sand and salt water | a quilt for Elijah

I made this quilt for my cousin Meghan's brand new baby boy Elijah Crosby (he and I share our middle name! It's my and Meghan's moms' maiden name) and I was inspired by the beach when I was making it so it made perfect sense to take photos of it when we were in Newport for the week last month. I actually quilted and bound the quilt using my mom's machine which she brought on our vacation and was kind enough to let me use while we were staying at the resort. I hurried to get it done so we could take the photos while we were there. Like typical Rhode Islanders, we don't like to drive too far when we don't have to, so I knew it would be tough convincing Matt to head back to Newport just for quilt pictures when we had just stayed there. Thankfully, my mom was willing to sacrifice a bunch of time at her machine so I could get it finished. Thanks, Mom!

I chose lots of gray, blue, and yellow fabrics that reminded me of a cloudy day at the beach. There are also some cats and elephants because Meghan likes them :) The pattern is called Color Weave and it's a free download from Moda Bake Shop. The pattern on the website uses solids and white so the look is quite different, but I still think the effect of mine is a nice one. 

The back is a large piece from Sarah Watson's Indian Summer collection manufactured by Art Gallery. I love Art Gallery quilting cotton because it's so soft and silky, always a dream to sew. I added a strip of scraps in the center for interest and also because I wanted to include more anchors and elephants! I quilted it across the rows using a small wave design which I've done before a couple times, in this quilt, this quilt, and part of this quilt. The binding is a scrappy one, made from pieces leftover from the top including some Indian Summer prints, Joel Dewberry's woodgrain pattern, and Denyse Schmidt's versatile Hope Valley.

My aunt brought the quilt to Boston last week where Meghan and her husband Bill live and I've already heard from Meghan that they love it which is always nice to hear! Oh, and I have to add that Matt took the pictures at the International Yacht Restoration School on Thames Street which is just a couple blocks down the street from where we always stay in Newport. I knew they usually have a collection of old Beetle Cats (the type of boat the students restore) out back and I thought they would make a great backdrop for the quilt. Finn snuck into a photo or two so you can see his little legs and hands with mine :) 

pink kitten modern bento box | a quilt for Rose

I made this quilt for the first daughter of our friends Dawn and Andrew. They have a cat and are decorating the baby's room with pink and gray, so I used lots of kitty fabrics (thankful for Heather Ross for making so many great cat prints!) and shades of pink and gray. I added some yellow for interest. I used this tutorial from Ashley of Film in the Fridge to make the blocks and they came together surprisingly quickly. I enjoyed putting together lots of different fabric combinations. Scrappy quilts are always my favorite! I quilted it using simple straight lines on either side of all the seams to create a grid type pattern.

For the backing I pulled lots of fabric scraps from my stash and pieced together some rows until it was big enough. The binding is made up of scraps from the top and back which adds to the craziness of the quilt... I didn't mean for it to be so bright and bold, but I do like how it turned out. I hope baby Rosie does, too!

put a bow on it | a quilt for Norah

I made another quilt from start to finish in less than a week, immediately after giving the pinwheel quilt to Sage. I told Matt that I feel like a machine lately, and I don't know if that's a good thing or not. On one hand, I like being productive and prolific, but on the other hand I've found that I'm working so quickly lately that some of the enjoyment is lost. I've been trying to meet self-imposed deadlines (baby's birthdays, mostly) but I haven't been getting any quilts done "on time" anyway. I think it's time to slow down a bit, so I can concentrate on my work and the process rather than the end result. Anyway, this quilt is for yet another baby, the daughter of our friends John and Rachel. I made a quilt for their first child, Elliott, who was born just a couple months after Finn, and they loved it and appreciated it so much that I started planning one for their second child pretty much the moment I found out Rachel was pregnant. Originally I planned on making a giant saw tooth star block, but I've wanted to make a bow quilt since I saw this one from Piece at Last and to be honest, I felt like I needed to make something quick after the pinwheel quilt. Plus I have a few other designs in process and in my mind that I need to get working on, so this simple design was a great fit for this project. The original design can be found in The It's Okay If You Sit On My Quilt Book, but I just sketched out the bow and figured out how many squares and half square triangles I needed. I'm curious, what are your thoughts on making a quilt like that? I copied the design of another quilter though I didn't buy her book. I'm not profiting off of this quilt in any way though, so I think it's okay. Just wondering how others feel about this issue. It tends to come up a lot in conversations about handmade goods. 

