Category Archives: baby quilt

Thrifting SCORE

I went to a few of my favorite thrift stores last weekend. While I was out I also shopped at Humble Fabrics, it’s not really a thrift store, because she sells both new and “pre-owned” fabrics. It is, however, one of my favorite places to hunt for unusual fabrics. Last weekend I found an abundance of both new and pre-owned fabrics.

My favorite score has to be this set of quilt blocks! Two rows of four were stitched together.

There were also these three additional blocks.

I was thrilled to find them in a tub of scraps! The tub mainly holds small pieces that are not big enough to fold and put on the shelves. I don’t usually rummage through this but one of the quilt blocks caught my eye. I dug through it and was able to find two pieced strips containing four blocks each. The piecing is lovely – great points and tight stitching. Before I took these pictures (which I apologize for because they were taken at night, indoors. Forgive me. 😉 ) the blocks were labeled – A-1, A-2 etc. So I could sort of tell where the quilter was headed. However I wasn’t able to place the blocks as they were intended. Having only a few of them, I just did what I could. It looks good though!

When I got home, I pressed them and played around a bit. Finally I decided to piece them for a baby quilt to be donated. I love the bright colors. In the center I used two blocks from a set of hand dyed fabric that I won last year in a giveaway for RSC14 over at So Scrappy. They were made by Vicki Welsh. Her work is fantastic.

The squares finish out at 8″ which means that the body of the quilt comes to 24 x 36″. I felt that was too small even for a baby quilt so I played around with various ideas for borders.

The left side with the square patched border looked way too busy. On the right was a piece of blue and black print. I rejected that one because it was too dark and I wanted to stick with solids and batiks (like the body of the quilt.)

After trying a number of borders, I decided on this combination of purple (Moda Marbles line) and solid green. Softer than the others I tried and remains neutral (so fine for either a boy or girl).

Here is the end result, made with thrifted blocks and fabric from my stash. It finishes at approximately 33 x 42″.

We are having a rainy day (Yahoo!) so I had to tape this to the wall for photos. Not the best but good enough to give you the idea.

While I am very excited to finish this up, I have to set it aside and finish up some Christmas secret sewing. I have the backing and binding all ready to go, so after the holidays I will finish it up and donate. I know about Project Linus but are there other nice organizations to donate baby quilts to? If you know of one, leave it in a comment for me. Thanks so much and have a wonderful weekend!

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the giveaways on Sew Mama Sew. You can enter my giveaway until Sunday night. Take a peek!

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Crazy Mom Quilts – links for both are at the top of the page, under Link Ups

Mixed Bag of Updates

12 Replies

I want to give a couple of updates on past posts. They are both heartwarming to say the least! Here goes:

Remember the post about the yellow and gray elephant quilt that I made for a friend several months ago? To recap, my daughter-in-law’s brother and his wife had been trying to have a baby for a very long while. After many miscarriages, they finally decided to take an alternate route and use a surrogacy firm. This firm is located in India and it was a huge undertaking but it speaks to their determination to have a child. You might want to read more about it on my blog, here, or on Margot’s blog, Find Your Spark. (I have given you the link to her home page, rather than a specific post. There are many posts on the process as she went through it and it is a wonderful read.)

Here is the latest! Margot and TJ’s daughter, Emmerson Kate, was born in September! It is hard to believe that she is already one month old. This baby is such a miracle. Margot and TJ traveled to India about a week before Emmerson was born so they were there for the birth of their baby. That was such an exciting day. Pictures were being texted from India to the East Coast and then to the West Coast. The first pictures of Margot holding Emmerson brought tears to my eyes. It took a few weeks to process the paperwork and get Emmerson’s passport but as soon as that was completed, they were able to fly back to the States and settle into their new life as a family of three. Margot sent me a few pictures of Emmerson with the quilt I sent her.

She is just adorable. Here she is on the back side of the quilt.

She is such a sweet girl. I wish this family joy and happiness. Margot continually says that she is blessed to have Emmerson. That is certainly true. It is also true that Emmerson is so blessed to have such wonderful parents in Margot and TJ.

