Bee There or Bee Squares Finished!

Finally I finished this long lost quilt! It was started back in 2011 when I joined an online quilting bee. Then it was set aside. Then I got it back out over a year later, put the quilt top and back together and then set it aside once more. Last summer I pulled it out of the closet and made the quilt sandwich, intending to quilt it slow and steady until it was finished. However my free motion pebble quilting was taking FOREVER and the other projects added up so it was folded up on my quilting table and buried under other projects. That is until this spring, I was determined to finish it!

Each color block is made up of 36-2" squares of a particular color. These blocks were cut by me and then sent to quilting bee members to be pieced together along with a signature block for the back. I encouraged them to swap out squares for their own scraps and was treated with a few added color blocks including a favorite on one of the red blocks...a red house. :)

The white blocks between the colored blocks sandwiched in a square of colorful circle prints. I wanted them to be square obviously to go with the other squares but since I planed to do pebble quilting I wanted to incorporate circles too. I love this addition and the variety of circle designs and sizes in the different prints. For the binding I went with a circle print as well. The colors of the circles match the colors of the square blocks almost exact!

For the back of the quilt I did a dark grey background and put the corresponding signature block behind the quilt block. I love the back for the simplicity and texture of the quilting.  

For the quilting I did the pebble design and I changed the color of thread to match the color of the block. This was very time consuming...both the dense quilting and rotating colors with each square. This was the reason it sat on my quilting table for so long. I did not enjoy the quilting process of pebbles. This spring I decided to get it into gear and finish this sucker up. As I quilted I discovered a short cut: when I finished a color block and moved on to the white block and thread I did two white blocks then two color blocks. This saved time on switching thread colors. Although the quilting was time consuming it was worth it for the texture and color definition you see on the back!

Since I had this colorful quilt finished by summer I knew I wanted to use it for the maternity pictures we had done. We took it along to our photo shoot and did a family shot on it with the columns that we were married at behind us.

We did a few shots with books too, to go in the girls' nursery. (Photos to come soon!)

I loved our photographer, Nellie Smith, and encourage anyone in the Lincoln, NE area to use her for your photography needs! Her prices are unbeatable too. :)

What I learned from this quilt: keep at it! Quilting got easier and became faster as I went, plus I learned my wonderful short cut. :)
Now this quilt lives in our basement on our comfy couch. With the heat and humidity rolling in this is becoming my favorite place as we wind down this twin pregnancy!

Ch-Ch-Changes

Cue the David Bowie tune...

Many changes have occurred in the last month for myself. I started a new job, which I LOVE! I chopped ALL my hair off, well like 13 inches, which I LOVE. I donated to Pantene Beautiful Lenghts, this was my second time donating hair.

I have re-decorated our office/quilting room (much needed!), and bathroom, a change my husband cringed at. "What was wrong with the old shower curtain?" he asked when he got home from his second job. That's right, he has 2 jobs right now and I never see him, another big change for us! He's working to help pay for our trip to Hawaii, we are so excited for this trip! Another change is that we have 2 new computer monitors on our desktop in our office/quilting room. They take up a bunch of space, but allow for Lee to work from home a few days a week, AND I can watch Netflix/movies easier when quilting. :) I plan to start making some baby quilts and small lap quilts to sell on Etsy.

For a friend and old co-worker she has gone through a big change as well, she's a Mommy! I have yet to meet her little man, Gabe. I want to let her settle in at home with her week old kiddo, but his pictures are adorable. Here's his quilt that I had promised to share last month and not gotten around too. Sorry. :)

I call this quilt "Gabe's Tune." Gabe's dad is in a band, so I planned to use some of the Groovy Guitars fabric by Michael Miller that I had in my stash when I first found out they were expecting. Then I got word from the new Mommy that the nursery was going to be a rock-star theme, so it worked out perfectly!

I used some scraps from my stash to go along with the color scheme in the Groovy Guitars I had, then I bought a few fat quarters to add to it: musical notation and some dots/stripes/solids in grey, blues, whites and blacks. 

