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October 11th, 2012 | by Jessie | This sweet little quilt is for a cousin’s new baby girl named Paisley.
And yes, I had to include a paisley fabric in the design. It was unavoidable. =)
The quilt is based on a traditional honey bee block, which is the large square surrounded by the pink petals on each corner. I’ve seen honey bee blocks with a 9-patch in the center, but I liked the simplicity of the solid square. Usually, the honey bee quilts I’ve seen have sashing between the blocks but I really liked the interplay of the blocks set right next to each other.
I thought about stopping with just the main part of the quilt, but in this case, I’m glad I kept going and added the tiny inner border of the paisley print and the outer boarder with more (small) squares. It really changed the look of the quilt!
I decided to do an allover quilting design, the same one I used on this quilt. Since this quilt was smallish, I quilted it on my domestic sewing machine.
I pieced the binding with different grey fabrics. I was planning to use pink but when I actually tried it, there was no comparison. The binding really ended up echoing the thin inner border and gave it a nice finished look.
To make the honey bee blocks, I pieced a white border around the gray square, mitering the corners. Then I used the fusible applique method to attach the petals, a tight zig zag stitch finished the applique edges. It’d been awhile since I’d used applique in a quilt.
Here’s the back.
I’ll take a minute to explain how I’ve been labeling my quilts lately. I’d previously not taken time to label any of my quilts. I know… that’s a no no. But here’s an easy way to do it – it’s so easy that even I am doing it now. And, I don’t have to worry about it until the binding is going on the quilt. Then I find a scrap piece of square fabric. If it’s not square, I cut it square and it really doesn’t matter the exact size. I first crease the fabric in half diagonally to get a triangle shape, raw edges aligned. Pressing the shape helps to mark the crease visually (so I can see the space I have for writing/drawing). Then I open the square and iron it to a piece of freezer paper. The fabric slightly adheres to the freezer paper enough to give you a stabilized writing surface. Then I write on only the side of the square that will show (like above). I use a Pigma permanent fabric marker and when I’m done writing, I iron over it to heat-set it. Then remove the freezer paper and form the triangle back into shape and align the raw edges to the raw edges of a quilt corner. Pin the label into place so that when you sew on the binding with a 1/4” seam, you will catch the label and the binding. The last step in attaching the label is to take a needle and thread and blind stitch across the top of the label onto the quilt back.
October 10th, 2012 | by Jessie | Friends of ours are having their first baby very soon. Josh & I were invited to a couples baby shower celebrating the little guy and this is what I made:
If you think the owl fabric looks familiar, I used another color way of the same print earlier this year in the quilt featured here.
My sister-in-law Morgan showed me a quilt she had pinned on Pinterest (I would link it here if I could find it again). The binding was a color that contrasted from the rest of the quilt. It was crazy-funky-cool. That’s what inspired me to look outside the green color family to find the binding fabric. I really liked the oddball binding color on this quilt.
And the orange back is pretty adventurous, too.
I used continuous curve quilting for the pieced chevron sections of the quilt and then repeated the chevrons in the negative space. I did this quilting on my domestic sewing machine.
October 8th, 2012 | by Jessie | I made a comfort quilt for a friend who is going through breast cancer treatments right now. Kristy and her family have been very special to us; we’ve gotten to know them over the years from going to the same church.
I went with a modern look: large scale prints against white. It’s a good bet.
I LOVED this polka dot fabric I found at Adel Quilting & Dry Goods. It was the perfect backing for this quilt and just a bonus that it came a wide size so that I didn’t have to piece the back.
Here’s a close-up of the new quilting design I tried after seeing this awesome quilting tutorial at Green Fairy Quilts.
October 2nd, 2012 | by Jessie | “Cousin Sarah” as she’s known on this blog had a baby. A while ago. Her second little boy is named Levi and he’s as precious as could be. Not that I’ve ever met him in real life… but I feel like you get to know kids by looking at their photos and videos on Facebook. I’m therefore a reliable source when I say he’s precious. And, by the way, Cousin Sarah isn’t just a clever name, it’s her honest-to-goodness relationship to us. Josh’s mom and Sarah’s mom (Aunt Kathy) are sisters. That means I get to be her cousin, too, which makes me quite happy.