Back to the quilt! I've had the fabric picked out for this quilt ever since I knew Rachel was having a girl. Rachel told me the baby's room would probably be decorated in coral and gold tones, and I know that Rachel appreciates vintage grandma style so I selected another of my quilter's quarters bundles by Denyse Schmidt for Joann. I was lucky to have been given one by my mom (she's nice like that) and I purchased a second one when I found it at Joann unwrapped and therefore discounted! And I confess to purchasing a third bundle on etsy as I was working on this quilt because I realized how much I really like these fabrics, though they aren't my usual style, and I didn't want to be without them. I didn't intend on making a scrappy background, but I decided against using solid white because I had some low volume fat quarters that coordinated with the Denyse Schmidt prints nicely and I'm trying to sew my stash this year. After the bow and background were pieced I decided to add a patchwork border because the quilt was going to finish on the small side, only 35" square, so I dug into my stash to find some more low volume prints. I don't have that many so there are a bunch of repeats and I think they kind of distract from the bow but I still like the way the quilt came out. The little animal faces print redeems the border for me, though you can't see them in the photos, I don't think. For the back I used a large cut of a sweet and subtle polka dot and ladybug print along with another DS print, and the binding is scrappy ladybug and DS, too. I had a lot of fun quilting this one. I attempted some more free motion and tried my hand at a large orange peel design. I did three rows freehand and then realized I did one section facing the wrong direction which was really annoying, but I tend to just go with my mistakes and wasn't going to fix it. Then my mom came over and I pointed it out and she said two things - 1. I should mark the quilting lines so the orange peels look better (subtext: your quilting looks terrible. Thanks, Mom! ), and 2. Did I want her to rip out the stitches that were going the wrong way? I sighed and then accepted her offer, and I did mark the rest of my lines and the quilting started looking much better. In fact, the original row of quilting looks terrible in comparison to the rest. Sorry, Norah! Mother does know best ;)

I tried to think of somewhere vintage-y to take pictures and I thought of this old church near our house, so the next time we went out I asked Matt to bring his camera and we stopped on the way home from Lowes one day last week. The front door is really pretty and the side of the building has old fashioned white wooden siding with stained glass windows, but as you can see, he only took two pictures because Ezra was yelling from inside the car (which was less than ten feet away from where I was standing on the steps) that he wanted to get out, again. Needless to say, we wrapped up the shoot pretty quickly. Next time I think I'll pick a quilt photo shoot location that's not on a main road or near water so we don't have to worry about the boys :) 

I'm going to quote a fellow quilter, Astrid, again today - "The problem with making stuff for other people is that one day you actually have to say goodbye to these things you've poured a whole lot of yourself into. Things you've fallen a bit in love with, in the process. But that's the point, right? To pour out, over and over, in order to make space for new inspiration. To share the bits of ourselves that perhaps others are in need of. And if it doesn't hurt a bit to give it up, maybe there wasn't enough of us in it." Norah, I hope this quilt keeps you warm and brings you comfort! My love and prayers for you are stitched right into it. 

across the pond | a quilt for Henry

As I write this post I'm actually wrapped up in this quilt. It's my favorite! I know, I say that every time, but I'm really digging this one for some reason. I've always wanted to make a Union Jack quilt and had the perfect opportunity recently when my friend Keri found out she was expecting a second baby boy. I started collecting blue and red fabrics, and when I say collecting I really mean rummaging through my mom's stash. I have a pretty strong dislike for red (though I'm trying to change that!) so I don't have any red fabric at all, and when I was pulling reds off my mom's shelves I came across a bundle of quilter's quarters from Joann by Denyse Schmidt - score! Keri loves Denyse's designs and they were the prettiest shades of blue which were perfect for the quilt I had in mind. They're out of print and impossible to find now, but my mom is generous like that. Thanks, Mom!

I used this tutorial from Lily's Quilts to make four of the block she calls a "double fat jack" and sashed them with white. I was pairing prints as I sewed, and now I wish I had put more thought into the fabric combinations ahead of time because the value pairings could be better (both of the dark reds are on the bottom), but I still like how it came out. I just hope it's not too feminine for Henry! There are a quite a few florals there, but I figure Henry will sort of be a proper British chap so he'll be familiar with tea parties and cricket and fancy hats and the Queen Mum so a few florals in his baby quilt won't hurt.