Update number two is about the Ashes to Beauty project. At the end of September I wrote a post about a project to help the quilters in Northern California who had lost their homes and belongings in the Butte Fire. I put out a call for quilters to make pastel colored, 10″ blocks with a heart appliqued on each one. It was wonderful to see the number of readers who made blocks and/or put the word out to others. One reader posted it on a Facebook page for a quilt guild in Ohio and they responded with blocks. A few days ago I received an email update on the project. Here is what Kerri (the project coordinator)had to say:

THANK YOU to everyone who made Ashes To Beauty heart blocks. We stopped counting at 500 and there are still many more. We have more than enough to make 9 quilts for ladies who lost everything in the fire.

We received blocks from all over the country and as far away as New York, Ontario, Canada, and Hawaii. Needless to say I am overwhelmed at your generosity, kind words for me and the ladies who will receive the quilts and the obvious love and care that went into your blocks. Also for generous cash donations for battings and backings and supplies, etc. One gal who was evacuated but her home did not burn made lovely labels for each quilt.

Again- THANK YOU so much. God does truly console the hurting and turns ashes into beauty and many times uses us to accomplish it. We have begun sewing the blocks together and they are wonderful.

I’ll take some photos and send them along later.

I think it is just awesome that they received so many blocks! Thank you to all that participated and sent in blocks or told others about the project! If I receive pictures of the quilts, I will post them later on.

Finally, last but certainly not least, thank you all for the prayers and good wishes you offered up for my mom. She is really doing well. It seems like she gets a bit stronger each day. We are all so happy to see her up and walking (still with the support of a walker). She is now doing the work of healing and resting and going to myriad post-op doctor visits. My sisters and I are taking turns staying up at Mom and Dad’s to help with errands, cooking, etc. In a strange way, this is sort of the silver lining for me. We don’t all get together very often, but with everyone coming and going to help out at mom’s, I get to see one, if not two, of my sisters each week. (Mom and I live about 15 miles apart.) I think I need to convince my mom to keep this visiting daughter/nurse thing going on as long as possible! 😉

Well, it is the end of October and I have done little to no quilting. Clearly I didn’t complete my ALYOF goal for this month! I had hoped to sandwich and quilt the Kaffe Fassett jelly roll quilt I made. But it is still hanging in the closet, untouched. I had also planned to complete the brown row of blocks for my Classic Stitches BOM quilt. I have completed only two of those little blocks so far. But it feels like life is calming down now and I think I will be getting back into the routine soon. So what have you accomplished this month?? I would love to hear.

Love and Good Luck Rolled Up in a Quilt

35 Replies

This is the greatest story and it led to the sweetest quilt I have made yet. Get your tissues ready!

My daughter-in-law, Naomi, has a wonderful family. (Side note, isn’t it cool that when my son married, I gained not just my DIL but also some really nice friends from her family??) Included in her family are her mom, two brothers and her sister-in-law. Just today I finished an adorable quilt for her sister-in-law, brother and the baby they are expecting in September. The story of this baby is pretty darned amazing.

Margot and TJ (these are their real names – Margot blogs at Find Your Spark and uses their names publically so I have done the same) have been trying to have a baby for years. This has been a really rough time for them. Margot has been pregnant numerous times and has miscarried at various stages of pregnancy. (This post tells part of her story.) It has been really painful for both of them. I can relate somewhat to this sort of pain. I miscarried a child a long while back. It was my third child and I lost the baby at 14 weeks. It was a painful experience that took some time to grieve. But this happened to me only once. And it was after having two healthy babies and before having two more healthy babies. Margot has gone through this repeatedly and has not (yet) had the joy of holding her baby or bringing the baby home. That sort of pain and frustration is truly torturous.

After years of this, they decided last December to take an alternative route to their goal of having a family. Margot and TJ are working with a surrogate. You can read all about their decision and experience on her blog – the story of the surrogacy begins with this post. The surrogacy agency they are using is located in Mumbai, India. To say that 2015 has been an exciting year for them is a huge understatement. They went to India at Christmas last year and were able to achieve a successful surrogate pregnancy. They have been in constant communication with the agency and the surrogate mother and everything is going along perfectly. Their sweet baby is due to arrive in September. Margot and TJ will be going back to India in several weeks to wait for the birth of their baby. I am so dang happy for them.