Sometimes I don’t have a clear plan in mind as I set out to make someone a quilt. In this case, I knew I was going to start a baby quilt and I knew what blocks/pattern I wanted to use {a traditional quilt block called Birds in the Air} and that was about it. Nonetheless, I jumped in and started making it. I cut out lots of fabrics that I’d already owned and started piecing the blocks together. For whatever reason, I just started feeling like this should be a quilt for Levi, but I wasn’t sure. I’m a weirdo and I can’t fully explain my intuition about these things.
Do you know how I knew FOR SURE that the quilt I’d been working on was indeed meant for Levi?
I had completed the whole quilt top and was in search of a backing fabric for it. The most important criteria for this search was to find a piece of fabric that was big enough to fully fit on the back of the quilt. I have tons of small cuts of fabric, but it’s more rare to find one big piece of fabric that’s the right size. Sure, I don’t often find the perfect back in my fabric stash, so I’ll normally seam 2 or 3 or 14 fabrics together until I’ll have a big enough back to cover whatever quilt I’m working on. So I searched and searched through lots of colors until I found the perfect back:
Do you see the narrow inch of blue fabric that surrounds the quilt top above?
That was the perfect size for this quilt AND it matched the front! BINGO! And then I realized that it was leftover fabric that I bought for when I made Sarah and her husband Jeff their wedding quilt! How perfect is that? I told you, sometimes you just know. You know?
Speaking of which, here is their wedding quilt that I made back in 2006, in my early days of quilting:
I took a day class at my local quilt shop on how to make this pattern called Fractured Crystals by Linda Ballard. Anyway, the light blue in the center of this quilt, in the corners of the blocks and in one of the borders was the same fabric that I got to use in the backing fabric of Levi’s quilt.
Now, back from the trip down memory lane and onto Levi’s finished quilt:
I did a swirly quilting design on this one.
Here’s a close-up of the label, which I’ve been much better at taking the time to make lately.
I had to ask for Josh’s help in outlining the state of Iowa. Sarah and Jeff are from Michigan, are now are in Virginia via the Bahamas, BUT she was a frequent Iowa visitor while growing up and visiting grandparents, aunts & uncles, and cousins here. I wanted to incorporate that Iowa luv into the label.
Every quilt has a story and that was the story of Levi’s quilt.
{Ali & Tara, do you recognize the circles fabrics that make up the big triangles? Those were my color inspiration for this quilt!}
September 27th, 2012 | by Jessie | I made a quilt for my friend Amanda’s baby girl, Isabela. Amanda took our family pictures – oh yes! now that I’m blogging again, I’ll have to share them with you – and it wasn’t an easy job. She did a wonderful job! It’s just that our kids didn’t make it easy for her. It was one of those times where I didn’t think that there would be one good photo to come out of it… and surprise, surprise! There were great photos to come out of it! I wanted to give her this quilt as kind of a services swap, but also because I know how much her other kids loved their quilts from me. Actually, I’m only 2-for-3 for my own kids’ quilts, yet I’m a perfect 3-for-3 for theirs! So many quilts, so little time…
I had the floral fabric from a custom quilt I made years ago; it’s an Amy Butler design. I’ve always loved the print, but I didn’t have too much of it, so I just balanced it out with scrap pieces of cream colored fabric and some adorable dot fabric (from the same Amy Butler line of fabrics, I believe). I loved being able to use fabrics that were already in my stash and not purchase anything new. Such a rush, I tell you… such a rush. This was also one of several quilts that I’ve made lately that I didn’t work from a pattern. I just let the amount of fabrics I had dictate how I was going to piece them together. It’s fun; it results in a truly original piece.