I ordered a fun London novelty print by Kokka for the back and added another Denyse Schmidt print and some domino dot by Violet Craft to make it big enough. I thought the London print would be just about the right size but my original plans for the quilt (one large Union Jack) changed and the size grew quite a bit! Lucky baby :) I quilted down the middle of all the white fabric, echoing the lines of the Union Jack flags and the sashing which I think is just enough. I made a scrappy binding out of some leftover red strips from the flags and a long length of polka dot binding I had made a while ago for my Deep Waters quilt that I didn't end up using. I added my label and another cute little tag that says 'P.S. I love you' just because it matched :) And dare I say my machine binding is getting pretty good! After a wash and some thread trimming I finally have it ready to gift, and little Henry isn't even two weeks old. One last thing - thanks to my friend Karissa for snapping the top two pictures with my phone when I was at her house last week! The boys and I had plans to visit so Ezra could go fishing with her older son (they're 4 1/2 and 3 - fishing was funny and scary!) and the night before we went I had a stroke of genius - I would call the quilt "across the pond" as a reference to the location of the United Kingdom being on the other side of the Atlantic, and I would photograph the quilt at a pond, Johnson's Pond, where Karissa lives. Brilliant, am I right? That's how I felt, anyway, because I can never come up with clever names for my quilts, but this was perfect.

 

I'll be sad to see this quilt go, but I know it's going to a home where it will be used and loved! And I can visit it occasionally if I need to ;)

pink lemonade | a quilt for Caroline

Recently I was able to check another baby quilt off my list, though there are six more to finish before the end of the summer! My friend Hillary is expecting her second daughter soon so I asked her for some inspiration for a quilt. She sent me a few photos, one of the curtains she's using in the baby's room and one of a simple nine patch quilt. The curtains looked like a classic Laura Ashley or Waverly print - vintage red floral on a creamy white background, so as usual I went to my stash to find some fabrics. Unfortunately, I didn't have any red and my low volume prints were lacking, too. I ended up finding a scrap of fabric (the subtle yellow, gray, pink, and red floral - I think it's by Momo) that felt like a good jumping off point and then added a bunch of yellow polka dot scraps and some white seersucker. I still needed some red so my mom and my aunt were kind enough to let me shop their stashes. I found a red polka dot by Denyse Schmidt in my mom's stash and I got some red gingham from my aunt. The border is a print from Lizzy House's Guising collection. 

I posted the picture Hillary had sent me of the inspiration quilt to the Rhode Island Modern Quilt Guild member facebook page to ask everyone what they thought the pattern might be. The consensus was a nine patch, and since I'm a new-ish quilter and mostly self-taught/internet-taught, I wasn't familiar with the way to construct one. Lucky for me, my friend Tina from the guild helped me with the pattern - she designed the simple nine patch using EQ7 and included all the fabric measurements and cutting instructions which made it super easy to construct. She saved me so much time because if I had done it my way I would have been piecing the squares individually! Strip piecing was much quicker and more efficient. Unfortunately, I goofed when I was cutting my strips so the effect isn't quite the same as the quilt I was using as inspiration. Oh well! Since I was using scraps I couldn't cut more, so I just had to make it work. I used a large cut of one of Heather Bailey's True Colors prints and then added a bunch of scraps from the front to make the back big enough. I have a love/hate relationship with piecing quilt backs - I love to use up scraps, but I hate to spend so much time on the back! It's so much quicker to use one piece of fabric for the back, but more often than not I end up piecing. It does make it more fun to look at, and the owner of the shop where I learned how to long arm, Mad About Quilts, told me that a pieced back adds value to a quilt, which makes sense because it certainly takes more time and effort!

I quilted diagonal lines in a crosshatch pattern across the quilt and then bound it with scraps from the top. I think the red polka dot is my favorite piece :) Oh, and I have to give credit for the name of the quilt, Pink Lemonade, to an instagram friend, @tinkerellen - thanks, Cheri! I packed up the quilt along with a set of ladybug beanbags for Big Sister, popped them in the mail, and Hillary received it a couple weeks ago. I was happy to hear that she likes it, and I look forward to seeing a picture or two of the baby snuggled up in her quilt once she's born!

P.S. Here's the quilt I made for Hillary's older daughter a couple years ago - a quilt for Audrey. 

a quilt for Liam | elephants and stripes (of course)

This simple baby quilt is the last from my backlog of unblogged quilts! I made it for a friend's son (who happens to have just turned one on Sunday - happy birthday, Liam!) and chose the prints after spying some elephants on one of her baby related pinterest boards :) I had the perfect gray elephant fabric in my stash and then chose lots of blue and gray fabrics to go with it. I didn't follow a patten, just cut large squares and then used a slice and insert technique to make a few of the blocks a little more interesting.

Navy sashing to give all the prints some breathing room...

and green polka dot binding for fun :)

As usual, the back is a large cut (this one is a gray circle/dot print by Denyse Schmidt for Joann) plus leftover fabrics from the front. I quilted it with simple straight lines on either side of all the seams.

