Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2014

It's That Time Again!  Blogger's Quilt Festival is here!!!

The linky party opened a few days ago and it has prompted me to finally get online and blog about the quilt I made my niece Arielle for her birth.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Giggle + Squeak pattern from SUCH Designs
Fabrics: Various fabrics in mainly purples, greens, and greys with a few pops of blues and pinks
Methods Used: Applique, quilt-as-you-go, straight line quilting & free-motion quilting
Quilted: By me on my home machine
Dimensions: 46" x 46"
Completed: March 2014

Arielle's nursery theme was Monsters so I knew right away which pattern I would use.  I bought the Giggle + Squeak pattern from Carrie of SUCH Designs a few years ago at a quilt show and she was such a lovely person to meet.  It's always nice to know that people are just as wonderful in person as they seem on their blogs.

 I loved adding all the little details to the faces in each block.  Some definitely came out looking more monster-like than others, but I love them all.

And while this photo isn't the greatest for showing the true colors of the quilt, I love that the quilting is easy to see.  I quilted each block differently as inspiration hit me.  My favorite is the top center since I free-motion quilted loops and hearts in it.  I also loved the top left, which is just a back and forth squiggle, but it took only a few minutes to finish so it was awesome.

 I didn't want to buy any additional fabric for the back so I used up all the leftovers from making the front.  I've never made such a scrappy backing before and I love it.  Since I did quilt-as-you-go on the front there's very minimal quilting on the back. 

I also did a little embroidery tag for the back and appliqued it on in the center of the large square of text you see on the bottom right of the above photo.  And do you see the date?  Today is actually Ari's 6 month birthday! Happy 6 months little one!!!

These photos of Ari enjoying her quilt were actually taken over the weekend, so this is her just a few days shy of 6 months.  She's shaping up to be quite the bruiser, just like her cousin Penny.

Oh, and here's one of Penny with her cousin's quilt before I sent it off.  What do you guys think? Do the girls look alike???

"Be Creative" Mini Quilt + Blogger's Quilt Festival

I only have this one photo of this little beauty for now, but I thought I'd share anyway.



This little mini quilt has been over a year in the making.  I was inspired by this quilt by Bijou Lovely (hey, she told me to be inspired).

I tried to "Be Creative" with the quilting on this one.  I used superfine 100wt silver thread from invisafil for the quilting, which is a combination of free-motion and straight line.  Each design is different, and while I used some designs I've repeated often I tried a few new ones as well.  That woodgrain quilting is my first ever attempt.

While the mini quilt might not be perfect, it makes me happy having it hanging on the wall above my computer.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Dresden plate, inspired by this quilt by Bijou Lovely
Fabrics: Various prints from my stash, Essex linen in Natural, Kona Indigo
Quilted: By me on my home machine with 100wt invisafil thread in silver
Dimensions: 24" x 24"
Completed: October 2013

And hey, why not?  I'm entering this little quilt in the mini quilt category of the Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Penny's Quilt + Blogger's Quilt Festival

I have a quilt to share with everyone today that I'm really excited about.

You could even say that this quilt was 9 months in the making..... but not really.

Here it is..... Penny's quilt



This is the quilt I made my daughter Penelope.  It's definitely the showcase of her woodlands-themed nursery and everything else in the nursery evolves around it.  This is my baby quilt entry for the Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival.



I love the colors.  SO bright and fun without reading either "boy" or "girl".  The fabric inspiration was the "Fox Hollow" line by Monaluna (which I used in the border and the centers of the dresdens),  paired with five different more basic prints.


For the pattern I was inspired by this quilt by Melissa of Polka Dot Chair, but I wanted the border to be a little more fun and show off the different prints in the Fox Hollow line, and I wanted to frame the quilt a little more so I added in the gingham piping between the center panel of the quilt and the border.  It gives the quilt such fun dimension.



I chose the fabric placement for the centers of the dresdens very purposefully.  The center of the large dresden has a frog under a flower because Penny's daddy's nickname as a child was "Toad".  The smallest dresden has a little gnome poking out of his stump house because gnomes are mommy's favorite.  The mid-sized dresden has a momma fox being followed by her two babies, with a papa fox watching, because the fox family reminds me of our family (though of course we only have one child so far).




For the quilting, I didn't want to distract too much from the quilt top, but I did want to add a lot of free motion quilting, so I did things a little differently.... I had two layers of batting and quilted the top and back separately.  It gives the quilt a heavier weight, but since I was using fairly thin cotton batting it worked out well.  On the quilt top there's quilting around each square in the border and each spike in the dresdens.  I used the blanket stitch on my sewing machine.  The look it gives each dresden plate is fantastic.



The back is quilted in an allover design with flowers.  It was quite fun to do once I got the hang of it. Once I had the back and front quilted individually I did some quilting that tied the whole quilt together.



I love it and I hope it's something Penny can treasure when she's older. She was kind of cranky when I was taking these photos so she's not in any of them, but I hope to get a shot or two of her on the quilt tomorrow to share with everyone.

edited 10/25/13: The photoshoot was well worth the wait.  While I had 200+ mediocre photos of a blurry baby, all the shots were worth it to get this one perfect shot of my little girl.



 She's still a little blurry and the quilt is slightly out of focus, but that smile is to die for.  (And yes, she's wearing the little mini dirndl I made her for Halloween, but I'll post about that in a few days).

