solid squares quilt for my dad

borrowed the neighbor's fence for this photo

Since both of my sisters got quilts for Christmas 2011, I wanted to make one for my Dad for 2012. I had bookmarked the pattern for this quilt when I saw it about a year ago - the simplicity of the solids always struck me - and I figured it would suit my Dad quite nicely. He has shades of browns and maroons in his living room, and a really pretty comforter from anthropologie (!) in his bedroom (he has fine taste for a 60-something-year-old man), so I thought this quilt would match well wherever he decides to use it.
I got a kona cotton fat quarter bundle ("merlot") and used most of those (along with some other kona solids I had)...and the main background/sashing fabric is kona stone.  Merry Christmas, Dad!!

squares. you wouldn't believe how much i played around with the color arrangement.

quilt top, pre-basting

doggy patchwork squares baby boy quilt + flowers and dots baby girl quilt

#12: doggy quilt for beau

first up, a doggy quilt for a baby boy named beau (say that 10 times fast). i still haven't given this kid his quilt yet (he was born back in november)...but i have plans to see his mom & dad in a few days, so i thought it was safe to go ahead and post it. another patchwork quilt with the same formula as the others - 99 4 1/2" squares. my main source of inspiration was the ed emberley dog fabric (do you remember the "how to draw animals" books?) from there i chose some coordinating solids in bold colors. the straight-line outline quilting really shows up well on the back:

#13 flowers & dots quilt

nevermind that it was the first week of december, our house was on the market, and i had yet to start on my dad's christmas gift quilt: i decided to make a quilt for a co-worker who just adopted a baby girl. this one came together very quickly and i used some fabric from my stash (the dots & flowers & binding all came from the same collection, which i had purchased on etsy back when i first got into sewing).

quilt back

king-sized granny squares wedding quilt

One of the quilting blogs I follow, Blue Elephant Stitches, posted a "Granny Squares" tutorial back in January. Around this time, I got my new fancy sewing machine and decided to make a block and posted a picture on instagram. The photo was "liked" by a dear old friend of mine who happened to be engaged to a dear old friend of my mister. They're special to us. So special, that at that very moment, I decided I'd make a quilt as their wedding gift. I figured it was a completely do-able over the next 9 months or so before their wedding day. 

the beginning. this one didn't even make the final cut...it was a little too small

Whenever I'd get a free moment here or there, I would go into my scrap bin, pick out 2 colors, and cut and sew 25 2 1/2" blocks together.  (I used Kona Snow for the "background" color). My scrap bin handled the job with flying colors, but I bought a few 5" charm packs as supplementation.

I didn't document my process very well. But every so often, I would lay out my completed-to-date blocks and snap a picture with my iPhone to check out the color composition and whatnot.

22 down, ??? to go

 And I'd try to guestimate how many blocks I'd have to come up with to make a king-sized quilt.

In the end, I wound up with 6 rows of 7 (or 7 rows of 6...however you want to look at it!). This picture was taken before I sewed all the sashing strips. I used 3" strips between the blocks, then ended up adding about 16" all around. (I can't find the sheet I used for my sketches and calculations). If you're doing the math at home, that equals "a heck of a lot of" Kona Snow. I should've just bought a whole bolt of the stuff.

While I was piecing all the strips to the blocks for the quilt top, I decided that I was physically incapable/terrified to "quilt" the quilt at home on my machine. It was 108x100, twice the size of the largest thing I had ever done (a twin).  I'll skip the whole long story about how I ended up in Springfield, TN, but that's where I brought my quilt...

In the meantime, the bride and groom were married and it was a beautiful and fun ceremony and reception.  Fast forward weeks and weeks (and weeks) later, and I finally got the word that it was done. (Not quite though...they didn't bind it! So I decided to do that myself, and I am glad I did. It made me realize that (if I should ever undertake a king-sized quilt again), I may be able to quilt it myself. (I was really just afraid of the maneuverability of something that size, and I handled the machine binding with patience and ease).

close-up of the quilt back - you can see the "meandering tear drop" design

I wanted to photograph the quilt before passing the it off to the newly-marrieds, which posed another problem. My mister's arms weren't long or wide enough to hold the whole thing by himself. He used a microphone stand to prop up one corner and we finally put our back deck to use:

Cheers, Fergusons...We love you!

triangle elephants baby quilt

The mister's sister is expecting her first child in December...which means I'll have a new niece or nephew soon! This was another gender neutral quilt. I picked out the raindrop print first, then the elephants...and everything else was matched from my stash (some leftover Kona solids and one of the Denyse Schmidt Joann prints). 

