A special music quilt

Back in 2013, I made a nautical quilt, stocking and two pillows for a woman having her first baby. I couldn't help her with her 2nd baby due to machine troubles. She's now having her 3rd baby and asked me to make a music quilt set for this baby in blues and greens! I finished this quilt earlier in the month, but held off on the post since the baby is due around New Years!

This quilt is my own design inspired by some photos the mom sent me.

I used my Silhouette to cut these applique pieces. However, my Silhouette is super old (maybe 10 years) and was never meant to cut fabric. It kind of stopped working mid-way through this keyboard and I wound up doing a lot of it by hand.

The rest of the shapes worked well, but I do think it might be time to retire the Silhouette until I can replace it with a new model.

I considered putting a cassette tap on here as well, but I figured the record would be enough explaining for mom and dad! Haha!

My favorite part of this quilt I think is the music striped binding!

This is the first quilt that I forgot to put my label on the back! I realized it after I had sewed the binding on, however, I had packed up my sewing room for Christmas and couldn't even sew a label together to hand sew on there!

Along with the quilt, I made a matching stocking. I used Amanda Murphy's Modern Holiday  book for the pattern. The name is hand stitched by transferring the name on the cream fabric and stitching on top of that.

She also asked for 2 pillows. I made one that links to the quilt with this little guitar.

The other links to the stocking which of course they both use quilt fabrics!

I hope the whole family loves these and that baby boy Ryan arrives safe and sound! What a wonderful new years gift.

Nautical Octagon quilt

You'll notice this quilt looks a lot like the last quilt that I posted. That's because when I made the last quilt, I let the kids cut a bunch of triangles with my AccuQuilt Go without doing any math. This quilt is the result of having way too many triangles!!

What I love about this quilt is that at first it looks like random triangles. But as you get closer you can see they are actually octagons!

I did free motion and ruler work quilting on this one and I'm quite proud of how it turned out. I really wanted to set those octagons off with the quilting because they are so "low volume". 

The binding is fabrics from within the octagons.

And the back is more of the same.

I'm quite proud of this quilt in general because it was the first time I developed my own pattern. I had these triangles and wanted to make an octagon without doing any Y seams. It was quite an interesting process, but it came together well!! 

You can find this quilt for sale on my etsy shop.

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Nautical Octagon baby quilt

Pattern: none - my own

Fabrics: stash

Finished size: 37"x37"

Finished: 3.2017

Nautical Triangle Baby Quilt

I recently finished up this sweet little nautical quilt and wanted to share it here. This quilt was made with my accuquilt go cutter.  I had my two little minions cut a bunch of fabrics up for me knowing that I wanted to make a basic triangle quilt.

The nautical novelty fabrics are Cinderberry and the rest is from my stash.

Aren't those little animals and mermaids the cutest!?

I did a very simple straightline quilting on this to keep it soft and cuddly.

The binding is all the yellow print from within some of the triangles.

You can see more of the creatures on the back.

This sweet little quilt is for sale on my etsy shop right here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Nautical Triangles

Pattern: none

Fabrics: stash

Finished size: 46" x41"

Finished: 3/2017

A little boy Boomerang quilt.

**This quilt is for sale in my Etsy shop right here**

I've been wanting to make the Boomerang Pattern from Crazy Old Ladies for a while now. I'm trying to pay more attention to "my style" and I'm definitely drawn to more graphic, geometric quilts.

 

Probably over a year ago, I saw this little monster fabric and just had to have it. Since then, I've been collecting what I would call "little boy" fabrics with no specific purpose.

Aren't those monsters adorable? (there are also lady bugs and pandas)

Then inspiration struck and I knew this pattern would be great to show these fabrics and still keep the quilt masculine.

The dinosaurs are my absolute favorite

I didn't have enough "novelty" fabrics so I hit up my stash to fill out the requirements for this quilt.

Backing with flannel is my new favorite thing and I found the most adorable 'monster' flannel!

 And sure enough, as I was putting this one together, my 4 year old little boy (he's four!?) was totally drawn to this and kept asking if he could have it! Of course he could have it, but then he didn't understand that he had to wait until it was finished!

