Collaborating a Special Gift

Sometime back in 2012 my wonderful friend Cristy, over at diaries of domestic bliss, asked me to make a doll quilt for her daughter Berkeley. Berkeley, like many other young toddlers, had become obsessed with dolls and caring for her babies. To support her interest in dolls, and love of nurturing things, they wanted to give her a doll bed, and of course a quilt must go with it! Well this Christmas gift became a very collaborative effort, lots of love, many talents and special people worked together to get this gift finished for little miss Berkeley.

Our friend Sean, Berkeley's uncle, made the bed. Here it is with cousin Patrick standing by, and his Cabbage Patch Doll.

After Sean got to work on the bed and I found out the dimensions (did I mention it was made in Loveland, CO) I got to work on the quilt. I had fallen in love with Kate Spain's fabric line Central Park, and happened to have a few fat quarters and a charm pack on hand so this was the color scheme I went with.

Once I had fabric selected I sent a text to Aunt Mandy so she could have an idea for painting the bed. Then I got to work on the quilt. I love Granny Squares quilts! So I quickly joined the many other quilters in cyberspace and created mini granny squares blocks for the quilt.

I cut my charm squares down to mini size and pieced the 6 tiny blocks together with a light grey Kona solid. Then I used a fat quarter to frame the granny squares and as the backing. I loved the emphasis of purple in the fabric color scheme so I choose another purple fat quarter to cut into for the binding. As for the quilting, I used my walking foot to outline the colored squares with pink thread. I really hate to use pinks and pastels for girls. There is far too much of that in our society, but I felt the bright orange, green, yellow and blue off balanced the girly shades in this fabric line.

I love how these blocks turned out! I have on my to do list a granny squares quilt with my Flea Market Fancy fat quarter set I purchased last spring. :) Of course I had to add a small pillow to go with it, no doll bed is complete without a pillow for baby's head. I used the fat quarter from the binding and strips of my charm squares I cut into for detail.

After the quilt and pillow were finished I took a few pictures with my American Girls Doll, Felicity, before Cristy picked it up in Lincoln and took it home to Omaha. 

So here is the finished Christmas gift, waiting under the tree Christmas morning. Berkeley got a new Cabbage Patch doll to go with the bed and doll quilt. I am sure she loves it too. She is a great little Mommy to her dolls because she has a wonderful Mommy to roll model for her.

*Sorry for the quality of photos in this post. Many of these pictures were via txt messages since all the people involved were in different cities.

Just like riding a bicycle

It has been SEVERAL months since I attached my free motion foot to the sewing machine. I thought I would have a hard time getting a good rhythm but, just like riding a bicycle, you never forget! :)

Keeping Busy...

I'm still here. Quilting came to a sudden halt after I finished my Ghastlies (which is still being used even though Halloween stuff is tucked away until next October).

Much of my time from October until December was spent finishing my undergrad degree, and studying for the GRE. I applied to Grad school and was accepted into the Educational Psychology program. So, although I graduated in December, I am still in school. Along with studying, I managed to get a few crafts done though. I can thank pinterest for keeping my creative juices flowing. Here is a picture of one of my wind chimes I made (I am obsessed with wind chimes!). I have gotten a lot of small craft projects done throughout the house, just not much quilting.

Until lately...there are more babies being born, so more quilts have been getting done. The quilting bug has bitten me once again. Here is a peek at a baby quilt I did for a co-worker.

Plus... I have finally put together my quilting bee top and back! I have one quilt in line to be quilted for a baby shower this weekend, then this guy is getting basted and on the quilting table.

I am going to try to get back into blogging. For the few of you that actually care. :) The next few weeks may be busy though, I do my first 1/2 marathon on the 5th! Hopefully mother nature will get the memo that spring started before then. It has been VERY cold this month, my run last night was in the wind and 30 degree weather. Last year we were wearing shorts in March. This year I will be lucky if I am not wearing my winter running gear at the start of the marathon. I will share some of my projects with you soon!