Baby Barrage, Part II: Baby Bloom

This is one of the most special quilts I have ever made. When I first saw the pattern, I knew I would make it for my niece one day. Problem was, at that point, I didn't have a niece. However, now I do! She was born a couple of weeks ago, and she is the cutest and sweetest baby ever. Of course. :)

The quilt pattern is "Bloom" by V & Co. The original quilt is larger, and has a white background. I didn't think so much white was a good idea for a baby quilt, so I used some Robert Kaufman Quilters Linen print in Silver or Platinum (can't remember which I ultimately chose!) I have a few notes on the pattern at the end of this post, because as written, it didn't work well for me.

(Sorry for the indoor pics. The weekend we visited her, there were 45 mph wind gusts every day. An outside photo shoot wasn't going to work well!)

I quilted the background (I did not quilt over the flowers) with a paisley design. I quilted the whole thing in about 3.5 to 4 hours, and my wrists were NOT happy with me about that decision the next day! But it looks so great, if I do say so myself... so it was worth it. :)

The backing is from Jenean Morrison's True Colors. It is such a neat, busy print! If you're new to FMQ, it's just the type of backing that will hide a multitude of sins, because you can barely see the quilting at all on the back of the quilt.

My niece, A, is not a huge fan of the quilt yet. But hopefully that will change. :)

Here's another picture of her, because she's cute. :) 

"Baby Bloom"
Pattern: "Bloom" by V & Co.
Fabric: "Simply Color" junior jelly roll, Robert Kaufman Quilters Linen print in Silver/Platinum
Backing: Diamonds in pink from True Colors
Quilting: FMQ paisley by me on my domestic machine
Finished size: 42" x 56"

A few notes on making the beautiful Bloom pattern:

Unfortunately, the method for turning petals outlined in the Bloom pattern did not work for me! Like, at all. I tried some practice petals, and the small ones in particular did not work out. The pattern calls for using a very, very thin fusible web, stitching it to the petal shape, then cutting a slit in it and turning the petal inside out. This... was a disaster! The fusible web (and I made sure to buy the one listed in the pattern) was too fragile to allow fabric to be pushed through it, and it invariably ended up shredding all the way to the edge, resulting in a sloppy, unevenly shaped petal.

What I ended up doing was tracing the petal template onto heat-proof template plastic, and then cutting out the petals with a 1/4" seam allowance. Then I "painted" starch onto the edges and used a mini iron to fold them over. After they cooled, I took the template out. As you can imagine, this was fairly time consuming. However, I did end up with petals that looked very nice and had smooth edges. I used Roxann's glue to lightly glue the petals in place before I stitched around them.

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday and Fabric Tuesday!

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Baby Barrage: Part 1 - Waiting for Hedwig

I've probably mentioned it in my last few posts, but my friends, apparently in the true spirit of Easter and spring, are popping out kiddos like rabbits. Consequently, I have two more baby quilts finished! I'll show the first one today, and the second one next week.

Apologies for the phone pics. Worst quilt blogger ever, I know.

This quilt's destination was North Carolina, for a friend whose wedding I was in last fall in Nantucket! (You can see her wedding quilt here.) I guess when you're making some major life changes, you may as well do them all at once, right? She is definitely the kind of person who can handle them all without missing a beat though!

Last fall, I won a mini charm pack of Boho by Urban Chiks at the Omaha Modern Quilt Guild meeting. Very cute, if not totally my style. But it is definitely the style of this friend! Problem is, what do you do with a mini charm pack? I know I'm not the only one with this problem, which is why I recommend the quilt pattern I used so highly.

The pattern is "Waiting" by Amanda Jean Nyberg, and you can purchase it on Craftsy. It's a quick and easy pattern, and the instructions are easy to follow. But best of all, it uses one mini charm pack--for a whole quilt! It's genius. I want to hug Amanda for coming up with that pattern.

I used Robert Kaufman's Essex Linen in Natural (I am pretty sure) for the background. This was a new one for me, but it was great to work with, and I think that it was just the right look for the Boho line and for my friend, who is a bit of the outdoorsy/Natural Mama type. (I don't know why linen seems "outdoorsy" or "natural" to me--maybe it's because I used the color "natural"?)

I'm not sure who determined that babies love owls, but they're on everything these days. Some diligent Facebook stalking determined that the owl theme had carried into this baby's nursery, so I took that as my cue for the back. I used Owlery by Michael Miller for the back, and I have to add that I'm super proud of how straight I got the backing on the quilt!