Here’s the back of the quilt:
September 26th, 2012 | by Jessie | Quilters love to give quilts to those who are going through a hard time: loss of a loved one, illness, disease, treatments. We call them comfort quilts because we hope that having the physical comfort of a quilt will in some small way ease pain. Of course, we also hope that the individual (or family) will feel comforted simply by the fact that we cared for and loved them enough to show our concern in this way, to help them know that they aren’t struggling alone.
I can’t speak for other quilters, but I also pray so much when I’m making these comfort quilts. God gave me this desire for quilting, the interest, the ability, the resources, and the people in my life who may need extra comfort at some point. I feel like I’m using my gifts as they are intended when I’m using them to bless others, especially in times of hardship. Of course, the problem is that there are so many quilts I’d love to make, for so many people. I can’t get them all. But, when it does work out, it’s special and I feel like I’m doing {one} of the things I was put on this earth to do. You just can’t beat that feeling of purpose!
This is one comfort quilt I made over the summer for a former co-worker of mine, his family lives in our town:
Please ignore the laundry basket beside the bed, I was in a hurry to take pictures before I headed out the door to deliver it!
Here’s a close up of the quilting and some of the fabrics. This was the first big quilt I quilted on a long arm machine. Jacque and Frank Johnson, owners of Adel Quilting and Dry Goods, regularly donate machine quilting services for comfort quilts. As any quilter who has paid for their quilts to be quilted on a long arm machine knows, this is no small donation! I think it’s pretty amazing. I started to work for them on a part time basis several months ago; I use their long arm machine to quilt shop samples, comfort quilts and the occasional customer quilt. I have so much fun doing it! I really want to make it my home-based career when all of the kids are in school.
July 2nd, 2012 | by Jessie | 
Jett’s quilt is now finished! I had the best of intentions of finishing this about 4 years ago. I made a nearly identical quilt for Jude in blue/white/black fabrics when he turned two years old. I wanted to have Jett’s quilt done when he turned two, that gave me a whole year to get it done. Things did not at all work out the way I’d planned!
I was working on this quilt at the first quilting retreat I went to at the 4H Camps near Boone with a little group of friends called the Scrappin’ Sisters. Yes, it’s true. I actually named the group because quilters work with scraps of fabric (sometimes) and the other part of our group is made of ladies who like to scrapbook. Heh, I crack myself up. Oh, and I don’t think any of us are actually sisters. “Sisters” is meant in the collective she-spirit of the group.
I finished the quilt at the last Scrappin’ Sisters retreat in April of this year at Hidden Acres Camp in Dayton, Iowa. I had some machine quilting left to do on it and then I got the binding done, too. I was able to come home with the fully completed quilt for my Jettster. He was pumped!
I had a lot of the backing fabric left over so I went ahead and bound it with the same fabric. I did buy the backing specifically for this project, but everything else was from my stash. I’ve been on a roll with using what I have and it feels gooood!
And speaking of scrappin’, this pattern is called Scrappy Stars. It was featured in American Patchwork & Quilting’s June of 2006 issue – it’s a great pattern. And yes, I plan to make one more for Jace in a variety of red fabrics. I don’t have an estimated completion date on that.
July 1st, 2012 | by Jessie | I’m “behind” on getting quilts made for all of my friends and relatives who have had babies recently. I once was really good at having them ready by the time the kids were born (can you imagine?!). Now, I’m making a serious effort to get quilts to babies in their first year of life with priority given to the first babies of a family and special effort given if said family has not received a quilt from me for anything. Yes, there are still some of you out there; I’m sure I’ll get to you eventually!
Now that I have that out of my system, presenting:::
Drake’s quilt.
And here’s Drake! He’s the first bambino born to Aaron (Josh’s first cousin) and his beautiful wife Amy.
What a sweetie pie! The beautiful photo is by Brooke Baudler.
Drake’s Aunt Missy helped give me ideas for the color scheme of the quilt. Drake’s nursery is green with jungle themed bedding. I found a fat quarter of a stunning Amy Butler print in my fabric stash, and I thought the greens, browns and yellows would coordinate well with jungle colors. I only had the fat quarter (a cut of fabric measuring 18” x 22”), so I cut it in half lengthwise and offset the two pieces to give the print a bigger impact across the quilt. I used other fabrics I had in my stash to coordinate with the focus fabric, cut them all the same size and sewed them together. Working without a pattern is freeing and fun and using large portions of a single fabric also make the piecing a breeze.
