An American Boy Memory Quilt
Posted by Nina on Aug 18, 2010
Now that the baby shower is over and the mom-to-be has this quilt in hand, I can finally share pics with you! Mom-to-be had a really hard time over the last couple years and I thought I would do something special and make a memory quilt for her and her little boy.. something they could touch and cherish for years to come. I asked her family to donate special items that could be used in the quilt top and asked for the colors to be kept to red, white, and blue.. I heard rumors that, that was the colors they were using in the nursery.
Many of the family donated jeans, a couple work shirts from the family business that just recently closed, pj bottoms, a blouse, and a few other things were all used to make the quilt top.. I then found a red and blue star backing and a matching blue and red plaid fabric that has little silver threads for the binding. I used a light loft batting because the denim fabrics in the top are quite heavy and I wanted to make it light enough for a toddler to carry around. It’s still quite warm, which is good because the baby is due in October!
P.S. Nursery in the photos is not the actual nursery of the Mom-to-be, just one used to show the size of the finished quilt.
Decembers Quilt Kit
Posted by Nina on Aug 11, 2010
Moda has finally released a photo of Decembers club quilt! Some of you might remember my disappointment about Septembers kit so I was pleasantly surprised by this one! I hadn’t expected a photo to be released so soon but it’s really beautiful! Not at all the holiday quilt I was hoping for but the colors will go well in our home. I am really loving the fact that everything is more or less pre-cut because that’s the part everyone hates the most about sewing!
Moda Quilt Kits
Posted by Nina on Jul 7, 2010
Awhile back I purchased the first quarter of the quilt kits Moda is offering from the scrap basket (jelly roll) line and the first kit is AMAZING! The fabric is Fresh Cottons from Fig Tree Quilts. I love everything about this!! Both the semi-vintage feel of the pattern and fabric but the colors are just amazing! I want to order a bunch more of this fabric just to stash away for future projects!! I can’t wait to get started on this quilt.. it just might be my most favorite quilt ever!
They also have released Septembers upcoming kit… I have mixed feelings about this. I was hoping for a more autumn themed quilt and this one just isn’t it.. and it really isn’t even my style. The fabrics and pattern are pretty, I just don’t care for them together. I think I might order some Awesome by Sandy Gervais for an autumn quilt and stash this fabric for something else. I am hoping I love Decembers kit a bit more. September’s really is beautiful, it just is a bit too dark for me.. or maybe I will make it and gift it… we’ll see!
P.S. I can’t seem to fix the txt by the photos, either it posts the photos very large and blown out or the text.. so I chose the text, sorry about that! it’s a weird wordpress format issue 
Little Boy Blues
Posted by Nina on Jun 16, 2010
Everyone I know is pregnant this year.. and everyone is having boys! So that means it’s time to make little boy quilts! This is a sweet little red and blue color scheme and the backing is a navy blue flannel with little red fire trucks! I can’t wait to see how this one looks finished. It’s just adorable! After its washed and quilted it should measure out to be about a 36″ square. The binding I have chosen for it is a red check print. I used various fat quarters and cut them down to 4.5″ squares but the design is very charm pack friendly! Mom does not have a nursery theme that I am aware of so I ran around the quilt shop just picking up colors that I thought looked good together.
Now for an update about the surgery… if you ever have to have all 4 wisdom teeth pulled, just go to sleep and wake up when it’s over! I decided I wanted local anesthetic with the gas.. it probably would have been fine for most people but apparently I am super hard to numb because I felt the whole thing! He used 9 canisters of local anesthesia and kept my gas up super high but it was a horrible, horrible experience and you know what the worst part was? during the pull what should come on the radio but Peter Gabriel’s Sledge Hammer! Yeah. Perfect. I lost some jaw bone and got some stitches and I am still quite sore but I am finally able to eat some solid foods again. I survived and the worst is hopefully behind me now!
Little Bird Sweet Cheeks
Posted by Nina on Jun 10, 2010
June has not been kind to me so far! I am laid up with a double abscess in my wisdom teeth and have made an appointment to have them all pulled… I’m so not looking forward to that! All I am able to really do is sew. I was browsing the Moda shop a few weeks ago and I saw this beautiful Chirp! neutral fat quarter bundle and I just had to have it! While there is no baby Sprinkle at the moment, this quilt will stay tucked away in my closet until there is!
I love how gender neutral the prints are and the color scheme is the standard yellow and green which means it will go with just about everything! I used the Sweet Cheeks pattern from Thimble Blossoms. I am not a fan of rag quilts or soft edge appliqué so I zig zag stitched around the edges instead. This will allow them to soften up a little but will prevent strings from coming off and getting into baby’s mouth or wrapped around little fingers. It’s a bit too busy for me to add the bird appliqués I originally planned on but I am loving how it looks so far! I can’t wait to finish it!
Dr. Seuss in My Closet?
Posted by Nina on May 28, 2010
When I saw this quilt in my magazine a few years ago, I knew that I wanted to make it..
I didn’t however, want to make it as a gift quilt because it looks like a lot of work for one quilt! and I wasn’t too keen on the monsters idea. Some kids are so bothered by them that even the funny stories are out.. the same with aliens and such.. so if I was making this quilt for my kids (God willing…) then I wanted to make it fun. There are 15 little doors that open and button close on this quilt!
So, I started looking into animal prints.. anything that would look cute and unexpected behind the doors.. nothing seemed to jump out at me and scream “THIS IS THE ONE!!” until a couple of days ago when Moda added this fabric to their up coming line.
As a kid there was absolutely no author I loved more than Dr. Seuss. The bindings on my hard covered books were worn completely out, I had each and every book memorized, and I had just about every video he had ever published at that time. I loved him.