When a quilter knows a new baby is coming there is only one way to respond, right? Today I mailed off this quilt to New York and I am hoping that it brings great joy to Margot and TJ.

I know that they are incorporating elephants into the baby’s nursery. Elephants are a symbol of good fortune in India and I am pretty sure that Margot and TJ will be forever grateful for this woman who has given of herself to birth their child for them. Good fortune? Oh yeah. In India, elephants represent Ganesha, one of the most important gods in Hinduism. Ganesha is the god of success and the destroyer of evil and obstacles – perfect! For more details on this, here is a site to read. With elephants being symbolic for their family, I used that as the theme for the quilt.

The pattern is a simple stripe with the two focus fabrics cut in widths ranging from two to six inches. Just like the green and white quilt that I made a few weeks ago, I have the stripes arranged from narrow to wide widths, in alternating order. The pattern is Firefly, by Canoe Ridge Creations. I went with a color scheme of gray and yellow. They don’t know the sex of the baby so these colors are gender-neutral. Finding this elephant print, “Oh Boy” by Riley Blake was a perfect choice for the backing and binding.

Those tiny elephants are sweet in every way. The yellow dot on the front is from the “Mixology” line by Studio for Moda. I can’t honestly remember which gray I used. My favorite part of the quilt is the elephant that I thread sketched at the bottom, on the widest gray stripe.

To create this little guy I took the backing fabric and made of copy of it on my printer/copier. I kept enlarging it until the size felt right. Then I cut him out and traced a rough shape right on to the quilt. (Actually I made several of them on practice fabric first.) It is hard to tell from the picture but I used three different shades of gray thread so that the elephant would have some definition. I love him. (Why do I keep calling the elephant ‘him’? Is that an omen for Baby Guy? We will know in just two short months!)

To quilt this piece, I used organic wavy lines that were sewn with my walking foot. I didn’t space them too close as I wanted it to be really soft when washed. The binding is double fold as usual, and I machine stitched it to the front and back. Going for baby-proof durability here. After I washed it, the quilt measured 36″ x 36″. Hopefully this quilt will be used and washed and then used some more. It will hold up well for outings to the park, rolling around on the floor, tummy time, and then eventually fort making, pretend play, and so many naps.

A quilt filled with good fortune and love all rolled up in one for a very special baby.

Linking to Lorna at Let’s Bee Social and Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Mint Green

15 Replies

This has been a nice week. Hope the same goes for you. I joined the 2015 New Quilt Bloggers group that is being hosted by Quilting Jetgirl, Childlike Fascination, Late Night Quilter, and Meadow Mist Designs. So far, we are all getting to know each other. There are about 70 bloggers in the group which is a load of blogs to familiarize myself with. I really like the writing style of many of these bloggers and can tell already that this is going to be a fun project. The goal is to work together to improve our blogs. There is always something to be learned from a group such as this. I so appreciate the work of the four bloggers that put this together.

Even with the huge amount of time I spent reading these new blogs, I have a minty green finish this week. I came across a pattern on Pinterest from Canoeridge Creations. I love Megan’s patterns. This is the second one I have used. Her “Fireworks” mini quilt pattern was used for my Allison Glass mini swap. This free pdf pattern is called “Firefly” and it is a fun, quick project. It took no time at all to cut the fabric and piece the top (maybe a little over an hour?)

I had some solid minty green fabric and a large piece of white Kona that looked great together. The pattern is basically a series of stripes. Each color has a set of stripes that decrease one-half inch with each strip. They begin at 5.5 inches and decrease to 2.5 inches. The size of the stripes alternate such that one color begins with the widest and the other color begins with the most narrow. I like the effect.

