Better Late Than Never: Finish #14 in 2018

Not quite a baby quilt since the recipient, Temple, is nearly 2-1/2 years old.

 

He was so eager to be born that he arrived three months sooner than expected, weighing less than three pounds.

I've always thought this photo was so amazing since it shows his dad's wedding ring on his little wrist like a bracelet.

But here he is now: healthy and strong, and a typical two-year old.

I actually made a different quilt for him originally, but then realized the quilt needed to feature a train since his dad works for the railroad. I started with the train, and it kind of evolved from there. And this was the result:

And except for the lime green minkey on the back, all of the other fabrics came from my stash and scraps.

Modern Baby Quilt -- Finish #12

Twelfth finish for the year! This one is another baby quilt for the daughter to be born to my niece and her husband later this year. I had a different quilt planned for her, but while I was working on this quilt I decided it was perfect for them. It just seemed to fit the mom-to-be.

The Kaffe Fassett fabric combined with the black and white prints is such a classic combination, and one I used for my Wizard's Chess quilt that was on the cover of the June/July issue of McCall's Quick Quilts. 

And, in keeping with my goal to use up stash, the border fabric for this quilt was left over from the backing used on my Which Way To Go? quilt that I designed and made for the September/October issue of Quiltmaker magazine. It was technically also a UFO (unfinished object) because I had done the house blocks in September 2016. I have 15 more house blocks that are done, so I'll likely make another quilt pretty much like this one for a friend. (I had originally been working on this one for her when I decided to earmark it for the upcoming baby instead.)

Here are a couple more pics of the quilt:

Quick Baby Boy Quilt

I was doing some organizing in my sewing room and ran across a novelty panel and some yardage, intended for a quilt for a baby boy. Although baby Samuel was born yesterday, I had already made his quilt -- the Pony Express quilt I blogged about previously.

I decided to go ahead and make this boy quilt knowing that there will likely be another boy born into the family at some point in the future. (The next two births are girls -- one within the next couple of weeks and one in July. I'll share their quilts soon.) And except for backing fabric, everything else came from my stash!

This was a snap to make, since it includes a panel for the center of the quilt. I had yardage for the borders, binding, and corner four-patches. In fact, it took longer to fussy-cut the border print than to sew the entire quilt top.

Sometimes the right quilting choice IS a straightforward meander/stippling pattern. I think it actually complements the construction theme. And it also quilts up quickly.

To make it even quicker to finish, I bought 60-inch wide Minky for the back. Perfect for a baby quilt -- and no seams to stitch or cotton to iron. And I only needed to purchase the length of the quilt plus eight inches.

Loaded the selvages to my leaders -- which meant the stretch of the backing went across the frame. It also meant I needed to load the quilt top with the length of the quilt sideways. Luckily the meander quilting isn't directional, so that worked like a charm.

Now just need to wait until another baby boy joins the family!

Year-to-date finishes -- nine quilts

• UFOs: 1 
• Flimsies into quilts: 3 
• Other quilts (started and finished in 2018): 5 (includes three quilts for magazines not blogged about yet)

Another Pony Express Quilt

I thought I’d share the quilt I made using Northcott’s Pony Express fabric. It is for baby Samuel who is due to be born in the next couple of weeks. 

My sister and I did the Northcott Pony Express Block Party shop hop and collected the patterns for the blocks the shops did. But I’m not a fan of sampler quilts and wanted to do something different with the fabrics. 

So I decided to use the fabric to make a baby quilt for a great nephew, Samuel, who is due to be born within a couple weeks. (Yes, that means I finished the baby quilt BEFORE he was born – which doesn’t happen very often for me.)

Samuel has several family history connections to the Pony Express.

Absalom W. Smith is baby Samuel’s fifth great grandfather. His property in Draper, Utah was the Pony Express station Traveler's Rest. Below is the backing fabric, which shows the names of all of the Pony Express stations. You'll notice "Traveler's Rest" in the center of the photo.

On a different ancestral line, two brothers (John and William Fisher) and a brother-in-law (Richard Erastus Egan) of Samuel’s third great grandfather were Pony Express riders.  I think that makes them his fourth great uncles. John and William ("Billy") immigrated from England. I always thought it was interesting that these two young men with British accents were part of the Pony Express.

Here's a close-up that shows the quilting:

Believe it or not, this is the second Pony Express quilt I've made. The other one used the Pony Express fabric designed by Jodi Barrows for the backing, and I designed the front of the quilt to represent Pony Express stations. 

I also designed a cross-stitch design as part of my Family History Sampler to pay homage to John and Billy Fisher. 

Now I just need to get the quilt sent off to Laredo, TX in time for Samuel to be born!

One More Baby Quilt and First Finish of 2016

I've been catching up on baby quilts for the children of my nieces and nephews.

My niece, Cassie, told me that she is planning to decorate the nursery for her upcoming son. Fisher, using a robot theme. So I began searching for robot fabric and found the perfect choice -- so perfect, in fact, that I decided to do a whole-cloth quilt. I found the coordinating striped fabric and added a border. Backed it with black minkey and bound it with medium aqua solid.

I quilted it using a Wasatch Quilting design, Round Pegs in Square Holes, which echoed the circles and squares that make up the robot designs.

So that's the first of five baby-boy quilts I need to get finished over the next few months. And this one is done before the baby is born!

Two Quilts for Baylee

One from me (the great aunt) and one from my sister (the grandma). Who can resist wanting to shower gifts on this cutie!

When I learned that the goal was to decorate the nursery with a whale motif, I searched for whale fabric. I found some darling fabric, but the prints were fairly large. Hence, I picked a simple pattern that would show off the fabrics.