Now all this quilt needs is the baby, and that should happen in a few weeks!

The recipient sent me this photo of the quilt in its new home! Nailed it.

"Waiting for Hedwig"
Pattern: "Waiting" by Amanda Jean Nyberg
Size: 36" x 36"
Quilting: Organic wavy lines by me on my domestic machine
Fabrics: Boho mini charm pack, Essex Linen in Natural, Owlery by Michael Miller, Sweet Serenade by BasicGrey (posts), and Nicey Jane Welcome Road (binding)

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday and Fabric Tuesday.



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WIP Wednesday: Ron's Glorious Back and the Resurrected BOM

I started the Skill Builder BOM at Pile O' Fabric back in January. I completed those blocks right on time and then... didn't do any more. Not sure BOMs are a great fit for me. ;)

However, this week, I decided that I'm going to try to catch up a little bit. I didn't really have a place for this finished quilt (it's almost a queen size), but I've decided to put it in the room where I stay at my mom's newly purchased house (this is relevant, I promise!) That room has orange carpet. Yes. Orange. In fact, that orange carpet is all over the basement, so replacing it isn't really an option due to cost. So, I thought maybe I could tie in some orange to this quilt so it would look like it belonged there.

But I don't know that I'm loving it. It's not quite as neon as it looks in this photo, but it definitely stands out (it's a rich red-orange, really). So I haven't put the borders on that block, because I think there is a chance I rip it apart and put in something less jarring. I know that a quilt in all blues and greens will look nice--it's a safe choice. And it will look much better in the orange bedroom than whatever is there now (a light blue and yellow comforter--gorgeous!) ;) The full layout looks like this, and theoretically, I could put the dark orange wherever there is white in Alyssa's mockup:

Thoughts?

I've also fully discovered the danger of late-night piecing:

Haha, oops. How is it that those things go totally unnoticed until the whole block is together?

Ron quilt is also proceeding rather nicely. Both the front and back are fully pieced, and I'm hoping to get it basted today (it's fellowship application season, however, which is both extremely sucky and extremely time-consuming... so things aren't going as quickly in the sewing realm as I'd like.) However, here is a preview of the back. I'm pretty dang proud of it. :)

Hope the rest of your Wednesday is grand!

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WIP Wednesday: Dirty Bubblegum, Drunken Lucille, and a crazy little thing called Love

Hey there! I hope the three remaining readers I have are enjoying life and having a good time sewing and whatnot. I haven't been around much this summer, but such is summer sometimes. It's been good! I've had adventures in Michigan, Kansas City, and Nebraska, and I've enjoyed them all. Follow me on Instagram if you'd like to get a taste of them! (@  c m b husker --with no spaces)

I've actually been stitching up a storm this week. I hate when people have weddings and they just spring them upon you at the last minute. Wait, what's that you say? Weddings often have months and months of previous warning? I'm actually just a procrastinator, so it seems like they are sprung upon me?

I guess that's true. :)

I'm headed to yet another wedding where I will be a bridesmaid next week on the lovely island of Nantucket (fancy, schmancy!) I decided I should start the quilt a few days ago. Inspired by Kelly of Jeliquilts' LOVE quilt, I thought that was just the thing for this particular wedding.

It looks black in the photo, but it's actually navy and Nantucket red--the wedding colors.

I really like the fabrics I chose for this, even though I wasn't pumped about the Nantucket red at first--it's grown on me. My favorite fabric is the "Les Amis" on the left side of the "e". I also really like the salmon-colored camera print--the groom is a photographer, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to stumble upon that one!

The letters aren't paper-pieced, and this top goes together SO quickly (if you don't make three mistakes cutting the large pieces because you are terrible at math, like I did). It's a Tula Pink pattern, available here.

I also started cutting (optimistically) on a quilt I'm calling the "Drunken Lucille." Its real name is "Drunk Zebra," but the back is going to be done in a fabric line called "Spa" and if you're an Arrested Development, hopefully you can figure out how I combined those two. :) The pattern for that is available here. While the design of the quilt is stunning, I'm disappointed in the quality of the pattern. All four pattern pieces are shoved onto one piece of paper, and when it's printed, it cuts off the side of one of the pieces! Since lines are just a little bit important in paper piecing, it's disappointing to have to redraw 56 pattern pieces, especially when I paid $8 to NOT have to do that! Not sure why the designer didn't just use an extra piece of paper and make sure that the pieces had adequate room to breathe. Oh well. The world is an imperfect place.