 The process for making this quilt involved marking off the quilt top with painter's tape on my design wall.

Sorry, this was taken on my cell phone.

Then I laid out strips of fabric in varying lengths and widths at a diagonal within the 36" square space. I added strips of Kona Cotton Medium Grey to the ends and overlapped over the painter's tape quite a bit to account for seams and trimming.

Another cell phone pic :(

To trim and square up the top I used the painter's tape again on the kitchen floor where I baste my quilts, sorry I don't have a picture of this process. Laying the tape on the floor as I cut helped me visualize the quilt top before cutting so I didn't make any mistakes. Usually I make mistakes cutting so this process helped a lot! I guess what I learned from this quilt was how important taking your time is, and double checking before your cuts really does pay off!

For the back I used a light blue Kona Cotton, not sure of the color, which I also used for the binding. I love pieced together backs, but with baby quilts it is so much easier to use one piece of fabric, and saves so much time.For the quilting a stippled it. This quilt was really fast to put together, probably because I used so my strips from my stash.

I love the way it turned out with it's scrappy strips and off center diagonal lines. Gabe's parents loved to too which made my day since they're not the quilt type. I look forward to stopping by sometime soon and meeting the little guy. Also, to meeting another set of friends' new baby set to arrive this month. Her quilt top is being pieced together right now.

Family of Trees

Finally, I have time to show you my last quilt from 2011, "Family of Trees."

This quilt was made for a co-worker who had her daughter right when I was learning to quilt. She is the only co-worker that did not receive a baby quilt from me, because I was not confident in my skills at the time. So fast forward nearly two years and I have finally created her quilt. I did not choose the fabric for this quilt, and was very nervous when my co-worker gave me the fabric because I didn't know how to bring it all together. My co-worker asked me a while back if I would make her daughter, Olivia, a quilt. I said I would love to and she took Olivia to JoAnn's to pick out fabric. Olivia, at the time 18 months old, requested the pink fabric with the trees, her mom then found 6 fat quarters to go along with the yard of trees Olivia wanted.

To be honest, I thought the fabric she chose was pretty ugly, I had no idea how to tie it together. I knew I wanted to add white to the fabric, and use squares, but that was where my ideas ended. So I searched Flickr for some inspiration and came across a tutorial from Allison at Cluck, Cluck, Sew for a Stack-and-Wack square block. I threw in another yard of white fabric and got to cutting my blocks, starting with 9 inch squares from the fat quarters (trying to use all the fabric I could).

I used the tree fabric for the back, along with the left overs from the fat quarters. I also used what I had left of the tree fabric for the binding and appliqued an 'O' on the quilt for Olivia using a scrap from my stash. For quilting I decided to do straight lines with a light blue thread, to match the blue in the tree fabric. I love the way the quilt turned out, the fabrics work pretty well together with the added white. And I was pretty happy with my straight line quilting....after taking out 4 lines of stiching and re-basting the quilt. I have a way to go before I am super confident with straight line quilting, my fabric pulled a bit as I quilted....practice makes perfect.

I wanted the quilt to have a name with "tree" in it, and I had "Kids" by MGMT* in my head, so the name of the quilt comes from that song. To me the song is about childhood and growing up, so it's kind of a fitting name for the quilt. Hopefully Olivia can enjoy it for many years. *If you check out the song by viewing the music video, be warned that it is very strange and a little disturbing. You may also want to watch the "making of" video to reassure yourself that the toddler was not afraid of the monsters. :)