I felt this quilt did not warrant an all over FMQ pattern. Initially I quilted straight lines on the white stripes. I wanted to keep it soft, thus didn’t want to densely quilt it. Without measuring or marking, I used the walking foot and/or the edges of the strips as my guide. My pin basting wasn’t tight enough and I ended up with huge fold in the backing fabric. Ugh. Ripping out that part of the quilting was really the longest part of making the quilt.

My thought was to quilt the white and leave the green blank. Feeling unsure about that decision, I put it out there to my Facebook quilting community and asked what to do with the green. I really didn’t want the quilt to be dense, I wanted a puffy soft feel to it. Someone suggested doing a very wide, edge to edge zig zag on the green. That was genious. Perfect.

I tried to FMQ the first stripe. I marked it and used the free motion foot. Yuk. I hate quilting straight lines without the (stabilizing) help of the feed dogs. For the rest of the rows I marked them with a Frixion pen and a 90 degree trianglular template that I already had. Using the walking foot, I quickly quilted the zig zags.

The back is a very simple Timeless Treasures print that has the perfect shade of green in it. I bound the quilt with the solid green to retain the simplicity of the quilt top. I listed this quilt in my Etsy shop.

In keeping with my goals for June, I did get the batik quilt (my ALYOF goal) pin basted and plan to start quilting it this weekend. I am using an all-over pattern of a leafy vine from Christina Cameli’s book. Crossing fingers for this one!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Linking to Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts as well as Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Cowboy Small

22 Replies

Big news! I sold my first baby quilt on Etsy! I was so excited to see that order come across. My quilt, Snips and Snails, featuring the ‘Here Boy’ fabric ,was purchased. I wrote a post about it earlier. After recovering from the excitement of selling a quilt, I decided I needed to make another baby boy quilt to list in my Etsy shop.

So… What to make?? I love reading and/or hearing about the process that an individual quilter uses to develop the design, choose the right fabrics, auditioning different prints and then coming up with the quilt they want to create. It is interesting to hear about those that choose and buy fabric first and then go forward from there vs those that develop the design and then purchase fabric. I fall into the camp of buying the fabric first. I love to pick up pieces that strike me for whatever reason. Once I have a few that go together or even one that will be a good focus fabric, I start to think about what I want to make with it.

This week I made a darling baby quilt for a boy. I developed the project around a piece of fabric with a vintage design featuring horses. About two weeks ago I found a great deal on some fabric at a garage sale. I don’t tend to pay much attention to garage sales but my husband happened to notice an ad for a garage sale that listed fabric for sale. My interest was piqued and I went to it. I scored an assortment of awesome fabric!

Back to the retro fabric that I found. It is adorable. I became sort of nostalgic as it reminded me of a book I read to my boys when they were little. This book, Cowboy Small, was written in 1949 by Lois Lenski. We read this book constantly and it was especially favored by my eIdest, Andrew (now 29 years). At some point in the story the cowboys are shown sitting around their campfire (eating beans out of a can) singing “Home on the Range.” At this point, Andrew would belt out his rendition of Home, Home on the Range. Look at the picture below from the book.

On the fabric there is a bucking horse that is so similar to this. Look to the left side.

Such a good memory for me. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to use the horse print for a baby quilt for a little guy. I selected a simple pattern alternating whole 8″ blocks with 8″ four-patch blocks. The pattern was inspired by a quilt made by Amy Smart on Diary of a Quilter. Making the quilt five blocks wide and five blocks tall would give me a baby quilt that measured 40″ x 40″. Ok, focal fabric selected and pattern decided upon, I just needed the scrappy fabrics for the four patch blocks. I pulled a stack of fat quarters and played around with those. Fortunately my sister was visiting for the weekend so I had her take a look. As only a sister is allowed, she looked at a number of them and scratched them from the list right away. She vetoed them saying they were too modern, wrong color, or too contemporary. Looking through my shelves, she pulled a black and white houndstooth pattern and the black, white and red paisley. Perfect additions! She has such good taste. Cutting and piecing such a simple design took no time at all.

I backed it with this sweet Moda fabric called Honky Tonk. This was the perfect piece to use as backing. It features cactus, guitars and musical notes – just like Cowboy Small!