And I finally finished trimming all of my Dirty Bubblegum squares. Here's the layout:

Not sure when I'm going to get this one done. The baby it is intended for is already a month old! Good thing she lives in Arizona, so she shouldn't be freezing quite yet. ;)

On a serious note, it's hard to believe that 9/11 happened twelve years ago today. It seems so long ago, and looking at the world today, it's had such far-reaching and negative repercussions on such a large portion of the world. It is amazing what an impact a few evil people can have. But I also remember the incredible unity and caring that happened in the days afterwards. All we can do is pray that we will someday see peace, for the wisdom of leaders, and that we will do good where we are able.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday!


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WIP: Back in the Saddle

After a month of sleeping at my own apartment for a grand total of one night, I finally returned this past Saturday, and am enjoying having a place to myself again (though probably not as much as my cat is enjoying having an other-cat-free dwelling!) A couple weeks visiting the boyfriend and a couple weeks at my mother's house trying to help her move, and here I am, almost in August, feeling like I've done nothing this summer! But such is the nature of summers.

My mom's move was an immense project--she and my dad bought that house in 1979, so I'm one of the few people I know who didn't move at least once during their growing-up years. My great-grandfather built the house in 1921, so even though it is almost 100 years old, it has had only two owners! So it's been an emotional move--not to mention a difficult one in the physical sense, since houses tend to accumulate a lot of things in 34 years. :) It is really strange to see the house emptied out. Luckily, she is only moving one block away--to the house my grandparents built. I guess we are a family that prizes familiarity!

Last night I finally returned to the sewing machine for a bit. I've got a baby quilt I need to send to Arizona, since the baby was born, um, last week. (It's not like there's no warning on these baby things, yet I never seem to get them done in time...)

My first instinct was to name this quilt "Dirty Bubblegum" but I might have to rethink that one.

This is my first time using triangle paper. I think I like it, though I hate tearing off paper. Overall though, I do think it streamlines the process. I'll evaluate fully once I get them all done.

I've also started cutting for a quilt that is going to be the best, most amazing quilt ever. I'm really excited!

Linking up with WIP Wednesday.


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Finish It Friday (Yes, really!)

I started this quilt last summer (see here, where my completely unwarranted optimism is hilarious in retrospect.) My problem is once I miss a deadline (like a wedding) my instinct is not to finish it as fast as possible, but to be like, "Oh well. It's already late." And so I end up finishing wedding quilts many months after the wedding. :)

The building in the background is the courthouse in my tiny hometown. I love it. A more skilled photographer could do more with that backdrop, but I was in a hurry. And my mom's arms were tired of holding up the quilt. :)

The recipient was visiting her family in Nebraska, and I got to go see her for her birthday. That spurred a hurry to finish. My best friend helped me baste it, as she is interested in learning to quilt. We accidentally pinned half of it to the carpet and had to re-baste. Rookie mistake. :) Anyway, at the recipient's birthday party, I found out she'd be in Grand Rapids the following week for business. Coincidentally, I also happened to be going to Grand Rapids the following week to visit my boyfriend. This bought me another week to work on the quilt.

And I finally finished it!!!

It's nearly Independence Day, so please enjoy how I went all 'Murica! with this photo, capturing a waving flag with my quilt.

We had lunch together and she loved her new quilt! Just in time for the hottest part of a midwestern summer, of course. ;)

 The backing is a Simon + Kabuki print (from the line "Nesting"--not bad for newlyweds, eh?) that I got for super cheap on eBay. I've never ordered fabric from eBay before, and it is a little scary since you don't have some of the assurances you have with other online retailers. And I admit that this did smell faintly of cigarette smoke (urgh) when I got it, but it wasn't overpowering and seemed to dissipate over the year (urgh) that I had it sitting around waiting to back the quilt.

 I was very nervous about quilting the stars. I thought I'd use the walking foot, but the idea of all of that turning and shoving the quilt through my machine's throat made me want to cry and throw things. So I marked it and FMQed it. SOOOO much easier. Seriously, it went very quickly and it turned out, if not perfectly, pretty darn good. I did do something very stupid, which was sew around the perimeter of the quilt way too early in the process. It meant that I had no room to ease fabric as I did some of the lengthwise quilting, and there was some bunching and puckers. Oops. Lesson learned.

 In other news that makes me feel productive and accomplished, I ground down and refinished my super-cloudy headlights myself and they look AMAZING.

One down, one to go. Or, before and after. 

