Quilts for Brothers

I have a coworker who is expecting her second son in mid-May.  I did not know her when her 3-year-old J was born, so I knew that in addition to a baby quilt, I wanted to make a quilt for big brother, too.  I decided on simple I Spy quilts with 1" (finished) sashing.

They had a name for baby K early on, so I thought it would be fun to put the boys' names on their quilts.  I used the alphabet die for my Accuquilt.

I spy fun

Fire Monkey helped me pick out the I Spy squares for both quilts.  We had a lot of fun picking out our favorite from my huge collection of 5" I Spy squares.  And I was glad to tell my coworker that the fabrics were kid-approved!

 

Dino Dreams

I bought the backing fabric for big brother J at QuiltCon.  It is an absolutely fabulous print of Space Dinosaurs called Dino Dreams by Iris + Sea for Paintbrush Studio.  I bought baby K's backing fabric at my local quilt shop Quilt Patch; it's Jungle Paradise by Stacy Iest Hsu for Moda.  

Jungle Paradise

Mama was absolutely thrilled with the quilts and was so touched that I made one for big brother, too.  She said he rolls up in it like a burrito every night--you know that's exactly what a quilter wants to hear!  He likes tracing the letters in his name and finding the different items in the quilt.  I am so happy that to help celebrate this growing family!

Wrapped and ready to give

Car Pillow

Over the weekend, I went to visit a friend and former colleague who had a baby over the summer.  I was able to finally take Totally Triangles to its adorable new owner.  Baby Girl has an older brother, aged 2 1/2 years.  When I give a baby quilt to a new arrival with an older sibling, I like to make something small for the older child as well.  I know young Michael loves cars and trucks, so I made him a pillow.

I cut the cars with my Accuquilt Go--the Cute Car is a super fun die.  I loved the roads I made as the borders for my Row by Row back in February, so I added a border of roads as well.  I am pleased to say that Michael loved it!  When he realized that the outer border was a road, he immediately went looking for his small trucks and had them drive on the road.  He also wanted to put his pillow on the couch and made me move the throw pillow next to me to make room for the car pillow.  I call that success!

Hexagon baby quilt

I have a colleague who recently had a baby boy.  I have made a baby quilt for every born of the library staff at work since starting this job in 2015.  I don't know this colleague very well as they are mostly at a different location, so I didn't have a lot of information to go on.  I had a really fun tractor print that I bought several years ago hoping to use for an I Spy swap, but then realized would have to be fussy cut and set it aside.  

This seemed like the perfect time to use it!  I recently got the Accuquilt large hexagon die that is compatible with the equilateral triangle die I already had.  I used Kona Rick Red for the triangles.  I didn't have enough to bind in red, so I used bright blue Kona Pacific instead.  The back is a fun cow print.  

I had to kind of think about how the rows went together and how to make sure the tractors were all in the correct orientation, but I do think this design and die work really well to showcase a larger-scale print.  It would also work well on a layer cake.  It's simple and it's fairly small, but I'm pleased with how it came out.

Masala Box (& giveaway!)

My friend Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts recently wrote a fabulous quick pattern that is featured in the newest Island Batik catalog.  She asked me if I'd be willing to make a version and I jumped at the chance!  The Masala Box pattern gives instructions for three sizes: baby, lap, & queen.  I knew October was a busy month for my family so I made the baby size, which measures 36" square (or 40" if you add an optional border, which I did not).

Masala Box is written for strips, though you could use scraps as well.  It would also work well with partial jelly roll strips. When I am done with a project and have leftover yardage, I cut one or two 2 1/2" strips that I keep in a bin, perfect for projects written for jelly rolls.  When Preeti contacted me, I went through my bin to try to pick a color palette.  I had some Kona Medium Pink that I thought would make a nice background, so I picked out purple and blue strips from my bin. I intentionally alternated the purple and blue thinking it would be a nice look.

 

Masala Box sews up so quickly!  I did it in about three nights of sewing, but if you aren't limited to an hour after a child's bedtime of sewing time, you could probably sew it in an afternoon or maybe a weekend for the larger sizes. 

I quilted it using what I think of as Preeti-style quilting: wavy lines in a grid.  I love how it looks! I wanted a variety in my prints so I used half-strips instead of full strips.  I used the other half to make a scrappy binding.  The back is a pink fleece; you can really see the wavy grid on the back!

Want to make your own Masala Box?  Preeti has the pattern for sale in her etsy shop.  She is also very generously giving away one copy of the pattern to one lucky reader!  Leave me a comment by the end of the day Saturday, November 6th and I will randomly choose a winner.  You can comment about anything but if you need a prompt, tell me your favorite Halloween memory or treat.  