I quilted the top using an all-over serpentine meandering design: simple, fast, effective. I bound it using the double-fold binding method via machine on the back and front and don’t think I’ll go back to doing hand-tacking on the back unless I ever enter a quilt in a show (at this point I’m not sure if that’ll ever happen – and I’m ok with that).
We got to visit Drake at his new house to give him his quilt. It was a pretty sweet visit overall: the babe, the new house… the cake pops made by Amy! Speaking of which, Drake’s mama is accepting specialty cake orders for events (you know, like, Monday could be an event – I personally believe that having cake constitutes an event and not the other way around), you should check out her website: Sweet Zee’s Bakery.
I still have a few more quilts to share with you, check back later this week to see what other quilts have gone out my door. =)
June 20th, 2012 | by Jessie | The first nephew on my side of the family was born in mid-April. His name is Samuel Herman and – of course – he is as sweet as can be! We are really enjoying getting to know him and seeing how he’s changing in his first few months of life.
Here’s Sam and me.
That’s my easy-breezy I’m-an-aunt-and-not-a-new-mom-this-time look. For as sweet as being a new mom was for me, being an aunt is pretty great, too!
Here’s Samuel chilled out with his Great-Grandma (my grandma) Bev.
What was I going to tell you about? Oh yeah, I made Sam a quilt.
This is the quilt that I referenced in yesterday’s post as having over 2,000 pieces. Every orange, green and blue diamond shape that you see is made up of 4 fabrics as is its lighter-colored counterpart.
I figured this quilt was busy enough with all of the pieces that it didn’t need fancy quilting. I quilted it by using straight lines that intersected the diamonds, which worked well because I didn’t have to mark the lines.
Lest you think me insane, I should mention that my goal was to use a lot of leftover fabric from a quilt I made a long time ago:
I had cut the bold colors that made up the Irish Chain in the above quilt into 2 inch strips… in 2009. I wanted to use those 2 inch strips so I cut them into 2 inch squares, paired them with a 2 inch square of a lighter color and made 2 half-square triangle units out of them. Of course making 2 units out of something so small in the first place is going to yield tiny units. I tried to talk myself out of making a whole quilt of of tiny units, but I couldn’t help myself. I did it anyway. Which, I guess does make me somewhat insane. But the good kind, right?
And that is why the next quilt I completed had T-W-O seams.
The End.
June 19th, 2012 | by Jessie | I have been quilting a lot lately. This is actually one of SIX new quilts that I have to share with you!
This quilt is for baby Franklin who was born in November of last year. He is the first-born of friends Marc & Angela. Frank is an absolutely ADORABLE baby, and if that wasn’t enough, he writes, too! Check out his blog: The New King of Downtown. Cute factor: VERY HIGH. You’ve been warned.
Josh was helping me come up with an idea for Frank’s quilt and and joked that his dad Marc likes all things Swedish {which is kind of true, right Marc?}. On a whim, I googled something like Swedish fabric and found this awesome owl fabric sold on Etsy. I think it’s actually Japanese produced fabric, but the designer is from Sweden. Above all, the hand-drawn look really sucked me in and that was how the inspiration took hold.
I went monochrome, baby. I loved the chevron print I found at my local quilt shop Adel Quilting & Dry Goods and just added the blue fabric from my stash and called it a day. It’s called letting the large prints do the work. I made this quilt coming off a 2,000+ seam baby quilt (I’ll post about that one next), so you can understand why I chose large prints and T-W-O seams.
Here’s a close up of the quilting done in blue thread.
The binding.
I loved the retro looking back fabric, too, also from Adel Quilting & Dry Goods.
It was so much fun and so very satisfying to make this quick quilt… and the cuteness didn’t suffer for simplicity.
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