Most kids do, right? So I figured it would be the perfect fabrics to make the door quilt out of! No scary monsters, no scary aliens, no boy-ish looking quilt fabric that isn’t quite unisex enough… Dr. Seuss takes care of all of that for me! and it even will have a matching little pillow! This is quite possibly the most excited I have ever been about a sewing project in my entire life. Though I am not pregnant, I am hoping that this little quilt (or not so little, it will be around 54″ by 61″) will create that special reading bond between my children and myself.
And if by some chance I am gifted with children who hate Dr. Seuss (do those kids really exist?) then I will have myself an awesome reading blanket and pillow.. because this quilt, is what I would have given my tooth fairy allowance for as a kid! Now… how on earth am I going to wait until September to quilt it!? I truly have no choice, the fabric is not available until then.
P.S. Because I know someone is going to ask, the quilt pattern is from Fons & Porter’s Fun Quilts for Kids of All Ages Summer 2007 issue, it is the Monsters In My Closet pattern.
Simple Abundance Coin Quilt
Posted by Nina on May 21, 2010
Way back when friends of Sergey’s found out they were expecting, I purchased this fabric to make a stacked coin quilt. Everything went smoothly until my basting slipped on the backing and created wrinkles in the fabric. Later I found that the mother-to-be was a seamstress herself and I agonized about this. Over. and. Over. and. Over. again. The mother would no doubt notice the wrinkles and any imperfections that may be in my quilt.. so I just got so frustrated I put it away and decided I never wanted to look at it again!
Finally 2 days ago I dug the fabric out and decided to finish it. The baby was born in December. She never got the quilt.
I am now pondering the idea of giving the quilt as a 1st birthday gift along with a children’s book since it’s the perfect size for a toddler bed… there is only one problem. I am absolutely head over heels in love with it.
just look at all that crinkled goodness!
The finished size is 37.5″ x 46″. The fabric is Simple Abundance by Bonnie & Camille for Moda. The pattern is stacked coins featured in the moda bake shop. It’s the perfect size for a toddler to cuddle up with, or a lap quilt…. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got some soul searching to do..
Dandelion Girl Quilt Top
Posted by Nina on Oct 16, 2009
Last night I finished another quilt top! I saw this quilt it in Amy Smart’s shop and I couldn’t resist. I had been eyeballing it for a long while.. I wanted to make one but had no one in mind to give it to.. the more I looked at it the more I wanted it.. so I finally just purchased one and decided to keep it. We may or may not have a little girl in our future but here’s to hoping we will! Even Sergey wanted to keep it! That’s unusual for him since he doesn’t usually pay attention to what I am sewing.
The quilt is a diagonal pattern consisting of Moda charm squares in the Dandelion Girl line. I am quite fond of the vintage feel this throw has.. and its neutral color tone will go with almost any nursery color scheme.. I like that! I hope to have it finished by the time the fabric for our friends baby quilt arrives… other wise this will have to take a back seat.
Blogger’s Quilt Festival
Posted by Nina on Oct 13, 2009
I’ve just realized I had never submitted my entry for the Blogger’s Quilt Festival! You simply need to write a blog post about your favorite quilt and link back and then you link back and are among the many other beautiful quilts out there on parade. The truth is, I don’t know if I have a favorite. When I finish a quilt it always becomes my favorite until the next one is finished.. so with that in mind, I will submit my most recent quilt and talk about one that is in progress that really is my favorite.
and it all started with this little bundle of fat quarters. I loved the fabrics and had a vision for what the quilt would look like. I chose the yellow butterfly fabric for the backing thinking it would be the perfect accent to a little girls nursery. I found the Jelly Filled pattern and began to work on my quilt (see bottom photos) and thought it would be perfect to size down and make a cute little baby quilt for our friends new little girl.. I have never seen the baby’s room but I have been told that it’s blue and that the mom was a little unhappy it wasn’t more girly so that’s where I started..
after I had most of the quilt top finished, I started to worry that it wasn’t looking like I had hoped it would.. I started second guessing myself. It just started looking really, really busy and I started rethinking my color scheme choice. I decided to get rid of the butterfly backing I had planned and use an ivory floral backing instead to try and drowned out the business the quilt top was beginning to show.
then I decided on a bit of a wider border than I had planned and I used a bright white floral for that to accent the bright colors. Above all else, I love the quilt. I think the brightness will be eye catching to both a baby and a toddler and I hope that the baby truly grows up to love it so much the seams fall apart! I hand stitched the binding and stippled the top on my new sewing machine… my first time stippling! I’m having a hard time letting it go but I don’t have any little girls of my own, so it must move on! So there you have it.. my favorite finished quilt, of the moment.. this could change next week
Now on to my favorite quilt ever… remember the Jelly Filled pattern? That is the very same quilt I have in progress now! The fabric is Sweet by Urban Chicks for Moda.. it should finish out to be around 70″x78″.. I do not think my machine can stipple a quilt of this size and I do not own a long arm, so I think it will have to go to a quilter for that.. but it’s my favorite none the less!
Color Blind?
Posted by Nina on Oct 7, 2009
The baby quilt has been finished. I didn’t love it so much until I added the large white border but now I am really sad to see it go. It’s my first time stippling with my new sewing machine so please be gentle. I chose an ivory backing and pink butterfly binding. The finished quilt measures 35″ x 38″. It’s the perfect size for a baby to snuggle up in and a toddler to tote around. I am having trouble getting some good shots of the quilt that really shows off how pretty it is… so I am going to have to enlist the help of my husband… He said that the baby quilt reminds him of color blind testing charts lol.. I kind of see what he means.. The pattern is Jelly Filled by Camille and has been scaled down to make a baby quilt. I also own her pint sized version but I love how the large blocks look. Fabric was various fat quarters.