For more Masala Box inspiration, check out Preeti's post and the versions made by Bernie, Wendy, and Mari.

Coreopsis

I've been doing an informal quilt-along with Wendy  of Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life of the Coral Coreopsis pattern by James & Gracie.  Here is my finished quilt!  I used Kona solids, and for once, I do not know what they are!  Most of these came from leftover layer cakes and were no longer labeled. I could look them up, and at some point I probably will.

 
I didn't remember to get a photo of just the top before it was layered on a piece of fleece with polka dots, so you can't really see it well before the quilting.  I quilted with a large spiral and dark gray thread.  This will go to the local children's hospital.

with the backing showing a bit

Others may know this but I did not: Coral Coreposis is a plant/flower.   From my limited research, the plant is Coreposis and coral indicates the plants that have a dark orange color.  Since mine is not in the colorway, I dropped the "coral" part of the pattern name. 

I set finishing my quilt as my One Monthly Goal with Patty of Elm Street Quilts.  Unfortunately, while I wrote the goal post in time, I forgot to actually link it at the beginning of the month.  (Last month, I finished my goal but didn't post. I am not doing well.)

Scrappy Placemats

 For Christmas 2019, I made my dad some scrappy placemats to replace the pretty gross ones he had when I visited him in early 2019.  The deal was that if I made him new ones, he would get rid of the old ones.  I was only able to make 4 in time for Christmas, but I promised more would come.

I didn't get them done for 2020 Christmas but I am ahead of the game for Christmas 2021!  I finished 6 more (only 4 pictured, as my table isn't very big) so he will have 10.  And hopefully now can get rid of the gross ones that couldn't be washed.  These are machine washable which will be an improvement.

I used 2" scraps of Kona solids in any shade of blue, green, or brown and sewed them completely randomly. There are 80 squares in each placemat. The binding is black, because when I made the first batch, I knew I could "match" black and wouldn't be able to match anything else.  That was a good choice on my part, knowing that I would not remember the right color years later.  I also have to say, I know a lot of people love machine stitching binding, but this further reminded me that I hate it.  I bound all of these by machine and wish I hadn't, especially since I have plenty of time until Christmas. Oh, well.  They are finished now!

School of Fish: Salt & Sand blog hop

Welcome to my stop on the Salt & Sand blog hop hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt!  Carol challenged us to find inspiration in the ocean, either colors of the sand and the sea or from animals that live in the ocean.  I didn't have anything on my to-make list in beachy colors, so I went with animals of the sea.  I had a charm pack of Kona Solids that I'd been planning to make into a fish quilt using the Missouri Star tutorial on youtube.

 

Here it is!  The background is Kona pond.  I'm not going to write out all the other Kona colors but I think there are 30 different colors; a few repeat. 

This will be a donation quilt to the local children's hospital.  I had a penguin print for the back that I had to add another scrap to in order to make the right size.  I quilted with wavy lines to simulate water; though I intentionally spaced the lines so I didn't catch the fish tails, which are three dimensional.  (They are peeled back like a cathedral window.)

Here's the list of all the blogs participating so you can check out all the salt and sand goodness.  It turns out that today (Wednesday) was my day on the hop and I thought it was Thursday.  Ooops!!! 

 

March 22
Creatin' in the Sticks
Selina Quilts
That Fabric Feeling
Days Filled With Joy
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Karen's Korner
Homespun Hannah's Blog
Crafts and Math
 
March 23
MooseStashQuilting
Life in the Scrapatch
Food for Thought
For The Love Of Geese
Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel
Karrin’s Crazy World
Sew Many Yarns
Kathy's Kwilts and More
 
March 24
Ms P Designs USA
DayBrook Designs
Vroomans Quilts
Kathleen McMusing
Quilt Schmilt
The Darling Dogwood
Daughters of Dorinda
Annie’s Musings
 
March 25
Quiltscapes
Beaquilter
Stitchin At Home
The Joyful Quilter
Scrapdash
Freckled Fox Quiltery
Quilts Fabric and Thread Tales
Words & Stitches
 
March 26
Just Let Me Quilt
Websterquilt
Quilting Gail
Samelia's Mum
Quilt Fabrication
Little Penguin Quilts
Just Sew Quilter
Inflorescence

One Last Finish in 2020

I managed one more finish in the final few hours of 2020.  I actually have another project I finished a few days ago that I haven't blogged yet, but that will need to wait a few more days.  I set my OMG with Patty of Elm Street Quilts to finish a Big Sister gift for the 2-year-old daughter of a coworker.  Young Miss N became a big sister last month!  I finished baby brother M's baby quilt earlier in December and wanted something to give big sis at the same time.  I decided on a doll quilt.

