A Mother's Love: Blogger's Quilt Festival

Amy's Creative Side is hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival this month; be sure to check her icon to see the other quilts entered in this year's group!  Voting will open in a few days...(I am #309 if you like my quilt, either way, be sure to check out all the beautiful projects entered this year!)...

It has been a year since I first shared my quilt which I've called, A Mother's Love.  I Can't begin to imagine what this year would have held even if I had been told.

Last year we lost our triplet babies; the first at 12 weeks, and then the other 2 three weeks later.  I was pretty overwhelmed and yet I wanted to find a way to honor their memories even though I will not meet them in this world.  When I was at the quilt shop I was given a brochure advertising a contest to make a quilt top that used 1 jelly roll, 1 charm square pack, and up to 2 yards of other material.  This is the design that I came up with, although in the end I did not enter it in the contest, when it was completed I felt like I had won something in my own heart.

I worked at the quilt on and off for several months and yet every time I tried to complete it, my heart was heavy and I folded it away in disgust with myself.  In April of last year I contracted meningitis which made it impossible to work, but I was able to spend short amounts of time sitting on the couch at a table to piece some of the parts together; before I knew it, I had completed all of the top besides the sashing I added later.   I could see the goal in sight and suddenly I made the goal to myself  to have the quilt completed by mother's day 2011.

A couple days before the due date I finally had everything pieced, spray basted together and had only to add the quilt stitching.  I went with a swirling flower design that I randomly came up with in my head.  The quilt was finished and bound just before the goal I had set out for myself.

A month later we would find out that I was pregnant again.  This past February I gave birth to our precious daughter, Ziona.  I still am trying to figure out the best quilt design to honor this wonderful miracle that was given to us.  What I learned about myself was that sometimes I do my best work when I have not planned everything out.  I let my heart lead on this project and for now, it remains my favorite quilt that I have ever made.

My Quilt was chosen for a contest! My story about the Quilt.

On one of my favorite websites, Sew We Quilt @ Sash Manicure , I entered a picture of my quilt for my friend's third child in the July banner contest.  Madam Samm let me know last week that I was one of the quilts chosen for her banner for the month of July!  It's quite an inspirational site if you ever have time to look at it.  You can also click on the button on the right hand side of this page.  So my thoughts about the Quilt...

As a first born child I have more baby pictures than my 3 younger brothers combined.  The third child in our family (#2 of 3 brothers) has about a dozen baby pictures total.  Let's face it, third children often get the left-overs, the hand me downs, and sometimes are overlooked.  When I knew my friend was going to have her third child I felt I needed to make something special for them; something brand new and all their own.

I decided to make the quilt red, white and blue because he was going to be born in July.  I started the quilt before I knew what the gender of the child would be so I wanted the colors to be deep rather than pastel or light colors.  The blue and red fabrics have the same print and I had 11 yards of each fabric.  When one looks at the quilt it seems rather simple, but this was seriously the hardest quilt I have ever made.  Why?  Because every white line had to be straight or as close to it as possible or it would show up quickly!  I redid so many seams for this project.

This was the very first project that I did free-motion quilting all over the quilt top.  When I look at the pictures and see how tiny the quilting is and it was before I discovered quilting gloves!  When I see my friend's son on the quilt playing I feel good to have given him his own little space.

Revisited: Baby Shower gift basket

Sometimes a friend is having a baby and I don't know what to make or what to give.  My original plan had been to make a quilt for my good friend's first child, "Baby G."  A few mutual friends decided we would all get together and make items using similar fabrics to  make them match or seem more like a collection.  One of the ladies in the group really wanted to make a quilt so I thought I might stretch myself and see what else I might be able to come up with...

Burp rag made from a cloth diaper

Two versatile burp rags/lap layers

Burp rag, misc layers, & 3 cloth blocks

I already had new unused colored cloth diapers and white cloth diapers so I started with those items.  The two lap pads have a layer of cloth diaper in them to be more absorbent and can be placed on one's lap or under a child at changing times just in case. I made three cloth blocks from a square print one of the ladies was using in her project.  My favorite part of all these items is the 3-D Butterfly on the pink burp rag!