Also, wasn't the light just perfect on the day I took these photos? Sometimes I love our living room :) Anyway, thanks for hanging in there with all these quilts! Now brace yourselves, because I have a list of quilts to make as long as my forearm and this time I intend to keep up with them here!

gingham and robots | a quilt for Elliott

I'm posting about this quilt, totally unintentionally, on the recipient's first birthday. So first let's wish Elliott a very happy birthday! I made this quilt for him using lots of my favorite fabrics - some robots by Kokka, guitars by Michael Miller, a few Denyse Schmidt prints, one of Heather Bailey's prints from her Nicey Jane line, and two solids. Simple rectangle patchwork made this a quick quilt to finish in time for my friend Rachel's baby shower even though Finn was a newborn at the time. It seems so far away now! I can't believe these boys are one now. 

I found this gingham in my stash and it made the perfect backing. I had planned on making myself a scarf with pom pom trim with it but I never got around to it and it was too perfect for the quilt not to use it. All my non-quilt sewing projects get pushed to the side and forgotten about because quilting is my favorite.

More stash usage here in the binding - solid gray coordinates nicely and there's one little strip of gingham in there that totally makes it.

Those robots! I love them.

I made a stack of burp cloths with some scraps because I looove using up scraps. I always forget how time consuming scrappy burp cloths are to make, and just for spit up. At least they're useful!

As you can see from this and the top photo, I had a helper during my photo shoot :) Ezra took the photo below, too. I'm so proud - he's a budding quilter and a budding photographer ;)


John and Rachel were so thankful for this quilt which made it even more special. They sent me the nicest thank you note and raved about it repeatedly in person. Apparently John borrows it occasionally :) John posted a couple pictures to twitter when Elliott was a newborn and I just have to share this one of him at ten days old on his quilt - ha! Happy birthday, Elliott! I'm so glad you were born!

I made you a mixtape | a quilt for Jonas

This is my entry for the Bloggers Quilt Festival! I'm excited to be participating for the first time :)

When I found out my friend Ashley and her husband were expecting their third baby I immediately started thinking about what sort of quilt I'd like to make for him or her. Then I found out that they weren't going to find out the gender of the baby. This is what I have to say to that: boo! I am a planner and I like to be able to check things off my to do list. When my friends don't find out what they're having I can't make a quilt in time for the baby's birth so I feel like I'm behind and can't properly welcome the little one when they arrive. I know, totally not a big deal, and I sound like a big whiner, but I do think it's cool for the parents (along with everyone else!) to be surprised on the baby's birthday. So this time, to make things easier on myself, I talked with Ashley about what she was planning for the baby's nursery and gave her a few options for different styles. She told me what she liked and I decided to make two quilts! One in case the baby was a girl, which I wrote about yesterday, and one if the baby was a boy.

The inspiration for the quilt was the fun mixtape print. I saw it a couple years ago and bought a yard, knowing it would make a great focal point in a quilt some day. I added in lots of grays - stripes, polka dots, and a couple solids, framed everything a nice blue, and sashed the whole thing in solid gray. Besides the mixtape print this quilt was made entirely from scraps!

The back is made up of the remaining large piece of the mixtapes, a bright three dimensional looking print, and some of a print from one of Denyse Schmidt's collections for Joann, plus some solid navy on the bottom. Like a lot of quilters, I like to use up pieces left over from the front and hunt through my stash for large cuts of coordinating fabrics when I'm designing a backing. I quilted it with diagonal lines about an inch apart, but the lines are a little wonky because I just eyeballed them as I went along. The binding is the scrappiest I've ever done... so many seams! It felt like it was never going to be long enough, but after piecing together twelve different strips I finally had a piece that would work.

Side note: I love this baby's name! I've considered using Jonas as a first name for both our boys but ultimately decided we wouldn't ever use it because I don't like how names that end in S sound with our last name that starts with C (Jonas Celeste sounds like one word to me), and Grey was the runner up to Finn! We basically ended up going with Finn because it was Ezra's favorite :) 

This is by far the coolest location of any of my quilt "photoshoots" - if you can call them that, haha... Matt and I were going out to breakfast at my absolute favorite place to eat in Providence, or probably anywhere, Nick's on Broadway, and right before we left I remembered this awesome mural (or is it graffiti? I don't know!) nearby. So I took the quilt along and made Matt hold it up for me while I stopped traffic and stood in the middle of the street to get the shots I wanted :) I think it was the perfect backdrop!