I've had Sebring for 10 years, since I started college. He's 11 years, 151,000 miles young, and is still a champ!

Scary-competent. And try not to covet my socks too hard.

This is long already, but if you are a Google reader person you should switch over before July 1st but you already know this and if you want to use Bloglovin' the link is on the side of my blog etc etc. :)

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday, because I finally did, darn it!

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WIP Wednesday: Earth Mother Quilt and an Apartment

Happy summer! It's actually been unseasonably cool here, but I'm really ok with that, because I know we'll get weeks and weeks of 95+ degree weather at some point, and frankly, I hate sweating and like saving money on air conditioning, so summer can just take its sweet time as far as I'm concerned!

Here's what I've been busy with:

Drove it all by myself for 1200+ miles. Good training for my future truck driving career.

Biggest takeaway? I have way, way, way too much stuff.

This is my real WIP lately.

 

Sigh.

My great mother came out a day after she finished teaching for the semester and helped me move back. So I owe her big time! Don't worry though, she's going to cash in on it. She's moving this summer too. From a house she and my dad bought in 1979. So that should be fun. :)

We had time for one quick sightseeing stop on the way. 

Incredibly, I also managed to finish a quilt top before I left New York. I wanted to get it done so I could photograph it with some lush greenery and pretty waterfalls, but true to form, I finished it, then failed to get any photos of it in gorgeous natural surroundings. So instead, it is photographed in my living room. Quality lives here, folks.

You may remember this quilt is for a friend who got married. Last September.

Sadly, the new place seems to be infested with a vug under the rug:

via

Linking up with WIP Wednesday!

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WIP: The Ghost of Christmas Past

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... *hangs head in shame* 

Ok, so I didn't get all of my Christmas sewing done, and I still have this quilt I need to finish! Yikes--so very, very late. Luckily, this isn't a very involved project--I'm just going to add some very thick borders to this to make it more grown-up sized, so the piecing is pretty easy. Of course, that makes it more embarrassing that I'm still working on it as we approach February.

Such is life, I suppose. It does make me happy to see "Joy" all together like that. What a great Christmas collection!

In other news, I'm about to take the plunge on my first-ever BOM-- it's the Skill Builder run by Alyssa at Pile O' Fabric.

The first block is the "Sound Wave" and it is supposed to look like this:

via

And here's what I'm using for this block:

Here are my fabric pulls for the entire project:

And I found this Jennifer Paganelli "West Indies" print in my stash. I didn't have as much as I thought, which is too bad, because I think it's perfect for the back. Since we're doing QAYG, I'm considering getting another yard and a half and then using just the plain blue for the rest of the blocks.

Speaking of the "plain blue," I'm super nervous about using that as a background fabric for my blocks. My original inspiration for my color scheme was this:

via

Which I love. But when I bought the blue, it seemed so primary color-y to me that now I'm scared the whole thing will look juvenile. Hopefully the relatively subdued and monochromatic nature of the rest of the fabrics will keep it more sophisticated. But I've decided that I'll take some risks on this quilt. If I completely hate it, I can always give it away. :)

Speaking of which, I have two WIPs I need to get out of the way, but then I am DEFINITELY starting my own quilt (not just because it is 8 degrees here either.) I visited my boyfriend last week and totally hogged the quilt I made him! I almost stole it, which indicates to me that I need to finally make myself a quilt.

Linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, where I will no doubt have the lone Christmas project. :)

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MY Baby Quilt!

A crazily busy month has meant that I've done very little sewing, and I'm currently back in Nebraska to visit my grandparents and mom, and particularly my grandma who isn't doing so well. I am really grateful to have made it back to see her for possibly the last time, even though it is difficult to see her like this.

But while I'm back at my mother's, I spied my very first quilt at the bottom of the bed and decided it deserved a little post of its own!

I had a few more pics, but for some reason, Blogger keeps uploading them with the additions of large neon stripes. This one miraculously emerged unscathed on the fourth try.

My aunt made this for me when I was born, and I slept under it for pretty much every childhood nap that I can remember. The back is bright pink flannel, and I always loved that it was "fuzzy." The fabrics are very 1980s (which makes sense, I suppose!), but the pattern is timeless and I have always loved it. It is so well loved and well washed that it feels like butter (in a soft way, not a greasy way!) I never once noticed (before becoming a quilter) that some of the seams don't match quite right and that there really is very minimal quilting (she outlined a few of the "around the worlds.") There's a good lesson in there--our recipients really don't mind or even notice the imperfections, they just love that they had a quilt made for them. I think that's true even if the recipient isn't a child. It's a good reminder to just enjoy the process of making and the act of giving (to others or to yourself!) and to realize how immaterial the small imperfections are.

