Quilt for my father

I am marching along with my next project - a birthday quilt for my father. He's a Ralph Lauren kind of guy so I went with pretty preppy colors and a sea theme as he loves fishing and the beach.

I finished the cutting and two out of the six blocks I intend to do today. Tomorrow, hopefully, I will finish the blocks and maybe cut the border. We'll see!

Here's what I have so far:

Tea Towels - on the way

So this morning I was determined to make tea towels. I could not find instructions on how to hem them. You might say, "How hard is it to hem a freaking towel?" Well, it's not... if you know what you're doing. But seeing as I'd never done and don't know how to do it (it's different than a quilt) I took a tea towel I'd gotten from Crate & Barrel a while ago and took apart a corner and mimicked it with this cute cherry fabric I had lying around.

It looks great! Next time I will use cherry colored thread as well for a little kick.

And I hope to sell these on Etsy.com... we'll see!

New territory... baby quilts on commission

I am about to start four new projects. (Ack! Exciting, but ack!) A small quilt for my father's 80th birthday in Sept and two baby quilts on commission for a friend in Maine who is having twins! One girl and one boy so I will do similar quilts in different color schemes.

The one for my father will probably be preppy colors with a sea theme - it will be nice but a bit conservative for my taste. But that's why it's for my dad and not for me! If I put skulls on his quilt he would probably think I wanted to kill him or something. So let's keep that dark side for someone who has my sense of humor.

The baby quilts, however, will have skulls on them! Yay! The couple who are having the twins definitely have a sense of humor and would appreciate the "dangerous baby quilt".

I will be using "Goth Baby" blue and pink as the backings for these quilts, I think. And again will be using Alexander Hengry's 2-D Blue and Primary. I can't get enough of that print and think it's perfect for kids.

I also just found out about this fabric- Knitmare on Elm Street - that I must use in a project. I am going to start to attempt to make totes as well and want to use this for one. Hilarious.

Ok! Off to sew.

Milo's Baby Quilt - Photos

So my loving husband went out and got me a new digital camera (because he broke the old one, poor thing) and I took photos of the new baby quilt.

I am proud of this one as well although there definitely are mistakes. The color scheme works well, I think, and is bright and cheerful. It does not have the subversive edge that I plan on incorporating into most of my sewing, but I wanted to make the quilt for Milo a cheerful, colorful, happy quilt and I think it worked! I'll let you be the judge.





































I love the backing fabric! It's Clouds by somebody... I'll figure it out and post it because it's so cheerful and cozy and great for kids.

I added a hanging sleeve for the first time on this quilt and am about to try to attach a label dedicating the quilt to little Milo.

All in all, it turned out well although I need to work on my binding, mitered corners and seams. Progress tho... it's all about progress.

Baby Quilt #2

So I have begun my second baby quilt for our upstairs neighbors who just had a little boy, Milo. I have used two sawtooth stars (seen in the previous quilt) and two log cabins with yellow and light green and Alexander Henry's 2-D Zoo in sage. I can't post photos quite yet because my digital camera is broken.

I've been gone a while because I was getting married. So now that we're back from our wedding and honeymoon (both took place in Bermuda and coming home as been a bit of a shock) it's back to the sewing machine.

I love the compliment of the fabrics that I've chosen, but my sewing lacks ability. I've realized that I often have trouble with seams puckering which is annoying and something I am trying to remedy. It will still look pretty good, I think, but I want it to be better!

I'll post photos as soon as I can. I just finished piecing together the four blocks and sashing and outer border. So the top of the quilt is done. I have to cut the backing and make the quilt "sandwich" (I hate when food items are used to describe non-culinary items). Then the quilting begins and as in the last baby quilt I will use minimal stitching to keep the fabrics puffy and soft.

I can't wait to show you the fabric I chose for the backing! It's adorable and so cheerful.

Okay, back to it.

Photos soon!