My New Blog Journey's Row 10 Quilt

Laura from My New Blog Journey is an amazing mom, quilter and sewist.  I was so impressed reading her blog and her love for her son, Aaron, who has special needs.  Her style is so creative and I just love this quilt she put together.  Here are a few of her finishes that our my favorite: Baby Quilt, Star Quilt and Baby Quilt 2! Check them out after you read Laura's story.

My Quilt Story: The Row 10 quilt

Hi! My name is LauraJ and I blog at MyNewBlogJourney. I am delighted today to bring to you the story of
a quilt that is near and dear to me, even though I just finished it recently. It all started back in December
2009 when I was asked to be part of an online quilting bee. We were all friends and this wasn't the first
time we had flickr bee'd together. We wanted to spice things up for our bee in 2010 and decided to work on rows of pieced fabrics in the chosen elements of the Queen Mama's month. We named our group Row 10.

My month was July 2010 and I thought long and hard and came up with the idea of a whimisical forest
theme for my son. Each member was to make a row 6 to 8 inches in height by 60 inches long that could
include forest critters, gnomes, trees, mushrooms. Anything that would be fun and would appeal to
a growing boy. I wanted this quilt for my son who has profound special needs in many areas of his
development. He's in a wheelchair and I can't very well take him to the forest but I can take the forest
to him. He's on his way to being a teenager soon and I wanted a quilt to mark the milestone in our lives
that we're both growing up.

The colours I chose for this quilt to be were bright colours and forest colours of green, blue, brown, red,
orange, aqua. Fabrics consisted of whatever the maker had. I love novelty fabrics and fun fabrics and a
lot of those were included by the members to each of their rows.

As the rows started coming in the mail I started playing with them.

And then I waited for the rest of my rows to come in. I went for an appointment with my son last summer
and I was told he needed surgery immediately. I wanted to have this quilt done for my boy so I put a call
out to my group if there were any members willing to help me make extra blocks to make up rows that
never came. Fortunately for me I had the best group of gals and they rallied the troops and I finally had
enough rows.While I waited for the surgeon's office to call us with a date I put the rows together and
eventually had a top.

I then had to find the right backing for this because finding a backing is just as important to me as the
quilt top. I want it to flow. If you're a quilt maker then you know how hard it is to come by masculine
fabrics. I finally scored some fabric that I just knew would be perfect for this whole forest theme I had
going on. Then I found some more fabric on sale which would complement the whole quilt nicely.

I sandwhiched the quilt and set about to quilting it. I just wanted simple quilting and so I outlined quilted
the main characters, gnomes, trees, houses, mushrooms etc, and I did a bit of free motion things here
and there.

I was going to go with a different binding but thought since I had this at home I might as well just use it
and I'm so glad I did.

Once the binding was on I took it outside for it's photoshoot. I trudged through the snow in the back
yard that was 2 feet deep. Well past my knees but oh so worth it for a splendid quilt such as this.

And the back:

And finally on his bed:

I really like this quilt for so many reasons! First being the privilege of being part of such a wonderful
group of women quilters. Second I love it for it's design, colour, and fun! Third I love that it's for my
wonderful amazing boy who keeps me grounded into my own reality. We did get that date for surgery
and I will cherish the month of February just a little more so than usual before "our normal" changes
completely come Spring.

Sew Fresh Fabrics adorable house quilts!

We came across Becca from Sew Fresh Fabrics through the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  And when you see these quilts you'll know why we had to ask for a feature!  We've been seeing these house blocks popping up all over the place online and they are just too cute!  Let me emphasize that there are two separate quilts posted below...Becca is part of an couple of online bees and used their blocks and her own to create these funky whimsical quilts!  (Be sure to click on the bee's links and see all their blocks.)

These quilts are the result of two online bees I am in and will soon be living on my 7yr old's bunks. For the first group- Hip To Bee Square- I sent out an assortment of fabrics and asked for blocks any size and any design- sewer's choice.  

For the second group- Bee Addicted 3- I sent out similar fabrics and asked for houses- again any type - any size. The blocks I received back were just amazing!! So bright and fun and amazingly inspired! (Thank you all!). I knew I wanted to mix them together to get 2 quilts out of them - and here they are.

It's a virtual I-Spy of characters and creatures and where they live. There's a mushroom house, a light house and a kooky witch hat house.

The process of putting them together was so like a puzzle- adding strips and blocks where needed to make them work together as a unit. Then I added a cobblestone border and lots of little blocks around that. One is finished, washed, and on the bed. The other still needs the binding sewn to the back and a spin through the washer and dryer for that soft crinkly goodness. I love these and even more so because the blocks were made by many women around the globe!!

Thank you so much for sharing!  Becca and Peg (from Ivy Arts) share this blog together and have an Etsy shop where they sell to die for fabric, check it out!

Also, check out our Fresh Poppy Blog and help me decide which quilt block I should use for my next quilt!  I haven't done a traditionally pieced quilt before so I am trying to decide the block and layout, come help me!

Linking at amylouwho

Super cute Fishy baby quilt...

I found Heather's blog Quilt or Stitch as I was blog hopping through the endless quilt blogs out there. Her blog caught my eye immediately. I browsed through some of her quilts and they were all worth a feature. Make sure to go check out her blog and all the amazing projects she is up too...

I was shocked when I got a comment from Heather to be featured on Quilt Story, how nice! Thank you for letting me post about quilting, my obsession…


We all have our favorite quilt magazines. Mine is Quilts and More. And of course, you can’t get a subscription, so I am always hunting for them. In the Spring 2010 magazine there was a quilt on the cover that I loved, it was simple and pretty. I then dawned on me, it was the quilt pattern to use “THE FABRIC” You all have a favorite fabric you’ve been holding onto, waiting for that perfect pattern to come along right? My fabric was by Heather Ross, and it has these little gold fish in bags, with silly names like Spooky and Swimmy. I had been building a small collection of aqua and orange fabrics to go with this fabric to make a quilt someday (this is like a 2 year time span).

I pulled it all out, and then evaluated the pattern. I wanted skinnier sashing since this was a baby quilt, everything else I left the same. Here are the rectangles all cut out.

While I am planning a quilt my 8 year old daughter loves to help me pick out fabrics. She insisted the owls be in the quilt, even if they did have green leaves. She then drew them, she is so cute right? I like involving my kids in my process, the owls look great in the quilt by the way, she has a good eye.

I free motion quilt all of my quilts on my domestic machine, its taken me about a year to really get it down to where I feel like it looks decent. I love free motion quilting, it’s like drawing. I decided to quilt a loop-do-loop pattern all over it. I had some left over flannel in my stash that I used for the backing.

I squealed when it was done, I was so happy with the outcome of it! Quilting is my time to relax and enjoy, and I really enjoyed making this quilt.

My friend Amanda was really thrilled about receiving this quilt at her baby shower, it’s a good feeling to know your quilt will be loved.

Thank you again for letting me share my Quilt Story! Happy Sewing!