Revisited: Quilt for Co-worker's First baby

This is one of my favorite accidental Quilts!  I had cut pieces to make this quilt for my co-worker's first baby.  This pattern was born from a mistake.  You see I was trying to repeat one of the layouts of the two boy's Quilts.  I made the blocks, and had them piled up with some extra fabric I had on hand for reworking any issues I had with any of the blocks.  One day I was laying the blocks out on my bed and I noticed that a orphan piece of fabric had made its way into my design and it was turning out another pattern all together.

I gathered up some other scraps, played around with how I laid out the blocks and this is what I came up with.  When I quilted the Quilt I just used straight lines to outline the stars.  I love the beautiful green stripe fabric on the back which came from a roll of cotton home decorating fabric I had laying around.  This is the sort of Quilt pattern that I will repeat in the future!

Revisited: Quilt for my Mother-in-law

This lap/nap Quilt was made for my mother-in-law for Christmas last year.  I love the country colors.  The blocks were made using the idea of a modified log cabin; although now they called these log cabin blocks as well I think.  I made them using fabric from the Kansas Troubles' line called Summer's End.  I can't remember what my original plan had been, but as it ends up every time I find myself using many colors, I put them in color order or close to that.  The back and binding/sashing was a thick green Khaki material so I decided not to use batting for this project.  I wanted the lap quilt to be warm enough to knock off a chill but light enough that one did not feel like they needed to sleep 10 minutes after they put it on.  My husband always feels like Quilts are too heavy because he tends to get hot all the time.  I figured since this was to primarily be a gift for the MIL's living room it needed to fit in there in the colors.  She has a few other light blankets in the living room which is why I also went without the batting.  My sewing machine had a cute little flower stitch that I used to quilt the blanket and the edging.  Since Thanksgiving (when we had out family Christmas) my husband has wondered when I will make him a nap quilt of his own!

I won a contest!

It was my first year to find out about "Give-a-way Day" which is hosted by Sew Mama Sew each year.  Each year a list of blog sites and stores sites sign-up up to give something(s) away.  This year it was divided into three categories, there were sites from all over the world participating, and the lists were massive!  I was having a bad recovery week and thus was only able to check out about 20 blogs on one list and maybe 4 blogs on another list.  Today my package arrived in the mail from Karamat; I was informed a few days ago that I won!  

What did I win?  Well, Karamat has an etsy store which sells fabric.  On her blog she required each person to pick two yards of fabric they would like from the Etsy site and make a comment.  I pointed out the listings for one yard of each of the prints from the "Frolic" line that is in the first picture above.  In the second picture the new fabric is tucked in with the "frolic" stash.  You may be able to tell that I end up stashing more from Sandy Gervais' lines than any other fabric designers (she currently has 1.5 drawers with her name on it), although I have started to branch out a little.  I originally saw a line of fabric called "Fresh Squeezed" in a quilting magazine and really liked it.  It could not be found, but "Frolic" was by the same designer and had similar prints that I really enjoyed.  

Moda Bake shop has a great pattern using "Frolic" called "WhirlyWheels Baby Quilt" that I was drawn to, so I started collecting fabrics.  However, in the end, I could not bring myself to cut into the fabrics since it was my first foray into the lands of designer fabrics and so I made this pink quilt last year for a friend out of other fabrics. I found another Moda Bake Shop pattern inspired by "Frolic" that I will be attempting in the future.

Revisited: Quilts for Twin boys

As I am working on deleting my project pictures from facebook, I am revisiting each project for my blog. Most of these quilts have been done in the last 9 months, because before that almost all the baby quilts I made were simple square patch quilts sewn together and donated to various places or causes. After a great discussion with my friend "K", I decided to take the chance to make a blanket for "D", another friend of mine who was to have a baby.

For years I had been collecting quilting magazines and books, but in all honesty I was afraid to make the change over to actual patterns. "K" helped me find a pattern that would be easy to make with the flannel fabric we found on sale at JAF. When I found out "D" was going to have twin boys, I decided to make them each their own blanket using the same fabrics, but change the way the fabrics were used. I made nine patches and half-triangle squares and alternated them. I did the "stitch in the ditch" method in the middle making one look like squares, and the second quilt look like diamonds. In the sashing I made a random stitch that I was trying to make look like the path of the flying bugs in one of the prints; I now know this is sometimes referred to as a "free-style" stitching. On the front in the corners I made little tags that had each child's full name stitched (I have not included these pictures for privacy reasons).