A quilt for baby Jack

As I mentioned previously, I've got a new baby nephew due any moment now!  My husband and I went home to Maryland for a baby shower this past weekend for us (well, for Bean), which was the perfect opportunity to deliver Jack's quilt to my brother and sister-in-law in person.

I followed Melissa's tutorial, called Playing the Scales, and am pleased to report that this project came together relatively quickly.  The only deviation I made from her instructions was that I did a lot more laying out in advance than just grabbing and chain piecing.  And I only managed to flip my rows around, necessitating unpicking, twice!

The quilt is backed in a green and black paisley (no idea of the name, sorry), a grey print from JoAnn's, and a Cloud9 print that came from the remnant bin at JoAnn's (no selvedge, sorry).

I quilted on either side of each vertical seam, which was simple but not that speedy as there are a lot of columns in this quilt!

I finished the quilt about a month ago, when we had a foot of snow on the ground.  That's kind of unusual for Louisville, so I figured I should try and take advantage of the situation for some "artsy" quilt photography.  And, to show the ever-changing moods of Mother Nature in March, it's now 70 degrees and sunny today!

And here's Lindsay testing out Jack's quilt to make sure it's up to par.  I love it when quilts are used!

And speaking of used, she recently posted an Instagram pic of big brother-to-be, James Michael, with his quilt by Aunt Kacey - is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen??  (You can find me on Instagram at kpwarren07.  I'm trying to be a more regular poster, but I'm already a regular viewer!)

 

 

Linking up with the other folks over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict!

Sunday Stash #27 - Birthday buys!

My birthday was this past week and I celebrated by treating myself to some fabric!  (I also ended up with a terrible cold, so the fabric really was a highlight to an otherwise icky day.)  I hit up a Craftsy sale and also sprung for a Southern Fabric daily special, but I'm going to spread the buys out over a couple posts so that it doesn't seem quite so glutinous :-P

I got two charm packs of Ready, Set, Go by Ann Kelle/Robert Kaufman.  Two reasons for this purchase: 1) if Bean is a boy, I'll make his quilt from these because the colors coordinate with the other brights in the nursery; 2) if Bean's not a boy, it's never bad to have boy-friendly prints on hand.  I especially like the bright color palate, as well as the mixer prints and the bicycles.  I actually almost bought some yardage of the bicycles to make a crib sheet!

Craftsy also had some Aurifil thread sets on sale, so I got the white-black set.  I've started sewing with the spool I got from my Fabric.com purchase a while back, and while I'm not completely a convert, it is nice how the thread is so thin and takes up less space in the seam allowance.  I think others have commented that it's also less linty, but I don't know that I've noticed that yet.

So that's week 1 of the birthday buys!  I think I'll milk these purchases for three more posts - a whole month of birthday fun!

Linking up with Molli Sparkles, and mourning the loss of one hour of sleep thanks to Daylight Savings Time...

Awesome wishes - a completed top

A while back (pre-pregnancy), I started this top with the intent of donating it to the Louisville Modern Quilt Guild's charity quilt drive.  Given that I just finished the top last week, it should be pretty clear that I missed that deadline.  In fact, I haven't been to a meeting since they announced the drive, although I did donate my Ed Emberley quilt via my LQS, which is a Project Linus drop-off site, so I wasn't a complete charity slacker.

This quilt is done with only a jelly roll!  (It annoys me when a tutorial is for a "jelly roll quilt" that uses extra fabric for the top and not even the whole roll.) The line is Wishes and the pattern is called Awesome, hence the Awesome Wishes quilt.  And now that it's a top, I think it will remain that way until a recipient is needed.  I've mentioned before, it's just easier to store tops (I fold them over a hanger in the closet) than completed quilts.  The tutorial directs you to set aside 5 strips for binding, so I've got that covered, but it will need a backing when the time comes.

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict!

Makes for babies :)

One friend from college has recently had a baby (sweet Finn!) and a co-worker is expecting her second (a little girl), so some baby sewing was in order.

A while back I had purchased a bundle of this cute Michael Miller fabric and decided this was a good opportunity to put it to work.

I made a couple squishy cubes with ribbon tags and a few "sensory" blankets.  They're all done with the same fabrics, but with green, blue and yellow ribbons for Finn and aqua, yellow and pink ribbons for not-yet-here baby girl.  There's quilting cotton on the front (love those giraffes!) and grey flannel on the back.

Baby girl "taggie"

Finn's taggie

(Poorly lit) shot of squishy cube

Hope the babies like their presents!

Linking up with the Whooopers!

Sunday Stash #26 - more nursery fabrics!

The only nursery project that I still hadn't successfully found fabric for was for making new rocking chair pads.  After much looking, I found some Riley Blake home dec fabric in yellow chevrons at Fabric.com that I'm thinking is going to work.

I do wish the chevrons alternated yellow with white, but it's more of a yellow and light yellow/cream.  Of course, they do make a yellow and white version, but it's only in quilting-weight cotton, not the home dec stuff.  Even so, I think it works well with the curtains and hopefully it will look nice on the (yet to be finished) white rocker.  Plus, it was on sale :)

With white for comparison.

I just have to actually figure out how to make new chair pads...it will involve piping, zippers and ties, so wish me luck!

With curtains!

Of course while I was browsing I came upon this Michael Miller Mini Mike's Buntings in Retro and decided I couldn't leave it behind.  From the photos online it looked like it had a cream background, but one of the reviews said it was bright white.

Well it's clearly not bright white, which I would have preferred, but it's still cute and would work well with any future baby-related sewing projects.

With white for comparison.

I rounded out my purchases with some sewing machine needles and Aurifil thread - my first!

Linking up with Molli!

Pink and grey and sparkly!

A pink quilt - perfect for a Valentine's Day share!

This quilt was commissioned back in September...in the first trimester of my pregnancy when my sewing mojo was on (temporary) hiatus.  It actually came together pretty quickly once I started working on it!  I used the tutorial here, but added in the white and grey (and sparkly!) borders to make it larger.  The fabrics were all supplied to me, other than the fabric in the border which is from JoAnn's and was from my stash (yay for using stash!).

I quilted it with white thread on either side of the inner and outer "boxes."

Close up of quilting - and sparkly grey dots!

It is backed with leftovers from the front, as well as a grey print that was supplied to me.  The binding is a pink print that was also supplied to me.

It came out pretty well, and I hope the recipient likes it!

Linking up with the other folks at Confessions of a Fabric Addict!

Sunday Stash #25 - a new quilt for a new nephew!

I'm getting a new nephew in late March/early April!  I made his big brother a quilt, so clearly baby Jack will need one too.

I went through my Pinterest board and settled on this this tutorial/pattern from Melissa with a color scheme of white/cream, grey, blue and green.  Jack's big brother's quilt (it was done pre-blog, but it's the second one down on this page) is white, grey and blue with a green backing and I figured it'd be good for them to somewhat coordinate.

I had a few appropriate fabrics in my stash but definitely had to make some purchases to fill in the blanks.  Here they are:

Top: Wonderland White Stars in cream, Downtown Mary's Berry in Green, Downton Downstairs Check in blue
Bottom: Lakeside Gatherings Tootsie and Floral Gatherings Posy in Olive

Top: Ninja Number in blue, Avant Garden Dot in Clover
Bottom: El Camino Real Geo in light blue and American Beauty Stars in blue


And here's the final pull all together.

There's a few Tula Pinks in there, the blue I got from Ms. Molli in the rainbow bundle I won a while back and some other assorted prints from the stash. 

I'm hoping this quilt comes together rather quickly, because baby Jack will be here before too long!

Linking up with Molli Sparkles!