Pinwheels in Central Park

This little quilt has been in the works for a long time....much like the recipient.

A friend from high school was diagnosed with breast cancer when we were 23 years old. We were all shocked! There we were in our early 20s: young, healthy, celebrating marriages, loving life, invincible...and one of us was struck down with the C-word! She was one of the lucky ones though. She underwent treatment, opted for a double mastectomy and met her 5 year cancer free mark this past December.

Out of all my good friends from high school, this friend and her husband shared a seat in our kid free boat, but not by choice like Lee and I. They were told by doctors to wait, finish medications, make sure the cancer was really gone, so sadly they waited. This couple is tough, they stayed strong throughout cancer treatment and during the long waiting process of being able to try and have kids. They knew there was a chance it wouldn't happen for them, and they prepared for it.
In December when Lee and I read their Christmas card we were so happy to hear that the cancer was officially gone, 5 years free of cancer! We also learned they were expecting! :)

I wanted to make sure this quilt would be perfect for them, and their little girl so I was very selective and specific with this quilt. I wanted the prints I used to be full of life, because these future parents had lived a lot of life so far, and this little girl was their miracle of life. I wanted the prints I used to be girly, and gender neutral at the same time; I settled with the rest of my charm pack of Central Park from Kate Spain. The trees, flowers and small animals in this line were perfect, plus there were shades of purple, mom-to-be LOVES purple!

Once I settled on this charm pack it didn't take long to decide I would be using pinwheels: whimsical, full of life, and energy. What I didn't want was the old fashioned all in a row grandma style pinwheel quilt though. I wanted my pinwheels to be random, floating on a solid background.

I used this tutorial from Moda Bake Shop to whip up my pinwheels quickly, then I had them up on my design wall forever, constantly in a new arrangement. It took me a while to get the right layout and size for my pinwheels but I finally did. Of course not in time for the baby shower (go figure!) so the new momma was given a soft taggie block I made with a few prints from my charm pack, and a husker taggie blanket (Dad-to-be loved it!) to open with a promise that the quilt would be done before little 'Wolverina' arrived.

I hesitantly used a white background for this quilt, I'm always afraid to use white in baby quilts because of stains. I found somewhere on a blog, or Pinterest, that you can use Scotchgaurd to stainproof white quilts, but I didn't try it. Has anyone done this?

The back of the quilt is a purple/pink flannel, with a strip of white, a pinwheel and my quilt label. I used the same shade of purple/pink for the thread and stipple quilted it throughout. I love how the thread color contrasts with the white background and then blends in on the back.

For the binding I cut and stitched together 3 yellow prints of fat quarters I had lying around that belong in the Central Park line, I love the yellow cheery border, like a frame of sunshine around these spinning pinwheels.

I delivered on my promise, finishing the quilting and binding as miss Peyton Nola came into the world. Then I quickly washed, photographed and drove it to the new little lady. She is precious! I am so happy for my friends!

What I learned from this quilt: careful planning pays off! I love everything about this quilt and unlike other quilts I didn't come out wishing I had taken my time because something wasn't perfect. I guess slow and steady planning is the key. :)

Traveling Quilt

This freshly finished quilt is on the road to Omaha for a one-day-old, precious baby girl. :)

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.

Finish Line

I completed my first 1/2 marathon! Who knew 13.1 miles could be so fun?! There I am just after 'the hill' (which in my opinion was not hard at all). It was the perfect weather for running, mid 40s, overcast and a very light breeze. The weather, the amazing crowd in Lincoln that comes out to cheer for 10,000 runners at 7 am, and my many supporters (preschool students, parents, friends, wonderful husband) helped me to run my best long run pace yet!

I completed the marathon in 2 hours, 14 minutes and 20 seconds. That's an average pace of 10:16 min/mile, about 30 seconds better than my 13 mile long run during training. I was super nervous that my IT band pain was going to cause me to have to walk due to horrible knee pain, but alas I ran the whole thing and beat my 2 1/2 hour goal! Can you tell I am super pumped about it! :)

 

Here I am after the race, with my finisher medal. :) I was very cold once I crossed the finish line in Memorial Stadium to receive this lovely medal. And walking was a major challenge! If it weren't for the blisters on my feet I would have kept running, it hurt that bad! I must say, I have MAJOR RESPECT for those individuals that do full marathons! 26.2 miles, wow!!! I am hooked though. I think I might do a half marathon this September and I plan to run the half marathon again next year. :)

 

And here is a snap shot of a wrapped up, finished quilt for a shower that was at the end of April. This quilt was finished in time for baby Gabe's shower, unlike the quilt I am working on right now. I had to make a few small gifts for mom-to-be Jess and her baby girl to present at her baby shower yesterday. I promise my next blog post will be photos of a quilt. Perhaps the one wrapped up above. :)

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!