quilt 03 of 2015, for Lee

This quilt is the brother quilt to this one that I made over the summer. My friend Amanda wanted to make a quilt for each of her children. I had taught her how using Amy Smart's amazing beginning quilting series the summer that I was pregnant with Ezra and she was pregnant with her second daughter, Sophie. I made this quilt and Amanda made one for Sophie alongside me. Then she made one for her daughter, Amelie, and when she got pregnant with baby number three she bought fabric to make a quilt for him. She ended up not loving how the fabrics worked together (that's the difficulty of shopping online!) and ordered some others. I would periodically ask her how it was going, and when I learned that she had put it aside I offered to make it for her. By this point she was already pregnant with their fourth child! So I told her I would make quilts for both of them.

The feature fabric is Heather Ross's guitars from Far Far Away III and the rest are low volume prints that Amanda picked out - a couple chevrons and one that looks like a maze, but you can't actually solve it. I know because Ezra tried... mazes are one of his favorite things to do lately. Because so many of the fabrics were light and lacked bold color I decided to use the guitars in a few different places to give the quilt some life. I think it worked! More straight line quilting (I think I have so many projects going on lately that I can't put any creative energy into interesting quilting - I'm just trying to get things checked off my list!), and it's bound in more of the chevron fabric, both colors. 

I was super excited to be able to use my new quilt label, too! I've had the idea for them in my mind for months but needed Matt to design them in photoshop for me and I kept putting it off. I finally pinned him down a couple weeks ago, sent the files off to inked papers, and had the labels in just a little over a week! I definitely recommend using them if you're in need of labels for any kind of sewn items.

So Lee finally has his baby quilt! No matter that he's almost three ;)

winter woodland | quilt 01 of 2015, for Chase

Here's my first quilt finish of 2015! It feels like a great way to start off the year. This quilt is for a little boy who hasn't been born yet, the baby brother to the little girl who owns this quilt! Jen is expecting her third baby and asked me to make a quilt for him about three months ago and we picked fabrics very quickly. Jen knows just what she wants and also trusts me to choose fabrics and designs that I think will work together, which is a great feeling. She wanted something with woodland animals and a combination of orange, minty green, and gray colors. I seriously loved shopping for this quilt, but then putting fabrics together is always one of my favorite parts of the process :) From top to bottom, the fabrics are orange chevron by Riley Blake, Joel Dewberry's wood grain, elk family by Birch Fabrics, Lizzy House's leaf tails, bear hike in shroom by Birch Fanrics, and Joel Dewberry's herringbone. The feature print running vertically down the length of the quilt is bear hike again, but obviously multicolored. That last print was so hard to find that I had to order it from Australia! Although I just looked for it again and found it easily in the US. Oh well! The pattern I used is a favorite for baby quilts, Bijou Lovely's Color Block quilt. I've made it three times so far and have another one in the queue!

The back is a bunch of fabrics left over from the front of the quilt plus a couple others - squared elements from Art Gallery in carbon and dottie by Cotton + Steel in bandana. I have to say that my favorite print is bear hike, and rightfully so! The quilt was designed around it, after all. I had one little scrap left and made a mug rug out of it. It was sold just before Christmas and will hopefully enjoy a long life underneath steaming mugs of coffee :)

I quilted organic straight lines, starting out very close together somewhere around the center near the bears and gradually getting farther and farther apart as the lines get closer to the edges. The pattern created by the lines reminds me just a bit of tree bark or wood grain which is a nice design element to add to this quilt that I've called "winter woodland." It's bound in more orange chevron with a small strip of Kona coral left over from my Michael Miller challenge quilt. I love scrappy bindings so much! They're my favorite kind of binding. Jen is coming to pick up the quilt this afternoon and is just about ready to welcome her baby boy into the family! He's due in March and I hope this quilt provides just the right welcome for him.

P.S. Special thanks to Matt who took these photos for me after finishing up a shoot in Providence, and to my mom who offered to watch the boys so I could tag along. As a bonus we got lunch at The Grange after! It was the perfect spot for my quilt mini shoot, and as always, the perfect spot to eat lunch.