What I learned:
As the tortoise taught us from has infamous race with the hare....SLOW and STEADY wins the race (at least when straight line quilting). I forgot this simple rule and had to un-stitch and re-baste after some bunching that occurred. Also, spray baste seems to help keep the quilt layers together well when making the straight lines.
Another thing that frustrated me a bit when making this quilt was using the tutorial. It was really helpful, and I appreciate all the tutorials I have used from so many quilters because they have taught me SO much, but every quilter is different in the way they phrase things. I want to make a note that when Allison says "finished block size" in her tutorial, she is not meaning finished size when the quilt is put together (which is what I think of when I hear "finished block size"). Instead she is meaning the size the block will be when pieced together. I started with 9" fabric squares, so my quilt blocks were 8" when pieced together, but the finished block size was 7 1/2". This really confused me when I was working on my quilt top because it ended up being a little smaller than I had anticipated and I was thinking I cut my fabric wrong. I just wanted to give a heads up to anyone that uses her tutorial, which I highly recommend!

Now I am going to try and get some studying done. I took Friday off work for a 'mental health day' and I am hoping to get some quilting done. I guess that means I REALLY need to work on studying now so I can use all my time Friday for quilting. Happy Tuesday everyone!

Max, Max, What Do You See?

My next two posts will be about my last two quilts of 2011. I finished this quilt early last week, but I haven't found time to post about it, despite my free time from a break in work and school.
My wonderful friend Mandy asked me to make a quilt for her nephew for his first birthday later this month. I was thrilled with this request because I love to make children's quilts, they are so quick and the fabrics are so fun and colorful! Mandy really wanted a "Where the Wild Things Are" quilt, as her nephew's name is Max, but there is no such fabric out there (someone should change this!). Her next request was Dr. Seuss, like her son's quilt, or Eric Carle. The preschool teacher in me immediately jumped at the idea of an Eric Carle quilt, an INTERACTIVE Eric Carle quilt!
I have wanted to make an interactive children's quilt ever since I came across this quilt made by Jacquie at Tallgrass Prairie Studio, I guess the early childhood educator came out in the quilting portion of my brain when I saw this and I added her quilt to my inspiration to-do list. So here is my Eric Carle quilt for the soon to be one-year old. I made this quilt using a panel of the Brown Bear fabric which has the animals from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do See? the children's book written by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by the very talented Eric Carle.

For Max, I wanted to make a quilt that a toddler could use to snuggle up with, as well as play and learn with. Originally I wanted to do a Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt, with a number on the top of the flap and the corresponding fruit underneath (for those of you that are familiar with this story, you will know what I am talking about.) However, that quilt would have been VERY expensive! Then I found a seller on etsy that had Brown Bear fabric available and snagged it up.
I cut out the animals squares and pieced them randomly into 12 by 15 inch blocks using a Kona grey (can't remember which one, sorry). I decided not to place the quilt squares in order with the story, this way Max's interactions with the quilt could be more challenging as he grows and develops cognitive skills.
I visited my favorite LQS for corresponding prints for the flaps, and put them together with batting in the middle to make them a bit more sturdy. Then I decided to quilt them too, using different quilting techniques. It was really fun to try out new quilting designs on these flaps, and each one is different. For some I quilted along with the fabric, like the blue, green and yellow squares:

For others I tried something new to me, like the purple flap loops, brown flap squares, and white flap pebbles.

I used corresponding thread for the flaps, and stippled the quilt all over with grey thread, except for the panel squares of the animals, which I stitched around with my walking foot a 1/4" on each side of the square. I didn't want the image of the animal to be distorted from the quilting lines. The brown bear is in the middle, without a flap. The idea is that brown bear starts the quilt just like the story so you would start by saying: "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" Then lift the brown flap.....

"I see a red bird looking at me.Red bird, red bird, what do you see?" Then move to the red flap.....

 "I see a yellow duck looking at me." And so on.

 For the back of the quilt I pieced together the fabric left from the flaps in order of the story. I also added gold fabric for the goldfish at the end of the story. My husband's comment on the finished quilt was "The back looks cool." I have to agree, I love the scrappy look of these colorful fabrics. For the binding I machine attached it using a darker Kona grey, I think the grey fabrics help to make the colors pop really well, and will hold up to a child's dirty play well.

