I Spy a finished quilt!

For close to a year now, I've been working on an I Spy quilt for my niece.  I asked her parents (my brother and sister-in-law) if I could make her a quilt for whenever she moves into a big girl bed.  I wanted to do an I Spy quilt very similar to the one I made while I was pregnant that is now in Munchkin's room.

And here it is!  There are 192 I Spy fabrics.  I kept a spreadsheet so that I would not repeat an item.  There are some that are similar, such as a bird and an owl, or a sailboat and a pirate ship, but there is no actual repeating of main objects. The sashing is Kona Coal.

Her birthday is this week and she is arriving for a visit this weekend, so I get to gift it in person.  (She lives in OR and I live in NC, so this is a big deal.)

Her favorite color is purple.  So is mine!  I had a big piece of a purple batik that I used for the back, and I pieced it with a leftover bit of rainbow batik and a pinkish/purple batik that I honestly picked because it was the right size for the space I had left to cover.

I am super pleased with how it turned out and I can't wait to give it to her!  I hope she likes looking for stuff half as much as I do.  In making this, I realized that the quilt I want to make for my bed is an I Spy quilt!  Husband agrees, so that will be a project in 2017.  If I think this twin size is big, a queen size will be huge!  But it's fun to look forward to.

This was #1 on my list of Q4 goals for the globally hosted Finish Along.  I will also be linking up with Julie at The Crafty Quilter for her Hello 2016, Goodbye UFOs. I've been working on this all year and it's great to cross it off the list!

Red!

Red was originally the color for September in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but I've been behind.  I'm determined to get a quilt completely finished by the end of 2016 so I'm trying to get caught up.

Here are my 2 red blocks.  You can see that I had to stretch a bit to get 2!  The top one is my "light" reds, and there are quite a few that are actually some sort of red on a lighter colored background.  So it's a wide interpretation of red :)

Yellow is now all I have left.  I'll be away from my sewing room for just over a week, as we have company coming and the sewing room is also the guest room, so I need to pack up the machine and clean up a bit.  But yellow butterflies will be first on my list when I get back in there.

Farm Friends

I've been doing a little non-quilt sewing for small gifts, mostly in preparation for my niece's visit next week.  I had seen pictures online of Stacy Hsu's Farm Friends stuffed toys, so I went to my local quilt shop and bought a panel.  There are 4 animals in each panel: cow, pig, sheep, & chicken.  Each animal has a mama and 2 babies.  The mama has a pouch so the babies can settle in for a nap.

I asked my brother and sister-in-law which of those animals my niece likes best, without explaining why I was asking.  They said cow. So when Noodle is here, she can have a special friend. (When I talked to my brother on Thanksgiving, he said he was curious about that specific list of animals. I had asked about 2 weeks before.  I still wouldn't tell why.)

Of the three animals left, I asked Munchkin which he likes.  He said pig.  So when Noodle is here and gets her cow, I will give Munchkin the pig.

We have close friends who are expecting Baby 2 in the next few weeks and it is likely their son will stay with us while mom & dad are in the hospital.  So I asked my friend if her son likes chickens or sheep better, again giving no context.  She replied (via text) that he had petted a chicken, so I went with chicken.  I especially that he will get his mama with 2 babies as his mama is getting her second baby, so one chick can be him and one can be Baby Sister.

I'm not usually good with stuffed toys, but these were relatively easy since you basically just cut out on the dotted lines and follow directions.  I think they are cute and I hope the kids I made them for (mine turned 3 in October, the other two turn 3 in December) enjoy them.  I still have "Mama Baa" that I can make when the right recipient comes along.

A Hive Crash in honor of Queen Lisa

The Queen of my Stash Bee hive this month is Linda.  Linda had to abdicate her throne due to helping a friend.  We did convince her to at least tell us the color scheme she had in mind so that we could send her some scraps or a fat quarter.  She plans on using lime green, pink, coral, and yellow.  I found a few medium sized sized scraps and will send them along.

In addition, one of the suggestions she gave us for for what to do instead of making her a block was to crash another hive.  When I saw that one woman is making a quilt for her 3-year-old daughter, I knew that was the one for me.  She specifically encouraged novelty fabrics, and you novelty fabrics are my favorite!

I went through my I Spy scraps and didn't find much pink, the lucky little girl's favorite color.  But there are some fun novelties here, with butterflies, rainbows, bananas, and penguins.  And those red dots with the bananas are actually hearts.  She is hoping this quilt will be the springboard for bedtime stories and keep her daughter occupied and IN BED!

I've had a really great time in the Stash Bee and plan to be back next year.  It's fun getting a small taste of lots of different blocks without committing to an entire project. 

Panda-monium!

It's finished!  After making the penguin pillow for Munchkin's birthday, I decided to get rid of our horribly bulky couch cushions and make a menagerie of animal pillows.  Panda was first up.

The pattern is a free one from the Fat Quarter Shop.  Pattern PDF is here, and there is also a YouTube video tutorial.

I used Kona solids in black, white, plum, asparagus, and celery.  My background is darker than the sample from Fat Quarter Shop because I didn't feel like that one had enough contrast.  I really like the contrast with the plum.

This is a 20" pillow and I used a pillow insert from Ikea.  I use the envelope pillow method by Crazy Mom Quilts.  I am careful to always label my quilts, but I didn't think about labeling pillows until I had a comment from Paige of Quilted Blooms.  Since I use a back on the quilted part of my pillow, she mentioned marking directly on the back with micron pen.  And so I did!

Since I've had a few people ask what other animals will be apart of my menagerie, here is a sneak peak of the next one:

Panda was goal #5 on my list of 4th quarter goals for the globally hosted Finish Along.  This was also my November One Monthly Goal for the OMG goal-setting party currently hosted by Elm Street Quilts (goal setter #23).

Pink!

All the colors for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge have been given out, leaving the last 2 months of the year for catching up and/or finishing projects.  Here are my pink butterflies, originally meant for July.

I've got one with dark pinks and one with light pinks.  It's interesting how different they are!

I now only have red and yellow left.  I pulled scraps earlier this week, so I'm at least heading in the right direction!

OMG November

I made my son a penguin pillow for his birthday.  It was a lot of fun to do and I really like it.  I have decided to get rid of the oversize cushions on our couch and make a menagerie of animal throw pillows instead.  First up: Panda!

My son is currently crazy for pandas.  I'm using the Fat Quarter Shop's free panda-monium quilt pattern.  Here is the head:

Oh no!  Panda doesn't have a body!  Don't worry, he will!  My one monthly goal is to complete this panda as a 20" pillow. 

One Monthly Goal has moved!  Elm Street Quilts is the new host, and I'm linking up for the fabulous One Monthly Goal (OMG) goal-setting motivation and awesomeness!