I quilted it with a large meandering pattern. I really enjoyed quilting this project. The stippling is a little herky-jerky in spots but overall it looks good (especially after washing and drying the quilt.) The binding is a bias stripe of light tan and red. Adorable! I machine stitched the binding on both the front and back of the quilt. (If you need a good tutorial on quilt binding, check out this one at Crazy Mom Quilts.)

Overall, this project was a blast. It was a trip down memory lane which is always a fun thing! I will list this quilt in my Etsy shop for some lucky little cowboy.

Linking to: Freemotion by the River, Needle and Thread Thursday, Finish it Up Friday, and TGIFF. Links to each of these sites are available at the top of my page under Link Ups. There are some great projects featured at these linky sites. Take a minute and check them out!

Summer is Winding Down

23 Replies

This summer flew by. I knew it would because we had a lot of different things scheduled when it started. That usually makes time go by (too) quickly. This week and last were filled with appointments for my 8th grader that are easier done during summer. The dentist, the orthodontist and the optometrist. When I took her for an eye exam (she usually only has the quickies that they do at school) and found out that she is near-sighted. She and I were both so surprised. He asked her if she has to squint a lot or if she had trouble reading the board at school. She innocently says, “No squinting but I can’t read the exponents during math.” I looked at her and wondered why she didn’t ever mention this?? The doctor said that when this happens gradually the person just doesn’t really notice. Now she is happily wearing glasses and keeps lowering them on her nose, looking ahead without them, then through the glasses. Comparing the difference with awe. So funny. In between all of that I got loads of time at the sewing machine. Hurray!! Here are some of the things I worked on. First off was this little baby boy quilt. Puppies and boys, perfect fit, right? I used a simple patchwork of charm squares for the center. Borders of navy blue were added, as well as a stripped border made from the leftover charm squares. This was inspired by a photo I saw on Pinterest. Very easy to do. I didn’t really do any math beforehand; rather I just built it as I went along. The fabric is called “Here Boy” by Abi Hall, designed for Moda. This line is adorable. It features puppies, dog bones and bouncing balls. The colors are bright and happy, blues, orange, reds, green and yellow. I backed it with a dark navy and white oversized polka dot. For the first time, I didn’t use a pieced backing. The dots are very sweet on their own. Finished it off with a crazy bright orange binding. I love the contrast. I bound it as I usually do by machine stitching to the front and hand stitching to the back. I am wondering though, if I should machine stitch both sides. Seems like a baby quilt is going to be laundered often. Would it hold up better if I machine stitched the binding on both sides? Give me your thoughts on this please!

Also got some time to work on my RSC14 blocks. I finished the red blocks that were scheduled for July. I love the cherry fabric scraps. They were from a bag of scraps that my neighbor gave to me. (What a fun bag to look through!)

I also finished the bright greens that are the color for August. Looking through my strips, I didn’t have tons of bright green but was able to find enough to do these two blocks. So, I still have to catch up and finish March, April, May and June. Here is what I’ve got so far. This weekend I am off with my sisters for our annual “sisters’ weekend”. Cannot wait!! Hope you all are enjoying the tail end of summer.

Linking with Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River, WIP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced, Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story, and Let’s Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts. Also to Needle and Thread Thursday, Crazy Mom Quilts’ Finish It Up Friday, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop, and TGIFF which is at QuiltMatters today. Links to all of these are listed at the top of my page under the Link-Ups tab

Friday Finish!

6 Replies

The past week was a busy one and I didn’t spend lots of time at the sewing machine. I spent several days visiting with my son who lives in the Central Valley. Soooo hot there. I lived there years ago and acclimated to the heat back then. Now? Not so much. While I was there I made a trip to the local quilt shop in Turlock, CA — called “Cloth and Quilts”. It was really well stocked and the people were so friendly. (But then, isn’t that always the case? They are quilters, after all.) I was fairly disciplined and only picked up two pieces of yardage and three fat quarters. Not too bad at all.

Even with being gone for a few days, I did manage to finish a baby quilt that I have been working on. I posted about it earlier here. I am so pleased with the final result! The colors are adorable and overall it is a sweet little quilt that will, hopefully, make some new mama out there very happy. I did five inch squares on point with white sashing. I also appliqued a heart to one of the squares on the front and then did a pieced backing with three more appliqued hearts. Love these accents!