This story has been a favorite of mine since I was a child, I still have my copy from the 80's! Every child I have ever taught has loved this story as well. My preschoolers "read" it frequently in our reading loft, and play along with our flannel board story as well. I think Eric Carle's artwork he uses in his illustrations is so appealing and inspiring for children. I have another set of animals left from the panel, I may have to make one of these quilts for my preschoolers to use in the classroom. :) Hopefully Max will love it as much as I do. Mandy should receive this quilt today or Monday, I can't wait to hear what she has to say about it.

What I learned:
I loved getting to try out different quilting techniques on the flaps. Usually I am afraid to waste batting and fabric as I try out new styles, this quilt was a great way for me to get my feet wet, without wasting materials. Plus, I think I have gotten pebble quilting figured out enough to try it on a full quilt!

Biscotti Pips

Hello, everyone in blog-land, it sure has been awhile! Hopefully everyone has had a great Thanksgiving weekend, for those of you that celebrated. We had two dinners this year, one Thursday with my husband's family, then dinner at our house yesterday with my family (sans a sick brother and plus another brother's new girlfriend, who I love!) and with Lee's parents. I ate a bit too much pie, the gym was not fun this morning! I sure am thankful for my good health which allows me to go the gym and work off some of the added calories I ate.

As you can probably guess, I have been busy with schoolwork lately, so not much quilting has gotten done, until last week. I whipped out two baby quilts in one week, I sure did miss it! One quilt was another Husker Play Square that one of my boss's paid me (yay) to make for a friend's new baby girl. The other was for my own friends' 2nd baby, whom will be hear sometime next month. They were in Nebraska from Colorado yesterday to visit family and stopped by for a visit and to receive their baby quilt.

They don't know the sex of their baby (which they call Biscotti), so I wanted to do something gender neutral, but I also really wanted to use my charm pack of Sherbet Pips, so if Biscotti is a boy, he will have some pink in his quilt. :) I am not one to stick to gender color rules though, and neither are these friends, so they didn't mind. I call this quilt "Biscotti Pips."

I used a dark grey Kona solid to alternate between the charm squares, then I found a blue solid that closely matched the blue in the Sherbet Pips line for the backing, and a red dot fabric for the binding. I did straight line quilting a 1/4 inch on each side of the seams with blue thread that matched the back. I love the way the back of the quilt looks, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it in time.

Once again I attached the binding completely with my sewing machine. I love the time I save by doing it this way! I referred back to this tutorial and also discovered how to get great corners by attaching binding by machine. After attaching the binding to the back of the quilt, press the binding down with your iron at the corners on the back of the quilt.

Then flip the quilt over, fold the binding over the corners on the front of the quilt:

 

and press with your iron once more. This helps to hold the binding in place when attaching the binding to the front of the quilt.

Here is how the binding turned out on the front:

and the back:

When pressing the binding in the corners, it also helps to press it all around the quilt to make sure you are folding it over in equal amounts. Hopefully these tips are helpful for someone, I wish I had learned this a few quilts back, my corners of the binding never turn out perfect, until I tried this.
Next on my to-do list are two Christmas lap quilts for our living room, and a quilt my friend Mandy has asked me to make her nephew as a Christmas/1st Birthday quilt, her request: Eric Carle or Dr. Seuss. I am very excited! Hopefully I will be back to blogging in a few weeks, the fall semester is almost over!

In a Bind

My friend Tiffaney's birthday was today. My goal to give her a birthday quilt was met as well....thanks to another amazing online tutorial on machine binding. Tiff's quilt is called "Birthday Blush"....because it is a Birthday quilt, made with Basic Gray's "Blush" line. (I know, so much creativity went into naming this quilt!) I jokingly told my husband I should name my quilts based on the movie/tv show/music I listen to/watch as I make it. If that were the case, this would be called "Mad Men."

For this stacked coins quilt I used (roughly) 3 charm square packs and 2 1/2 yards of coordinating backing fabric using the "Blush" line, which I love, it seems so retro and girly (or as my husband called it, old lady). I also used about 1/2 yard of another coordinating fabric for the binding, not sure how much white Kona cotton I used for the sashing though as I cut from my stash.