And since I quilted it before getting HQ Pro-Stitcher, I just did a meandering stipple pattern. Nothing fancy.

This past weekend my sister brought some cute whale fabric and Minkey backing and we quilted another quilt for Baylee.

And just in time for Baylee's first birthday on Saturday.

Newest Finish: Malcolm's Quilt

I finished another long-overdue baby quilt -- thanks to HQ Pro-Stitcher.

 Malcolm is now two years old, but better late than never.

I designed this quilt about a year and a half ago. Shortly thereafter Quiltmaker magazine wanted to know if I'd done a quilt using the Churned Star block that I'd submitted for their 100 Blocks special issue. I decided to submit this design at the same time and they decided to include it in a later issue of the magazine. Here's the blog post about that quilt and here's that version of the quilt:

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Malcolm's quilt uses the fabric line Comma by Zen Chic for Moda.

I quilted it with the design Broken Glass from Wasatch Quilting.

It's a great boy's quilt design. A digital version of the quilt pattern is available from Quiltmaker Magazine.

Another Forgotten Quilt Top Finally Quilted

I finished this quilt top seven years ago. And now it is finally quilted.

I bought it as a kit in November 2008, the only time I've been to the International Quilt Festival in Houston. And I don't even like the color purple. I think I was attracted to the two background fabrics and how they both blended and contrasted with each other. I finished the top sometime in 2009.

So I needed a quilt I wasn't especially attached to to use as one of my HQ Pro-Stitcher practice quilts. This was my second go at edge-to-edge quilting. Luckily I only made one mistake -- and it isn't very obvious. (The thread broke and when I got it all fixed and started up again, I didn't pick quite the right spot. The machine quilted over a portion of the design and while it was only about a needle's width away, if you look close you can see it -- especially since it was in the border and more visible.)

Here are a couple views of the back so you can see the Ribbons design by Wasatch Quilting that I used with HQ Pro-Stitcher.

I'll be giving this quilt to my niece-in-law. She loves purples and lavenders. She and my nephew just had their third baby, Zeke. But this obviously isn't right for a baby boy. But I never finished a quilt for her second daughter, Rowan. I'll give this to her to use as she wants with her two daughters. I did make a baby quilt for baby #1, Penelope. You can see that quilt in this post. But since Penny is now in a big-girl bed, this quilt will work on that bed.

Now back to finishing more quilts! Only 33 quilt tops to go! (Yes, I really have that many tops done and waiting to be quilted.)

Taking Inventory

So, do you know how many quilts you've finished? What about how many tops are waiting to be quilted? Or even how many projects (UFOs, WIPs, PIGs, etc.) are in progress? Now add in the kits and BOMs that you are hoping to get to one of these days.

Well, over the weekend I updated my inventory and now know why my sewing room is in total disarray! Here are the stats:

Finished quilts: 88 finished quilts, 27 of which were for my book Triple-Play Scrap Quilts, many were gifts to family and friends over the years, but sadly many are in piles throughout my house.

Unquilted tops: 33. This number is actually down by five over the past two weeks as I've quilted five tops since I now have HQ Pro-Stitcher added to my HQ Avante.

Kits and BOMs: 41. Now this was a shocker! My sister just started quilting. Maybe I need to share some with her.

And finally the WIPs (works in progress), UFOs (unfinished objects), and PIGs (projects in grocery bags): 20! In my defense, four of the 20 have all of the blocks done. I need only sew them together.

Now, add to this my fabric stash and I could probably make more than 150 quilts from what's in my sewing room. YIKES!

But the good news is that I am continually making progress --  whether's it's working on the underway projects or getting quilts finished. I even gave away a quilt on Saturday. A very belated baby quilt. The baby is now 2 years old.

The quilt photo above shows a close-up the quilt made with Hello Luscious by Basic Gray for Moda. I quilted it using a digital circles design by Nancy Haacke of Wasatch Quilting. I had a cone of Aurifil veriegated thread that they so generously donated to all of the attendees at Handi Quilter's Academy a couple years ago. The cone itself was kind of ho-hum. But it was fabulous when quilted! And it went so well with the fabric.

Two-year-old Piper didn't quite know what was going on, but her older sister Hadley is always ready to pose for the camera.

Here's another pic of the quilt:

The other finishes are being bound (thanks Mom!). I'll share them as I get them back from her.

I'm on a roll. Hoping to finish several more over the next few weeks.

 

Latest Quilt Top Finish

Yes, very simple. Even somewhat modern. Not my typical quilt style. But it was fun to make.

The image above is from Electric Quilt, but the finished top looks just like this. I imported jpgs of the Zen Chic fabrics (from Comma line) into Electric Quilt. The blocks were simple to make -- but it was a pain to match up the points between the rows.

I think it will be a great boy's baby quilt.


 

First Came Love…

Then came marriage.

Then came Penelope in the baby carriage.

And then came the baby quilt. And for the first time in a long time, I actually had the quilt done before the baby came.

Penelope was born today – March 2, 2012.  (Some of us had been hoping for a Leap Day birth, but the trip to the hospital on the 29th was a false alarm.)

Book update: Release date is set for  June 2013. I know, that seems like forever, but I still do have a lot of work to do – and I’ll need every minute of time before my deadline  in June 2012.
I’ve been doing some freelance writing and editing for the folks at HandiQuilter. A great company with some great people. Too bad that the work  I’m doing for them doesn’t “require” them to permanently loan  me one of their quilting machines!
Bye for now. Back to my sewing room to finish the last few quilts.