 

One of the sizes I used for cutting my scraps is 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" rectangles.  I went through my stash of I Spy scraps and paired them with some Kona Lemon. I laid them out with rows of like colors on the diagonal.  It sewed up very quickly!

 

I used a wavy serpentine stitch for the quilting; I like the texture it adds.  

 

quilt back

The back is two different dog prints that I had in bag of leftover I Spy fabrics a friend gave me--I've been using a lot of her scraps lately. I hope big sister M enjoys the quilt with a doll or stuffed animal!  

Also great for staying cozy on the couch!

 

Baby Quilt

My coworker April had a baby last month, which of course means baby quilt! I chose the Galaxy pattern by Villa Rosa Designs.  I've made this once before and it's a really fast finish.

 

I decided to use animals as my theme and went through my stock of 5" squares to find some good ones.  The background is Kona Regatta. 

I pieced a back from some pieces a neighbor gave me when she cleaned out her stash over the summer.  The main print has sailor animals, and I added an alphabet print and some chickens to make it big enough.  I hope Baby M enjoys his quilt!

Did you plan along with Bernie at Needle & Foot for her Guess Who game?  It was fun and much harder than I expected!  Most guessers did not correctly identify me.  Here's my photo, my mom thinks this was the first day of first grade.

 

Pink and Purple Postage Plus

I am always looking for patterns that make good leader and ender projects.  One of my favorites is Postage Plus from the book Modern Plus Sign Quilts by Cheryl Brickey & Paige Alexander.  Last year, I made a version using I Spy scraps.  This year, I used up some of my Kona scraps in pinks and purples. 

The instructions have you make strip sets but since I use scraps, I use those instead.  It's a great leader and ender project!  My Kona bin can get really full and most of what is in there are pretty small leftover pieces.  I pulled out every shade I could find that was pink, purple, or in-between and used my Accuquilt Go! cutter to cut squares.  Then I just kept a little bin of them by the machine and paired the fabrics up randomly.

 

My version is much smaller than the one in the book and for this one I opted for a single background color rather than stripes.  The background is Kona Shadow.  I did not keep track of all the colors of Kona scraps but there are quite a few different colors in there!  I did wavy line quilting on a grid using pink thread.  I really like how it looks and sill use a wavy grid again.  With the squares, I wonder if I missed a good opportunity for organic orange peel quilting.  I guess I need to make another Postage Plus and give it a try!

Since this will go to a kid and is patchwork with solids, I decided that the back needed some novelty fabrics.  I had a few width-of-fabric scraps that I combined with strips of Kona in pink or purple in between.  This will be donated to Friendship Trays as a part of my guild's philanthropy project and is the second of three finishes needed for my One Monthly Goal with Elm Street Quilts. 

Giraffe Pillow

Well, I'm a day too late to get credit on my October One Monthly Goal, but my giraffe pillow is now done!  I'm quite pleased with him and he looks great with the other animal pillows on our new couches!

The pattern is part of the Zoo Animals set by Kristy of Quiet Play.  I bought it several years ago but it looks like the pattern is still in her shop, both as a stand alone and as a set of 9.  This is the third I've made from that set and the lion is next.  They are paper pieced, which to be honest is not my favorite technique.  I can do it but I don't enjoy the process. I do, however, enjoy the results.

As with all the animals in my Pillow Menagerie, I used Kona solids.  This uses Earth, Caramel, and Butterscotch in the giraffe and Candy Blue for the background.  Plus Black and Snow for the eye.

This was on my list of projects for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Gail of Quilting Gail.  My PhD has been slow-going this year but I just might make it.  This marks either my 8th or 9th completed project, depending if I count a project that became 2 quilts as one or as 2.  With a little hard work, I may finish enough that I don't need to decide.  Two months left in the year, we'll see what else I can finish.

 

Buffalo Companion

A few weeks ago, I showed Buffalo Explorer, a donation quilt I made for my guild's 2020 philanthropy project.  I had more of that blue animal print, so I made another quilt that is similar, but not identical, to the first.  I'm calling it Buffalo Companion.

I had already cut the blue animal print into 10" squares, so I just added 2 1/2" strips to each square to make a completed block. This is Kona Tomato and Kona Curry.  (Sounds like lunch!)  I used the same new-to-me quilting motif of a straight-line grid on the diagonal going one way and wavy lines going the opposite diagonal.  I like this motif and will keep playing with it.

