stripes and solids | a quilt for Finnegan

This quilt doesn't make any sense to me when I look at it. Sometime I make things like that. Does that happen to any other quilters or makers? I made the stripey blocks in a class I took earlier this year but no matter how I put them together they made me dizzy. I decided to combine them with some other fabrics to tone down the busyness a little bit but I don't think I was successful. I may not have achieved artistic greatness here but I did have fun making it! 

I love these prints on the back, both the trees and funny little gumdrops. I bought the gumdrops for a commission quilt that I made last summer but I only needed a small piece and I didn't know when I would use such a large piece, almost a yard, of funny little gumdrops. They seemed to suit this quilt and I really like how the colors complement the front.

Even though I don't love the effect of the quilt overall, I do love the prints that I used in it. I love these bears, the stars, the gingham, the buttons, all of them. One thing that I love about quilts is that no matter what they look like they still keep you warm. They're still good for making forts and having picnics and wrapping around your shoulders on a chilly day while you read books on the couch by a fire with a cup of tea.

I'm sending this quilt to a new baby named Finnegan, full of hope and dreams for the future. I'm sure he won't mind that it didn't turn out the way I planned.

Special thanks to my very eager quilt holders, Finn and Rory <3 p="">

fox friends | a quilt for Easton

My cousin Jackie and her husband Jarrod recently welcomed their second son into their family so my mom, my aunt (also Jackie's aunt), and I made him a quilt. After seeing pictures of the baby's nursery on facebook I knew we had to make Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Fox quilt. I pulled color inspiration from the crib bedding Jackie had chosen and we each made six or seven foxes in complementary fabrics from our stashes. I quilted it and my mom bound it and attached the label. Matt took these photos for us last Sunday before we visited baby Easton and family to deliver his quilt. We hope it keeps him warm this winter!

Jackie posted this picture the next day of Easton already enjoying his quilt :)

adventure is out there | a mini quilt for Easton

When my cousin Jackie had her first son Wyatt five years ago I had just had Finn and was not really quilting for a period of time so I didn't make Wyatt a quilt. My mom did though, and Jackie has told me that Wyatt sleeps with it every night. When she announced her second pregnancy (another boy - hooray for baby boys!) I knew I had to make something this time and I decided to ask my mom and my aunt (also Jackie's aunt) to help. She posted pictures of the nursery and when I saw them I knew exactly what we could do. We had to make Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Fox quilt for play and snuggles and I wanted to make something with mountains for the wall. Jackie has always been outdoorsy and she and her family are adventurous and that's the theme of the nursery so it all just seemed perfect. It's times like this that I'm thankful for facebook because I wouldn't have seen the baby's nursery without it! After talking with Jackie, searching for mountain quilt block patterns, and thinking about designing one of my own, I finally found this one on Craftsy. Lizzy House made some of the most perfect fabrics for this quilt and I happen to own them so I pulled everything from my stash and I'm thrilled with the result! Paper piecing is always fun, although now that I think about it, I think I forgot to change my needle after making this quilt which explains why everything since then has been giving me trouble. Anyway, I hope these mountains help inspire Easton to explore and be adventurous. With parents like Jackie and Jarrod I'm sure he will!

Yucatán | a quilt for Annie

  

Last year I connected with an artist on instagram who happens to live in Rhode Island - it's always a small world when you live in RI! Annie Brady is a graphic designer who has recently released a couple fabric collections for Moda. She also designed some quilt patterns and was looking for someone to sew some samples. I was familiar with her work from instagram and knew I loved it so I was really excited when Annie got in touch with me. I had seen her first collection, Big Sky, when it was exhibited at quilt market about a year ago and I liked her second collection, Yucatán, just as much and readily agreed to make the namesake quilt pattern for Annie. It took me three and a half months and twenty-eight hours. Phew! It's one of the biggest quilts I've ever made and it's definitely one of the fussiest. All those half square triangles took a lot of cutting and trimming! The pattern is very well designed and it's quite manageable; it's broken up into very sensible blocks and comes together quickly. It only took me three and half months because I usually sew after my boys are in bed, unless I neglect them during the day which I admit to doing on occasion! I delivered the quilt to Annie a couple months ago and was thrilled that she loved it. You can purchase the Yucatan quilt pattern here in Annie's shop if you'd like to make your own. And be sure to check out her instagram highlights to see her kitty on the quilt! 

pink pixels | a quilt for Maya

I LOVED my childhood babysitter Meredith. She was five years older than me and from the time I was allowed out in my yard I'm told that I would stand on the front lawn and just yell her name repeatedly and ask her to come out and play with me. We played on my swing set, built forts in my next door neighbor's backyard (it was magically overgrown), and as she got older she became my babysitter. I remember her tucking me into my bed like a mummy and then sneaking into the hallway once I thought my brother was asleep. Meredith is in so many of my childhood memories and I always think of her fondly. In typical Rhode Island fashion she married the son of my teacher assistant from my first job working for Cranston Public Schools. They had a baby boy a few years ago and my mom and I worked together to make a quilt for him, and we did the same thing when we found out she was expecting a baby girl this fall. I decided to make this pattern, one I had bought a while ago but had never made, and I pulled scraps in ice cream sherbet colors from my stash and lots of low volume fabrics from my mom's. The backing is a piece of rain cloud fabric that I bought when I was obsessed with weather themed fabric, an abstract design from AGF, and some cut paper doll kids from Heather Ross's new Kinder collection which is appearing in a lot of my quilts lately. I enjoyed piecing the gentle curves as that's a skill I've been trying to work on. I echoed the circles in the design with my quilting and made a scrappy binding with pieced left over from the patchwork. I dropped it off at their house for baby Maya a couple weeks ago and I hope it brings her warmth and comfort throughout the years!