (I think all he saw was a horse, his favorite animal)  So I went through my stash and used mostly Sarah Jane's Children at Play boy line. Perfect!

He pushed the petal for the majority of the quilt top construction! I would just tell him to start and stop.  He kept thinking it was finished several times along the way. I had to explain to him basting, backing, quilting, binding. It required a lot of patience on his part! But he was good. 

I decided to practice my free motion quilting skills along the way. I did a different stitch in each border segment. 

Do you think he is pleased?

I had a lot of fun making it, knowing if was going to this darling boy who begged for it!

When I wrapped him up in it he told me it was "snug and toasty" Should I rent him out? He is the best! Love my little Moose Man. 

Modern Batman Quilt from Simply Pieced

As a momma of two boys (who are obsessed with super heroes) I absolutely LOVE this quilt.  Really, seriously.  I may be making one of these very soon.  I'm not just saying that.  Anyway, I love this quilt!!  Made by Janet of Simply Pieced I was so excited to see it linked up to Fabric Tuesday two weeks ago.  Like so many of you she does a great job documenting her quilt finishes, from 2011, 2012 and 2013.  I wish I had mine documented so well!  Make sure to stop by Simply Pieced after checking out her feature!

I hate to play favorites, but this next quilt is probably my favorite quilt that I've made so far.  Don't get me wrong, I love the other quilts.  I don't usually make something that I don't like, but this one took a piece of my heart with it when I gave it to the mom-to-be at her baby shower.  I should have asked for visitation rights, or to quilt-sit when they go out of town...I'm being ridiculous...sort of.

When I found out the mom was pregnant and having a little boy, I contacted the dad through a mutual friend on what they were doing in the nursery.  You see, the dad does all the decorating...ALL the decorating.  He's a very talented graphic designer that has an eye for fashion and color, but he's also a big kid at heart.  When it came to this baby boy's nursery, the dad knew exactly what he wanted to do and was very specific when it came to colors (robin's egg blue, stop sign red and charcoal grey) and theme (classic Batman).  I received these two attachments:



The first is one of the prints used in the room and the second is a diagram of the different batman symbols used since the character's creation.  The dad ended up using this diagram to create an art piece above the crib, which looks awesome.  The diagram was also my inspiration for the quilt.  When I think of Batman, one of the first things that comes to mind is the bat signal.  I liked the cityscape at the bottom of the diagram and wanted to use that design somehow in the quilt.  I ended up drawing up a sketch on graph paper of a simple cityscape with the bat signal in the air.  The idea of recreating the drawing as a quilt was a bit daunting, but I was determined.  

When it came to piecing the front, I decided to machine-piece the buildings separately and then applique them onto the background fabric by hand.  Before the buildings could be attached, I had to put the spotlight and bat signal in the sky.  I ended up picking the bat-signal I associated with Batman as the call-sign.  This took a lot of trial and error to get everything exactly where I wanted it.  Once the bat signal and the buildings were in place, I put windows on the buildings to help bring the buildings to life.  Mixing the red and blue for the windows helps bring in the nursery colors on top of the charcoal grey.  I machine-quilted the quilt with horizontal lines.  I knew I needed to keep the lines fairly close together to help secure the large appliqued pieces of fabric.  I hand appliqued the initial onto the back of the quilt as a finishing touch.

This quilt was so much fun to design and make.  I sincerely hope the baby boy will love his quilt as much as I do.

Cute quilt finish from Sew paint it...

Darling finish from Marianne of Sew Paint It. Marianne does a little bit of everything, sewing, decorating, renovating, painting, you name it. Our kind of lady! We got this submission, and Megan and I both have a soft spot for Sarah Jane fabric. Just looking at this quilt makes me want to go play with my stash. Anyhow, Marianne did a little bit of everything on this quilt, applique, hand stitching, machine quilting etc. We love it all! 

I finished a quilt!  It is my boys quilt using children at play fabric by Sarah Jane and I am really, really, really pleased with it!

I finished it today.

The backing was a sheet I found and I love it.  It is so soft and lovely.  Love the design for my little boy too.

Diggers and tractors - just what little boys like!

I did machine quilting on this quilt and then hand quilted around the stars.

I love hand quilting because it is so soft and specially for someone.  It shows you care.

The machine quilting is 0.25" from each seam.

The binding is also a sheet, a plain blue one which was worn out in areas.  It is really soft.  I hate doing the corners!  I must find some tutorials on doing that better because there is definitely room for improvement there!

Sampler Chain Quilt Finish and Fab Tues!

I did it!!  My Block of the Month quilt is entirely finished.  And it makes me really really happy :)  It all started with this lovely stack of Backyard Baby fabrics:

And here it is, quilted, bound and ready to be snuggled with.

