Ocean quilt {Finished}

Thank you for all the congratulations!

Way back, what seems like a million years ago, I got a custom quilt inquery.  There was a pair of little boys, who share a room, and needed coordinating ocean quilts.

I had a ton of fun picking out wonderful ocean-colored fabrics.  (Maybe a bit too much fun, adding in some of that 'while the cart if open fabric', and I had 55(!!!) yards of fabric arrive at my house from 6 online shops.)



Whirlygiggles in two sizes, with a special paper-pieced dolphin block for Luke's quilt.

And no photo of the other one at all - boo!!  But both finished at about the same size - 81" x 88"



Look at how well I used a bunch of the extra yardage on the pieced back.

I did both quilt backs like this.



The paper pieced dolphins were a labor of love.  From the start, as I hunted high and low for the perfect pattern.  To the final debate over how to quilt them.

I didn't want to include them in my overall stipple.  So I outlined the frame (which is my favorite Kona blue, Glacier), then did a seaweed kind of wavy thing in the water, and sketchy echo quilting in the dolphins.



Now, this was super cool.  Luke's mom wanted to include some of his artwork in the quilt.  I didn't want it to fade over time, and also know how hard it can be to draw on fabric.

I had her send me a picture on a regular piece of paper, and made sure that he signed it.  Originally, I intended to hand embroider a representation of his art.  But then I started working at the Bernina store, and met some girls that are really into machine embroidery.  With the 830 and fancy digitizing software, they are able to take any jpg and turn it into a fabric sketch.  Marcy made this awesome quilt label - it's about 5x7" - and is almost an exact replica of Luke's drawing.  I didn't want to quilt over it, so I hand stitched it to the back after everything was done.



One final picture, with the Kona glacier binding and a touch of mustard added in.  It picked up the couple bits of mustard in prints throughout the quilt.

They were sent off to be loved (priority, insured UPS, with signature confirmation - I didn't want to chance them getting lost!).

Dolphin Summer

I have two custom quilts in the works for a pair of little boys.

One of them loves dolphins.



A pattern by Paper Panache with what felt like a billion tiny pieces - but that's why it turns out so awesome.

They're extra tiny because I needed to reduce the size by 15% to get it to fit with the other blocks in the quilt.

I'm going to be sad to see them swim away when the quilt is done.

Paper Pieced Star

This month in the {Sew}Beautiful Bee, Kati asked for paper pieced stars.

...using an amazing array of yellows and greys, that she has been collecting for a long time.  Here's her post on the quilt plan.

Source: fromthebluechair.com via Angela on Pinterest

I loved her fabrics so much, I pinned them.  For me, awesome yellow and grey are the most difficult to find.

I really enjoy paper piecing, so I was excited to pick out a block for her. I made a Rolling Star - paper pieced pattern on Quilter's Cache.



Super fun block!

This was the first time I've had the chance to use Pure Elements - the light grey background solid. What an amazing fabric for paper piecing! The hand of the fabric allows for very crisply pressed seams. I would love a whole rainbow stack of it.

A Finished Gnome Home

I finished my little gnome home Sunday afternoon - in the cool air conditioning.  It was in the low 90's and I decided it would be nicer to be at the pool after dinner so that our skin wasn't grilled mid day.

I totally winged it and things kept changing as I stitched.  The little gnome had his own idea of where he lived!  I had lots of space to play with - this block is 18.5" square.



Looking out to greet visitors.

He has a lovely ironwork front door.



This cute little house is a paper pieced pattern that Sonja was so excited to share - it was created by Sarah of House of Krom.

Click this link to get the pattern from flickr.

The red on top is my most favorite red.  It seemed just perfect for the mushroom cap.  I used linen on the base, I've made a few gnomes and mushrooms and I always love to use linen on the bottoms.



Spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how to make it look like he was under a bush and adding branches.



The little gnome has some friends living under the bush with him!



The gnome's little home is in a mushroom patch on the edge of the mossy forest floor.  He even gathered some stones to set off his yard.

This guy is off to live with a friend!

A Gnome Home

I got excited as I pulled fabrics and had to snap a quick iphone picture of this gnome home to be.



Have a great weekend!

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Tree Block

Lee is going to make an awesome quilt of trees - and she asked our bee to make blocks for it.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do, then totally changed my mind when I pulled out her fabrics.  I'm in the middle of planning a Ninja Training party for Becket's birthday party this weekend - so I ended up making a kind of paper pieced Bonsai tree.



Or maybe it's a tall rain forest canopy tree - perhaps Dr. Seuss.  Not sure.  But it was fun!

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The quilt shop Bee Block

I had so much fun making this block! In our bee, Cara wanted to make a house block quilt for a family with a baby in NICU as a hope for 'Home'. Click over there to see the other awesome house blocks.

I was inspired by the picture of Becket standing in front of a painted barn at the Quilt N Go shop in Michigan.  Started with the sketch Saturday night and finished first thing Sunday morning!

I pulled out some blank newsprint, cut it to 12" square as my usable area, and created a sort of paper pieced pattern for myself.

Cara's request for 'no applique' was taken as a challenge. I figured out how to make myself a semi-fluffy cloud. It was the only part of the block that was actually paper pieced. The rest of it was more for scale guidance.

At the painted barn, one of the quilts was made to look like the wind blew up a corner as they hung on a line. I wanted to add that detail, too. 

I initially planned to piece a little section of half square triangles, but realized it would break the pattern of the quilt front. So I braved it - did a mock up test - and actually inset the HST flip. Quilt Karma smiled on me for trying something new and tricky - I was pleased to see how nicely the wood grain matched all on it's own! I have a little pucker at the corner, but I decided it was a feature, making the wind rumpled fabric look realistic :)

It was so nice out, I rode my bike over and parked in under the overhang. Picked some wild flowers and fresh strawberries on the way.

That blue fabric Cara sent was perfect for a mini quilt!

I'm glad to think of a family loving this quilt, as I can hardly stand to send this block away. Would love to hang it in my sewing space!

House plans

The quilt shop has inspired a paper pieced house block....and I'm so excited to see if it works!

Planning......