pinwheel quilt

Today I welcomed niece #5 into the family. R gets a little bit larger quilt, mostly because I didn't bother with really counting stuff out until it was already cut.  When I realized how big it would be, I just went for it because I had everything already.  The pattern is Patty Young's Houndstooth quilt.


In each of the gray pinwheels, I free motion stitched a heart with an R inside of it.  In the corner, I signed my name.  Otherwise, all quilting is stitch in the ditch around the pinwheels.

The pictures don't do it justice.  It is a beautiful, bright colorful quilt.  I used a dark gray for the binding, and bright "firework" print for the pinwheels that aren't as solid.

rainbow quilt

The rainbow quilt is done!

This is an embroidery patch I did for her on the back.  It is about an 8" circle.

I love the turquoise and blue squares the best!

Each colored block has a heart with swirls inside.  Between each colored block you can see the free motion squiggles.  It took a long time, but I love how it kind of helps transition from one color to the next in the rainbow, and makes the white not such a solid.

This is a view of her bed, her name on the wall, the canopy, clouds painted on the wall, and the vinyl rainbow installed by her uncle.

rainbow quilt, in progress

This is the layout for the rainbow quilt.  Abby's "big girl" room is rainbow themed, and I'm finally getting going on the quilt.  Each block is pieced with scrap fabrics, some small squares and some large.  Once the quilt is finished, I'll do some more close-ups.  I took this picture so I could use my iPad & Adobe Ideas app to plan the quilting pattern.


After I sketched it out, I got busy using my new toy.  This is the free motion grip (and extension table hidden underneath the quilt) for my Brother Quattro.  It is great because I don't feel like I have to use my quilting gloves anymore.  There seems to be some pull on the fabric, but as long as I'm aware of it, I can keep it in check and glide right along.  I love it!


I decided to do some free motion quilting on each of the white sashing pieces.  I am using colored thread by each of the colored rows, adding to the coloring and making the white not quite so bright.  On each of the tall vertical pieces, I'm also including my daughter's name somewhere in the maze of squiggles.  I think that will be fun for her to find!  This is quite time consuming, but I love how it looks so far.



I have some more squiggling to do, then I will be quilting the borders & doing the binding.  The borders will not be quite as busy.  The backing looks like a cloud, and I will be doing the binding in some rainbow striped fabric.  Her birthday is in early April and I WILL have it done by then!!

firefly

My mom and aunt made this beautiful baby quilt.  I love Eric Carle, and this book was the perfect inspiration for a quilt for my summer baby.

Here's a close up of the firefly fabric they used as a border.

They quilted a firefly in various places all over the quilt.

The backing was Eric Carle blue fabric as well.

Here's 2-1/2 month old Braden enjoying a late summer afternoon outside on his quilt.

Thanks Mom!  Thanks Aunt Nancy!

Dr. Seuss quilt

Not only did our family welcome Braden this summer, we welcomed a new cousin. Baby E was born 10 days after Braden. She's the third girl in her family, and mom loves Dr. Seuss - so we went bright and bold! This is her quilt.  It's pretty straight and simple piecing.

In the corner I have a little red heart - a detail I try and include somewhere on all my niece's quilts.  The yellow border fabric just has some simple yellow lines.  Three of them - she is the third child after all.

The middle blocks also have hearts and swirls quilted inside of them.



The red binding is the same fabric as the middle sashing.  The backing has characters from many of the popular Dr. Seuss books.

The red sashing has phrases from Dr. Seuss books.  Along one edge, "A person's a person no matter how small".

Welcome to the world, Baby E!