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Loosely adapted from this pattern by Melissa of Polka Dot Chair
Fabrics: Various Fox Hollow by Monaluna prints + basics in red, green, and blue
Quilted: By me on my home machine
Dimensions: 36" x 46"
Completed: March 2013

Thanks for looking, and please think of Penny's quilt (and my baby's perfect little smile) when it comes time to nominate your favorite baby quilt!

To check out my 2012 entry in the Blogger's Quilt Festival that took "favorite hand quilted quilt" check out this post.

One more thing

Aaah!  I just realized that I forgot to mention that I won "Favorite Hand Quilted Quilt" in the Bloggers Quilt festival with my Little Leaves Quilt.

YAY!!!

To check out all the winners read this post at Amy's Creative Side

BQF- Voting is on!

Good morning and Happy Memorial Day!!!

I have plans to spend my day barbequing and laying in the sun reading my book, but I wanted to pop in to let you all know that voting is currently going on for the Bloggers Quilt Festival and my quilt made it to the final round!

So please hop on over and vote for my little leaves quilt in the hand quilted category!  Vote Here.

Thanks and hope everyone has a terrific day!

And don't forget about the Follower Giveaway I'll be doing soon.  If you don't follow me publicly through Google Friend Connect but follow me some other way please go to this post and comment so I can enter you in the drawing.

Thanks again!
-Stephanie

Bloggers Quilt Festival: Nominate me please!

Hello followers (new and old)!

I've been stunned by the response to my giveaways for Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day this year, and how many of your have chosen to follow my blog.  I hope you decide to stick around even after all the giveaways are over.

As many of you know in addition to it being giveaway week at Sew Mama Sew the Bloggers Quilt Festival is also in full swing and I have a quilt entered in it this year.  Nominations started today and I would be honored if you remembered my quilt #174 when thinking about nominations for best hand quilted quilt.

I spent close to 7 months finishing the hand quilting on my little leaves quilt I made my sister and would be honored to be included in the nominations for the hand quilting category.

To nominate my quilt please use Amy's Blogger Quilt Festival nomination form and be sure to nominate my quilt #174 in the "Favorite hand quilted quilt" category.

For the story behind my quilt please read my entry post to the festival here and my original post here.

Thanks so much!

And good luck with the giveaways!  I'm looking forward to choosing winners this weekend!

-Stephanie

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

This is my favorite quilt I've made this year, so even though I already posted about it just a few weeks ago I want to feature it as my entry for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival

She's called Little Leaves.

Pattern: Little Leaves by Elizabeth Hartman
Time to complete: 7 Months
Fabrics: Kona white and various blues and green prints, many from Amy Butler Soul Blossoms
Quilting Style:  Hand quilted using 4 colors of perle cotton
Recipient: My sister Jen

For the story behind the making of this quilt please check after the pictures!

The Story:
I love my sister Jen.  She's five years older than me but we've always been really close.  This is the first quilt I've ever made for her since I'm relatively new to quilting, and I knew I wanted it to be spectacular.  The first time I cracked the spine of my copy of The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman I knew I had found the perfect quilt pattern to make for my sister.  Something fun and truly worthy of her.

I said above that the quilt took 7 months to complete but that's not entirely true.  That's how long it took once I had the fabrics and actually got started.  It takes me a while to be satisfied that I've gathered the right fabrics-- my husband calls me a "fabric snob".  They have to be right.  There needs to be a balance of tones and print sizes, it just has to be perfect.  I probably gathered fabrics for this one for 6 months before I was content that I liked what I had, and the 16 different prints I used were edited down from probably more than 30 that I had gathered.

The process I came up with for making each block was relatively simple.  After enlarging the template to the correct size I made a layout block that had marking where each of the 12 large and 12 small leaves would go in each block.  I then laid my square of Kona white on top of that and since I could see through to the layout block I was able to lay out the leaves following the design.

After carefully tweaking the placement of fabric of each of the leaves I fused the design down and then started on the next block.  16 blocks later I machine appliqued each leaf down on the blocks, a process that took approximately a half hour for each block.

Once I had all the leaves on the blocks appliqued I pieced them all together and then made my quilt sandwich, using Kona white again for backing.  I'm not 100% sure but I think I used Warm & Natural cotton batting for the batting.  I basted the quilt for hand quilting using orange thread.  I don't know why but I always seem to have an abundance of orange thread, so I always use it when basting quilts together.

And then came the hand quilting.  Quite possibly the best part of the quilt.  This is the part that took me so long.  I hand quilted around each leaf with one of four shades of blue perle cotton.  Quilting each block took upwards of 7 hours.  I worked madly to get the quilt done before Christmas (I had started in October) but it wasn't meant to be.  I had to take a break and get all the other gifts I had planned made.  My sister flew in from Hawaii for Christmas so I gave her the quilt as it was and she loved it (at the time I was about half way done with the quilting).

After she left I worked on it occasionally, until I ran out of two colors of the blue.  It probably took me 2 months to remember to take scraps of the threads with me when I went to the store so I could get replacements, but I finally did.  After that I think it only took me another two weeks to finally complete this quilt, and once it was fully quilted putting the binding on was easy-peasy.  There's something about putting on binding that I love.  Maybe it's the feeling of accomplishment, but every time I sit down to hand sew binding I just feel so good about what I've made.

When it was done I washed and dried it and then went outside for its photo shoot.  Let me tell you it's kind of hard to take a photo of bright colors on white that accurately show each color.  So yeah, the photos don't do justice to the quilt, but I remember how beautiful it truly was so I'm okay with that.  And It's already arrived at my sisters house in Hawaii and she's in love with it, and that's really all I could ask for.

I hope you like it!

-Stephanie