 

I think I've mentioned before that my quilty goal for this year is to improve my quilting skills. I've been taking this Craftsy class  from Amy Johnson and got all the gear to start ruler work on my domestic. This quilt had to be a guinea pig!

I used one of the Westalee rulers that is intended for concentric designs but put them on end instead within the "boomerangs".  (btw- this company has the BEST customer service)

And I just used my walking foot for the straight lines.

Binding is all polka dots.

I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out. My son is already snuggling with this one and that's really all that matters.

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Monster Boomerangs

Pattern: Boomerang by Emily Herrick

Fabrics: The Littles plus stash
Finished size: 58" by 70"

Finished: February 2016

Pollyanna Swap with Philly MQG

At this month's meeting, we had our Pollyanna swap with the members. We use a site called Elfster to organize it and I highly recommend it if you'd like to set up something like this. The individuals sign up, create wish lists and the site matches up the partners. It allows you to ask anonymous questions of your parter too! 

Anyway, I got my good friend Cathy who asked for a table runner 32" in length. She requested neutrals with a pop of red. I've been in her house before so it helped me know what to make for her! I had a mini charm pack  of Circa 1934 which had the perfect colors.  The size of mini-charms are perfect for english paper piece hexagons and I have the plastic templates for them so they technically aren't paper pieced!   These hexies are all sewn together by hand and then machine appliqued down to the cream fabric.

 

I did all the free motion quilting on my domestic machine and am pretty happy with how it turned out.

 

The back is a solid piece of the typewriter print from this line.

 

It looked pretty good on my coffee table I must say. I almost kept it! I know Cathy loved it though and I'll be sure to visit it sometime!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Table Runner

Pattern: none, self designed

Fabrics: Circa 1934, Cosmo Cricket
Finished size: Approx 32" by 20"

Finished: December 2015

 

 

Modern Dahlia

I don't think I ever blogged about this little quilt finish.

 

This was for a swap that the Philly Modern Quilt Guild did at the Fall Retreat.  The challenge was for everyone to take a traditional block and 'make it modern'.

 

The pattern is Dahlia by April Rosenthal. And I was be honest, it's not for beginners. It uses templates, or she sells acrylic templates. There is a lot of hand prep before piecing. I was already working on a number of these for myself so I had a bit of practice before doing this one!

 

The back shows the quilting which I am most proud of! I basically followed the curves of the front and extended them off the quilt and it made this awesome pattern.

We did our swap at the retreat by pulling numbers from a hat and Nicole got my quilt. I'll take some pictures and post the amazing mini that I relieved later!

Quilt stats:

Quilt name:Modern Dahlia

Pattern: Dahlia

Fabrics: scrappy mix
Finished size: 25" x25"

Finished: November 2015

Alphabet quilt: a finish

A friend of mine has a daughter who is a teacher. She wanted to give her an alphabet quilt to hang on her classroom wall.  The first thing that came to mind was the Moda Blog Hop that was fairly recently.  Unfortunately, all those blocks were about 8" tall and lead to a large quilt. Luckily, Primative Gatherings put together a miniature version of those patterns and you can get it here. 

She chose a primary color scheme for the quilt and requested the "HI" stand out". I think the green does that but subtly without looking like it doesn't belong.

All the fabrics were from my stash (except the red border. Somehow I'm very lacking in red).  And what's best is that we barter services for this quilt. My friend loves to garden and I seriously dislike it. She came over and helped my husband with the (way too many) flower beds that we have. If you follow me on IG you may remember me posting my poison ivy? Yeah, I felt a bit guilty and tried to help out. Never again!

Anyway, possibly the best part of this quilt is the fabric on the back! Can't see that? Here's a close up.

This adorable fabric looks like the writing paper we learned how to print on!  It's called Animal ABC's and it's by Penguin and Fish.

Quilt stats:

Quilt name: Alphabet Mini Quilt

Pattern: Mini Alphabet

Fabrics: stash

Finished size: 42"x 42"

Finished: 6/2015