As I posted earlier, my sewing machine was giving me major problems with the tension. I discovered it was where my thread was being fed through, somehow it was catching. Unfortuanetly I didn't notice this until I was half way through quilting. Tiffaney has promised not to show the back to people too closely, although she didn't seem to mind. I do, but if I was to give this to her after taking out those stitches and re-quilting it, she would receive it sometime around Christmas. Good thing great friends don't mind mistakes as much as this quilter does!

I pieced the back of the quilt, mainly because I was a little short on my backing fabric, but I love how it turned out, and so did Tiffaney.

 

And she made sure I put a label on this quilt, inspecting the back to find it, and commenting "I love the owl!."

 

On top of learning a bit about my sewing machine's tension problems (after taking it apart too), I also learned a new method on attaching binding by machine. I used this tutorial, from Bloomin' Workshop, which was so helpful and SO FAST! I will definately be doing my binding by machine again, although I am curious to see how it turns out after washing. With this quilt, I finished it, headed to the park with Lee and Penny to get pictures in before sunset, and headed to Tiffaney's house to deliver her gift.

We went to Pioneers Park, (my favorite place in Lincoln) to the columns where Lee and I were married. I have been meaning to photograph a quilt at this spot for a long time, I think this quilt was the perfect one to take there.

There are Lee and Penny, peaking from behind one of the columns, trying to patiently wait for me to finish.

It is time to enjoy the rest of the long weekend. I hope all of you are enjoying your Labor day weekend as well! I will leave you with a picture of my favorite block: a little bird on pink fabric peaking at you. :)

Baby Eli

As I have shared with you, there have been a lot of pregnant teachers at work this past year. As of a few weeks ago, there are none. Our last pregnant teacher, Amy, gave birth to a very small and very early baby boy, Elijah. He wasn't supposed to greet the world until October, but due to some complications, he has graced us with his presence 2 months early. Luckily, both Amy and Eli are doing well, although Eli is not ready to go home just yet. I just got back from Amy's surprise baby shower at the hospital and we learned that Eli is gaining weight and is now out of the isolete and into his own bed. He just needs to gain the ability to eat on his own. which the doctors say should be soon, and he will be home with mommy and daddy!

Here is baby Eli's quilt, Amy's favorite colors (mine too.) It is, of course, a new favorite quilt of mine, and Amy loved it!

 

I got my inspiration for this quilt from Oh Fransson's 12 + 2 = Q. I love that this quilt didn't take a lot of fabric, and was so fast to put together! 

I used some random fabric prints I had lying around in my stash, stuff I have bought for other projects and changed my mind, so it was exciting to cut into this fabric. The green fabric with polka dots came from JoAnn's and I had intended to use it for one of my first quilts as a back, but it was too wild for that quilt. It ties everything together on this quilt and I had enough to use it on the front, back and as the binding.  :)

I stepped out of my comfort zone with the quilting and did straight line quilting 1/4" away from the seams of the blocks of fabric. I love the grid lines it made, it mimics the plaid brown fabric in the quilt perfectly.

I think doing the straight line quilting was really pretty quick, but it was definately out of my comfort zone. I laid out some painters tape to be my guide, and was worried that my lines would be crooked. They turned out pretty straight, but my stitches weren't even, some are smaller than others. I think this is because I would get bored and push harder on my pedal, hoping the tedious lines would be done faster.

While quilting this quilt I learned that no matter how tight you think you pulled your fabrics before basting, you need to pull tighter for straight line quilting. This row of blocks moved as I stitched, making it a little crooked. Now I know for next time. It will be awhile before I decide to straight line quilt a larger quilt than a baby quilt!

Finished this little quilt is approximately 32" square. Little Eli will get a lot of use out of it, it's the perfect size for such a little guy. Welcome to the world, baby Eli!