The print that I used for the backing was leftover from another project. I can’t remember the name of it but I love the floral print. They look like hydrangea blossoms to me but who knows??

I quilted it on my machine with a large, loose stipple. It was a breeze to quilt up. Then bound it with a dark purple piece.

Just had some labels made and tucked one at the bottom edge.

A finish for this Friday – Yay! The quilt is listed in my shop on Etsy waiting for the right person to come along and snap it up.

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts and TGIFF.

The Sisterhood

18 Replies

Eventually, after just few more words, this post becomes quilt related. Honest.

I consider myself to be incredibly fortunate. Life is good and I have all that I need or want. Not everyone can say this and I know I am so lucky. Part of my good fortune involves my five sisters. I am one of six girls and it is the best. My parents, like so many couples in the 1950’s, married really young (at the ripe old age of 20). They produced their first daughter three days after their first wedding anniversary. Within another nine years they created five more daughters! So, we six girls were all within ten years of one another.

You can only imagine the craziness that it is to grow up with six girls in the house and no boys (other than Dad). It was a sort of love/hate relationship. We fought incessantly – about who the sweater belonged to, whose night it was to do the dishes, who was supposed to vacuum this week, who left the dried up ice cream bowl out and should really be blamed for it – it went on and on. However we were also each other’s best friend. There was always someone to hang out with, lay in the sun with, our bottles of baby oil and tubs of cocoa butter at our side. (sunblock? I don’t think so….) My mom actually told us, on more than one occasion, that we should make some friends (what? like with someone from another family? but why?)

Now that we are adults we are still so close, probably more so since we don’t have to share a room or fight over the dishes. There are daily text strings, sometimes numbering upward of 50 exchanges, between us. These involve the really important (earth shattering actually) details of daily life. How do you make cucumber/tomato salad? How much should I be paying for apricots? Look at the latest picture of this grandbaby, or that one.

As I started this blog, they were my first supporters and definitely my first followers (since no one else knew I was out here writing away). And here comes the quilty part of the post….

Wednesday, during a morning text marathon, we were celebrating my very first sale on Etsy!! A momentous occasion. See?

One of my sisters asked what else I was going to put up on Etsy. (They are like my advisory board.) We tossed some ideas around and a baby quilt was suggested. I decided this would be a fun thing to do. I hunted through my fabrics and found a great assortment to use for a baby quilt for a sweet little girl.

Love having this all on hand and ready to go! I wanted to make something sweet and simple. I chose to do a quick lattice work pattern using five inch squares on point, sashed with white. The tutorial is from none other than Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter. She posted it at the Moda Bakeshop site a long while back. Couldn’t get much easier than this. Well, actually, it could. If I would have had the right charm squares on hand it would have gone together much quicker. As it was, I had to cut fifty (5) inch squares myself. That took a bit of time but I need to be using the fabric I have, right?? The result is adorable. Got the quilt top finished yesterday. Yay!

I added an appliqued heart to one of the squares for an extra touch.

My sisters were right. (They always are.) This was a really fun project. I have the pieces for the back all cut and ready to assemble. I haven’t found anything that I like in my stash to be used as binding. (Oh well, a quick stop at my LQS will fix that–everything else was on hand, right??) Unfortunately I don’t have any batting just now. Living 45 minutes from the nearest shop that carries batting for a decent price means I use Amazon a lot! (Go Amazon Prime.) The batting will be here on Saturday and then I can get this finished up.

A quick question. How should I quilt this. Such a contrast between the white sashing and the dark purple squares. I don’t know what color thread to use if I want to do a meandering, all over FMQ or a straight line pattern? Or, do I just quilt each square, avoiding the white sashing? I would love some input on this.

Great finish for Friday though. A lovely quilt top in two quick afternoons!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts, TGIFF, Link a Finish Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and finally, Fabric Frenzy Friday!! Check out these links to see some really great work.

Have a great weekend everyone.