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.

Sarcastic/Nerdy Guild swap

The Philly MQG decided to have a Sarcastic/Nerdy swap based off of the online swaps that use profanity or are focused on fandom.  We use Elfster to get matched up for these swaps and you can find out if your partner has an obsession with certain shows, movies or characters through the site. Or based on their sense of humor you could do something a little more risque!

I wasn't 100% sure of my partners use of profanity so I stuck with some quilting fun.  This bag challenged me several times. It's a Noodle Head pattern called the Caravan Tote which I highly recommend. What challenged me was getting the heat transfer on their correctly.  My original design was based off of one on CafePress that I can't get to load up here. (just google Serial Quilter and you'll find it.)  I made myself a t-shirt as a tester.

Then when I started to do the bag, I just resized it, cut it out on my silhouette and put it on the piece before sewing it to the bag. However, I had not read the whole bag pattern yet and didn't realize the bottom of the bag required 3" of the side panel in order to make the boxed bottom! All of a sudden my quilter girl was too big and I had no more heat transfer material!!

What you see is the result of re-thinking. I decided to enlarge the rotary cutter and scissors and cut from a sparkly iron-on that I was able to get locally.

The bag itself is so cool! Inside the side panel (and my awesome rainbow zipper) is a subdivided pocket for tools.

Another pocket inside the bag itself, and then snap closures.  I did the handles with fabric covered webbing.

And because swaps always require a little more love, I found a few things to include. This funny little pin:

And I made this little zip pouch out of sewing themed fabrics.

She loved everything! Now to get working on our retreat swap project!!