Hope you are all having a lovely week! I'm hoping to maybe finish up my yellow and gray quilt in time to enter it into the Bloggers Quilt Festival, but class and Hurricane Sandy may conspire against me! Then again, if I can get it quilted and the binding on, there are worse ways to ride out a hurricane power outage than by finishing the hand binding of a quilt. :) Outdoor photographs may be out of the question though!

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WIP: Just a peek!

Well, I abandoned hope for finishing the wedding quilt in time for the wedding. It would have been nice, but it just didn't happen. I spent too much time watching football this weekend, and not enough quilting. :) (My team won and looked great, so yay!) While I enjoy sewing, I often find I have a pretty limited attention span for it. I know there are lots of quilters out there who can spend days at the machine, but I just can't. I like to dabble for an hour or two here and there. I accept that that is just my style!

I also went to The Great State Fair of New York (the grandiosity of that title cracks me up every time) on Sunday. In between the appalling displays of fried foods of every kind and a whole lot of low culture, I did get some photos from two separate quilt exhibitions. I'll post those in a separate post sometime soon.

I did sew a little bit though. Here's a look at what it will look like!

I really like this pattern. I love traditional blocks with modern fabrics, so I could see myself using this one again. It's designed for charm packs which would of course save you some cutting! I love patterns that allow you to still see the fabrics.

This isn't the greatest picture, because I just took it so I remembered the layout I had planned. Because once again math thwarted my efforts, I miscalculated how much fabric I needed. Instead of buying more, I decided to see if I had anything in my stash (novel idea, I know!) This isn't really my color scheme, so it was a bit difficult. But in the end I salvaged a bit of brown I had bought to make my friend a purse (hope there's still enough left!), some of the plain green from the MSU beach blanket, and some green stripes and polka dots from an American Jane mini fat quarter bundle I got on sale. As a result, the overall effect is more green than I intended, but there isn't anything wrong with that! The bride is the most frugal person I know, so she'd be totally proud that I made do if she knew. :)

Also, my cat is apparently too lazy to even sit like a normal animal while drinking. He'll take his beverage service in the reclining position, thank you very much. Proud moment for Bingley.

Yes, he's a boy and he has pink dishes. He doesn't seem to mind. :)

I'm headed to Chicago tomorrow and Indy on Friday night, so I'll be flitting around the Midwest and cursing the Newark airport this weekend (because it is terrible). Have a great week everyone!

Linked to Freshly Pieced!


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WIP Wednesday: Weddings

It's been fun to read about everyone having time to sew again now that their kids are back in school. Unfortunately, it's just the opposite for me! There are papers to grade, lessons to plan, dissertation chapters to write, and committee members to avoid. :) The semester has started off well, though I am amazed by a couple of things in the course that I'm teaching. The first is how much time it takes to plan it all--I've been responsible for sections before, but managing all of the minutiae is overwhelming me a bit right now! I don't know how high school teachers do it with so many classes per day, every day of the week. The second amazing thing is how very different freshmen are than juniors and seniors. I think the jury is still out on whether it is a difference I enjoy or not.

In the midst of that, however, I decided to start another quilt. Because that makes sense, right?

My hands are really tied, because yet another one of my friends is getting married. Very few are on the wedding quilt list, but this is another one who is on it. Fortunately, after her, pretty much everyone I know is married, so then it will just be baby quilts.

Pretty excited about the back. Got a bunch of this "Nesting" by Simon + Kabuki off of eBay for $5 a yard. It will be perfect!

I'm hoping to make a good chunk of progress on it this weekend while watching the first weekend of college football!!! (So excited!)

The color scheme was new for me, and not something I would ever pick. I had no browns at all in my collection! Initially I was going to leave out the green, but I like having that third color in there and think it brings it all together. I like it a lot more than I thought I would!

I've also continued to make slow progress on my other wedding quilt for the friend who got married in July (oops). I've got most of the rows together. In a perfect world, I'd finish that top this weekend, but we will see--honestly, for right now, the blue/brown/green quilt is of a bit higher priority. Because that wedding is September 8th.

A beautiful day, but weird shadows everywhere! Ah well.

I am awesome at time management. :) Linking up at Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday to take a look at others who are a little better at it than I am. ;)


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