Memories

It's been a memorable year already! 

 

It has been a very good start to my quilty year.  What an honor to get to work closely with others.  We start as strangers and end as very good friends.

 

This is a wedding quilt for Ellie and Mike.  They had some really fun guests sign their quilt squares.  Must have been a lot of Lion King songs as I kept seeing "Hakuna Matata", "Elton John was here", and "Can you feel the love tonight?".  Made for a good flashback and singing songs in my head as I sewed.

 

 

Monograms and wedding date appliqued on ivory sateen.  The bride loves pink polka dots so we found the perfect backing. 

I have been so thankful to share in the memories of my clients with weddings and also in death. It is so moving to make a quilt as therapy. Even though I don't usually know my clients, I still find great comfort in hearing stories of their memories and seeing pictures of what is meaningful to them. 

This sweet, sweet woman wanted to give memory quilts as gifts.  I can't think of a better gift to give (naturally!).  She took the time to consider who would like certain parts of the garments and style of backings.  It was so touching to hear stories and get to know this lovely family through their story of clothing. 

 It reminded me of my dad and our time in the garden, stacking the wood pile, and seeing his dress clothes for work. 

Melissa and I joined forces to create these seven special quilts.  It was very touching and so good to meet Laura who asked me to take on this project.  Thank you, Laura!  Hope to have a cup of coffee and hear more about your dear family someday.

 

 

Recently I got to make a cheery bright banner for a birthday girl.  I actually made a quilt for the little one when she was born and now she's having a birthday.  Aww!  It is two-sided but the letters are only on one side.  So they are able to hang it up in the playroom or bed room year round and turn it around for birthdays.  Sweet!

 

I do hope your year is off to a good start.  Looking back at memories and looking forward to celebrations is what the new year is all about.  Today our "celebration" was longer days, a little bit of sunshine, and a cupcake picnic.  Yes, sunshine in February is always a reason to celebrate.  Eat Cake!

A Memorable Summer

Another memory is made!  This truly has been the summer of memory quilts which includes t-shirt quilts and (formerly) bedding quilts.  I really like this idea.  My client used some very pretty bedding from Pottery Barn Kids when her kiddo was born.  Now that she's all grown up, she sent me the bumpers, crib skirt, and matching sheet to make into a quilt. 

I like incorporating little details like the piping and bows from the bumper.

It's soft and sweet and will be headed out to the big girl very soon!

This memory quilt I showed you a peek of last time.  It contains the large bear claw patch that I disassembled and tried to include without hurting the hand stitching.  A couple of Sunbonnet Sues, great-grandpa's baby clothes, and various items from both sides of baby's family make one awesome memory. 

I used high loft batting to make it extra "heirloomy" and soft after quilting 1/2' on each side of every seam.

A hand-embroidered label with a great Bible verse really touched me.

What an honor to be a part of family heirlooms!  I am so incredibly thankful for the opportunity to meet so many nice people and hear their stories.  God has brought so many new friends into my life and it's fascinating to watch Him show up in the most unusual places. 

Make some memories of your own this summer!  The little things are so important.

A winner!

Random.org has chosen #4, The Knapps, for the CSN Giveaway. Double congratulations to you as you commented on a baby on the way!! Hooray! I'll be sending you an email with the info.

Speaking of babies, I HOPEFULLY will be also joining the baby club (again) soon. Due date is approaching and we are all a-twitter here. Well, mostly just me and hubs.

I am so tickled I got to make some more Love pillow covers. Funny it was exactly a year ago that I did the tutorial with Amy Butler's Love fabric.

My oldest turned 5 (FIVE?!) this week. So no one told me teenage drama would start at 5. I'm going to keep blaming the no sleep situation and hope it will soon pass. However we did have a lovely time at the "birthday house" as she calls it. Being 39 weeks pregnant we kept it very low key. MIL brought pasta, I made some pulled pork BBQ and dad grilled out some chicken sausage brat things. I'm all for simple but nice.

AND I met my goal of completing this quilt before baby came. A sweety of a client commisssioned me to make this for her daughter's birthday on the same day as my daughters! Well I'll be... It did have silks in the front which did not survive the washing and drying process. Probably would have done ok if it were a regular quilt but as a rag quilt it did not work out. So I had to undo the entire - YES, I said entire - quilt to pull out the 17 silk squares. Substituted them with regular cotton fabric and we're back on track. The velvet is still on the back which I pray will wash well and last for lifetimes.

Congrats, The Knapps! Happy Birthday to my little girl and the velvet birthday girl! Blessings all around!

Winner + Boy Quilts

The winner of the CSN Giveaway is #1 Sarah! Someday I will learn how to import the Random.org widget for proof. If any of you are keen on that, I'd love to know how to do it. Anyhoo, thanks so much to all who entered and what fun gifts you gave your loved ones!

I've had some boy quilts enter my life lately. A good friend roped her brother into taking pictures of my loot from the shop. He did a great job of making my quilts look extremely gorgeous so naturally I got to repay the favor with a quilt for the baby boy on the way.

It was my first time to work with Echino fabric and it was great! A tad on the expensive side but totally worth it. I love the linen feel of it and how extremely creative the prints are. The repeats are a fantastic blend of stripes, dots, and a novelty item (helicoptes, busses, and cameras in this case).

Next up was a rag quilt (surprise, surprise!) made with Robots from David Walker. I ran across an unbelievable sale a while back and went hog wild ordering the entire line. Rag quilts are such a dream to make at this point in my life. Pretty fast, easy, and always a fun result when it comes out of the dryer all fluffed up.

I'm thinking of doing a rag quilt tutorial since I'm going a little nutso over here with them. I assume there are a gazillion out there already, but what's one more, right?

A very happy new year to you all. May it be safe, happy, healthy and quilty! Thank you so much for stopping by my little blog. Cheers!

Pregnant Quilting

Well, it's the week of Christmas! I have been very blessed to have a lot of commission orders since summer. T-shirt quilts, the circle quilts, adoption quilt, and some random magic show props and pillow covers. Whew!

I love quilting, the process of it all, but I do not enjoy basting a quilt whilst pregnant. Crawling around the floor is not a fun pasttime as is. Add a placenta and two people are miserable.

Enter the rag quilt! Now I don't have one of those fancy-schmancy die cutters so it does require a lot of patience in snipping all those raggy edges. HOWEVER! There is no basting and no binding. (I'll always love you, binding, but you are a little rough on the fingers.)

Not to mention how handy rag quilts are in using up charm packs. When I first started my quilt mania 5 years ago, I started buying charm packs of all the spectactular new lines out at the time (Flea Market Fancy, anyone?!) without really having a plan. I was studying for a board exam, hating life, and desperate for a creative outlet. I hadn't touched a sewing machine in years but throw some beautiful fabric in front of me and cha-ching! Gazillions of charm packs are sitting here looking at me for half a decade pleading to be used. Well used you shall be, my pretties.

I just finished up a rockets and robots rag quilt with David Walker fabric. Once it is washed and ready I'll post pictures of that too. I know, try to wait paitently. Both will be in the shop for all your frantic New Years shopping. I kinda misplaced my camera Thanksgiving and didn't get things ready for Christmas. Good timing.

May the peace of our Lord touch you this special time of year. A very blessed and Christ-centered Christmas to you and your families.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John 3:17