After drooling over so many triangle quilts on flickr and pinterest, I decided it was time I finally made one. I got a Creative Grids 8" 60 degree triangle ruler and went to work...It was a super fun quilt to make and I'm eager to work on another triangle quilt soon.

cut fabric

making sure the layout's right

quilting on a saturday afternoon...

finished quilt front

finished quilt back

 amanda lives in indiana, so a few weeks ago i made the 3-hr drive to attend the baby shower. i wanted to see "pregnant amanda" and it was an added bonus to be able to give her the quilt in person!

amanda & me

a tale of two monsterz

A few weeks ago, I was able to complete 2 baby quilts in a few days' time (as you can see, the basic design of these two is really simple, which made that accomplishment even possible). I had some of the Cloud9 Monsterz fabric squirreled away and was just waiting for the right babies to come along so I could use it.

I made this one first. I cut 6" pieces of Monsterz (Adventurez - Mint and Monterz Mash - Orange) and matched it up with some stuff in my stash: Kona School Bus (that's the orange solid fabric) and Aneela Hoey "Cloud Dash Stripes" from the collection "A Walk in the Woods". I made a triangle template to trace out my quilting marks; 2 rows in I realized that if you quilt a bunch of triangles, it'll look like chevrons (duh!). I used some of the leftover "Adventurez" fabric for the binding. This quilt went to a "we're not finding out" couple, and today, they gave birth to a little boy.

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The next quilt went to a little baby boy who lives up the street. His mom & dad are old high school pals of my husband. Little Henry has an older brother & I figured he'd end up with a lot of hand-me-downs, so I wanted to make him something special. I used the same methodology, except this time I cut 10- 5" strips and pieced them together. Aside from the Monsterz and the "Cloud Dash Stripes," I also used one of the new Lotta Jansdotter Bella prints (the orange squigglies) and another grey print (from the "Quilt Blocks" collection). For this one, I did horizontal straight quilting lines between all the strips.

playing with ponies baby girl quilt

It's nice to be able to finally share some of the projects I've been working on over the past few months! When I heard that this lovely couple was expecting a baby girl, the quilt train in my mind started chugging. I immediately thought of this Heather Ross print and promptly ordered a yard of the coral-colored fabric:

Something about the little girls and their cowboy boots reminded me of the mom-to-be.

I got out my Kona color card and tried my best to match the yellow ("Lemon"), the green ("Peridot) and the light peach ("Light Parfait"). I also ended up getting some of Lizzy House's Guising Twinkling Stars in Sherbert.
Once I had all my fabric, I had no idea where I was headed. All my past baby quilts had been simple patchwork squares, but with this one I wanted to do something that showcased the girls/horses. I found this block tutorial and decided on that.

Once all 12 blocks were sewn, I played with the layout a bit & decided to use the green sashing strips to break up the pinky-pinkness of the quilt.

horizontal AND vertical strips?

nah...just vertical

All done! Straight line quilting around the blocks...

quilt back...all the leftover "guising" + lemon + light parfait

you can really see the quilting detail in this one

I had the pleasure of hand-delivering this quilt to the parents-to-be in Denver, CO last week. I was just going to mail it, but what's the fun in that?! (In actuality, I was already plotting a trip out there anyway...) And unbeknownst to me, the quilt matched the color of the nursery. Baby girl is due in a few weeks!

brown and blue patchwork squares baby boy quilt

a friend of mine is expecting a baby boy next month & i had lots of free time 2 weekends ago, so that could only mean one thing...{another} baby boy quilt.  i got started late on a friday evening, so instead of rushing out to the fabric store (as i am prone to do when embarking on a new project), i decided to try to pull things from my stash. i suppose that's why we build up fabric stashes to begin with!

i used the michael miller "honk honk" print as my main fabric and added some dark brown, light blue, yellow and light green kona solids.  i threw in a navy polka dot, a rainbow polka dot and some of the leftover heather bailey fabric i used in my first quilt. i liked the mixture of pastels & dark colors. i cut out ninety-nine 4 1/2" squares and used my 11-rows-of-9-squares formula once again. then, i went to work laying out the design (another random one, just like holden's quilt).

the next day i wasn't really fond of the rainbow dot fabric, so while i was out & about on my saturday errands, i ran into joann and picked up a half yard of different polka dot fabric to use instead, which was just enough for some squares and a strip for the backing.

sewing all the blocks and rows together went smoothly. i outlined the squares for the quilting & used the yellow solid fabric for the binding.

took it outside for a photo shoot, then packed it up & sent it off to soddy-daisy, tn!