The back is a teddy bear print that was in a bag of I Spy scraps I was given by a quilter cleaning out her stash--she saved her novelty prints for me! I used all of the teddy bear fabric except a 3" or so strip that I'll cut up for more scraps.  Always nice to finish off fabrics, or come close. Since the animal print was already cut into 10" squares and I've now made two quilts with it, I gave the rest to another quilter so I could cross this off my list and get it all out of my sewing room :) 

And here are the two together so you can see why I call them companions.  The first Buffalo quilt was on my list of projects for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Quilting Gail.  I don't know if I get credit for a second finish but I'm glad to have two finished quilts to give to Friendship Trays.  

Buffalo Explorer

I set my OMG or One Monthly Goal to turn a finished top into a finished quilt.  I did it!  And though I got the goal-setting post written in time, I forgot to link it up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts, but I'm still counting it as a win!

The dark blue animal fabric was donated to my local Project Linus chapter several years ago, when it still existed.  I always planned to make this Simple Layer Cake pattern that I've used a few times before, and had in fact cut all the animal fabric into 10" squares.  When I made the top, a neighbor who was also involved with Project Linus had just given me a huge bag of novelty fabric.  I went through it to find something that could go with the animals and found this fabulous gray explore/adventure fabric.  It has words like "Adventure" and "Explore" and "Roam Wild" spelled out using outdoorsy equipment like compasses and hiking boots.  

 
The solid in the sashing is Kona Roasted Pecan.  For the back, I used a cowboy boot print that I think was also donated to Project Linus.  (The other ladies often saved me the novelty prints.)

I tried a new quilting motif, inspired by the book Walk by Jacquie Gering.  First I quilted diagonal lines in one direction at a 3" interval.  Then, instead of a traditional cross-hatch, I did a curvy line that hit the straight line at the same interval.  While my curves are not yet uniform and there is a little more marking involved, I do like this as a variation and will use it again.

This was on my list for my PhD (Projects Half Done) with Quilting Gail.  I have another quilt with the same blue animal print that is ready to be layered and quilted, so there will be two similar quilts for that UFO.  Both will be donated to my guild's current charity project, quilts for kids ages 2-5 in my county who receive meals from Friendship Trays. 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

I feel like my friends, family members, and coworkers tend to cycle through periods of lots of babies and no babies.  In 2020, I know of five babies born or expected in my circle.  One of those is a former coworker.  I've made a quilt for all babies born since I started working at my current job.  This woman, Kory, and I were both children's librarians before working at a community college and we frequently talked about children's books.  If I remember correctly, one of her favorites is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. & illustrated by Eric Carle.  When I learned she was expecting, I knew I'd use some Brown Bear fabric I bough years ago at one of my favorite quilt shops, Sew What & Batiks Etc in Wytheville, Virginia.

I had other projects that felt more pressing so I hadn't started this one yet since Kory wasn't due until mid-to-late July.  But a mutual friend let me know that baby had other ideas and arrived very early.  Fortunately, Baby Oliver was breathing on his own from the beginning, despite his small size, and all seems to be well.  So I needed to get moving on his quilt!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?

The main print had each of the animals from the book tossed across the fabric.  I isolated each animal and cut them out.  I figured out pretty quickly that it was going to be impossible to cut to the same size and not cut into other animals, and I had a limited amount of the fabric.  So I cut them as best I could to isolate each animal and used the border fabric to get to a standard block size of 12" finished.

Green Frog

I used leftovers from my Kona solid bin for all the colors around each animal.  They are: Earth, Tomato, Citrus, Niagara, Leprechaun, Mulberry, Snow, Black, and Goldfish.  Yes, the color around the goldfish is Goldfish!

Goldfish

 For the back, I had some of a second print.  I combined it with the leftovers of the main print, then added some Kona Pond that was the right size for the area that still needed to be covered.

What I really wanted for the binding was a fun rainbow stripe.  I didn't have anything.  Back in April, I really wanted to support my local quilt shop so when I picked up elastic, I had a list of other items I could use, even though I didn't actually *need* anything.  I put "rainbow stripe" on my list.  Stores were not permitted to let customers in at that point so they picked one for me--and I love it!  Shout out to Quilt Patch Fabrics!   The fabric is Tropical Zone by Color Pop Studio for Blank Quilting.

Yellow Duck

When I showed the finished quilt to my husband the first things he said was, "they are in the right order." Which just proves that he gets me.  If you're familiar with the book, you may have picked up on the fact that I put the animals in the order in which they appear in the book.  I did get our copy off the shelf to double check, but I did it from memory :)

Purple Cat

 I hope that Kory & baby Oliver enjoy this for years to come!  This is my 20th finish in 2020.