Our series was for a year, a block each month with a theme right?  Ie star, hst, pinwheel, etc..  I decided that I wanted to make my quilt a twin, so in the end I doubled the amount of squares and did 12 nine patches to make it a Chain Sampler quilt.  Each square is 15" finished.  It is 68" x 90". 

 

My aunt did the quilting, this was too big for me and not even the time to consider it on my limited machine!  She did wavy lines to show the chains better, stippling throughout the blocks and then each sampler block she did some great custom quilting.  On all of the blocks with trees she'd follow the shape of the tree.  I love how she did it!

I backed it with gray minky and the orange print seemed perfect for the binding.  I actually almost wish I'd used orange in each block, or used it more.

There you have it!  Soon one of my boys will have this on their new extra big boy beds.  Now I'm going to lay under it and watch New Girl. I'm done for the night :)

Heather will be sharing her Block of the Month quilt finish tomorrow so check back!!

Fabric Tuesday!

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Let's see your creations!

Studiolo Insect embroidery quilt...

Casey from Studioloblog submitted this awesomely embroidered quilt. We love it! That is a ton of embroidery with a great technique! Casey blogs here, she loves art history, quilting and design, she plans to start her own pattern company early next year! I think this quilt is very unique and fun !  

I have been itching to show this quilt top since I started it…er…last summer.

 This weekend I finally put in the final stitches, and I have to admit that I’m quite pleased.  More importantly, my son Julian is pleased, since this quilt is for him.  Which is why the appliques are of dandelions and bees. Luckily, his little brother Simon asked for nice, streamlined sharks for his quilt!

Because of the intricacy of the silhouettes (antennae, anyone?) the shapes had to be done in raw edge applique.  I don’t really want them to fray over time, though, so I had to be inventive in how I applied them.  I’m terrible at machine applique, and I don’t really like the way it looks on my machine at home, so I ended up doing the whole thing by hand.  I fused the shapes to the background and then blanket stitched around them with clear thread.  To protect the edges, I then chain stitched around them with embroidery thread.

I’m not sure if this will work to protect the edges a bit and prevent them from fraying, but the embroidery will at least ensure that the outlines of the silhouettes remain crisp.

I haven’t come across this technique in my research on-line, and I’m thinking it will turn out to have been either brilliant or really, really stupid.  Once I’ve washed the quilt a few times, I’ll let you know how it turned out.  I can at least say that the process of hand-stitching was enjoyable, if slow.  I hope I don’t have to applique any more insects for a while, though.

Boy Quilt from Lilabelle Lane Creations

Sharon from Lilabelle Lane Creations is a mum, quilter and embroiderer among many more things I'm sure!  And it shows in this quilt with the combination of piecing and embroidery.  Such a sweet quilt for a little boy!  Make sure to stop by Lilabelle Lane Creations, see her 2011 finishes, 2012 finishes and Mini Quilts for a treat!  Thanks Sharon for sharing your quilt!

A Boy Story Quilt

This quilt just makes my heart go all warm and fuzzy.

It was a Quilt that I was always going to make ... one day.

Well that day came when I thought my second son was going to need

surgery at Easter and if I was going to be at the hospital then I needed

something to work on.

We left the specialist and went straight to the fabric shop, supplies bought.

Home and then some stitchery's were traced.

I was ready and the journey of this quilt began and the self imposed

deadline was set.  My gorgeous Nephews 3rd birthday - 7th June.

I did it!

 and the matching Pillow

I even put a quilt label on it so it is a real finish!

It has been quilted with an all over Kite Pantograph by Linda at Ladybug Quilting.

Thank you Linda.

- Quilt Stats - 

Pattern 

"A Boys Story" by Annie Downs of

Hatched and Patched

Finished Size

54" x 68" (138cm x 170cm)

Every stitch of this quilt was placed with love for Liam

and Lily has finished it off by filling it with cuddles.

So and Update on Declyn. 

He never had surgery. 

A lot of time had been spent at specialist and physio appointments (still one more Specialist Appt) so the stitchery's were still well timed!  He is allowed to return to sporting activities on the 1st June. He has done no running or anything for over 11 weeks and has just been given the all clear to ride his bike, he still has to get his fitness back up .....

"Really Declyn, do you have to play football this year?"

Arghh ...  boys will be boys

 and on that subject, remember Aiden's little adventure into the 

"knee injury playing field" as well?  

Yes he dislocated is patella (knee cap) and has a small tear in his ACL.

Now boys, you know I love you both but no more Knee injuries OK

 and I know you joke about it now, but really, both of you at the same time?

I'm off now. 

Have to go buy some wrapping paper and a card and get this Quilt ready to mail.

Thank you for sharing the journey of this quilt with me.

Now what ..... something new?