I've Been Quilting Baby Quilts!

At the end of last year, I went on a little quilting binge. I was anxious to make another quilt, but didn't need another big one, so I thought I would make a couple smaller ones. At one point I thought about selling them as baby blankets on Etsy. Maybe some day when I get it down! But these two were good practice!

Let me start out by saying, I LOVED the fabric in this collection I found on Missouri Star Quilt's website. At the time I had a neighbor and a sister having a baby boys but I still went the girl route anyways when picking out fabric. I'm not normally a "pink" person either...but I loved the elephants mostly. As soon as I got them in the mail, I set out to sew them the next day after picking out the matching pinking fabric. 

I had a heck of a time getting it square. Luckily my mom was in town and was able to give me a few pointers. After she showed me how to sandwich the quilt top with the batting and the backing, it was a lot more square. Still not perfect, but much better. 

When I serged the edged though it ended up wavy...It drives me nuts. I had been having problems with the tension on the serger, so I feel like that was most of my problem...

After I finished it up, and nearly ran out of thread on the binding, I was so thankful to just be done with it. This was the first quilt that I quilted on my own. I used my small portable sewing machine - the one I curse at a lot. While the back has it's own problems, it's still nice to snuggle up in with Charlotte every so often. 

 For Christmas Perry got his mom and my mom together to go shopping for a new sewing machine for me. I think he was really tired of hearing me curse at the one I had. It got the job done but... So he gathered the mothers together since he knows nothing when it comes to sewing machines, and had them pick one out for me. The one they decided on was a Pfaff Quilting Expressions machine. This machine has free motion quilting on it so I'm able to tell it where to go instead of turning my fabric in hundreds of directions. And it has built in scissors so I don't have to clip my thread when I'm done sewing. Pretty cool! There is also no lever to move the presser foot up and down - it does it automatically! It's the simple things... Anyways, this was the other quilt top I made last year and after quilting the other one, I just stuffed this one away because I was kind of over it. And then I got the machine...

 I've done a few projects on it already, you know, like mending 300 pairs of jeans because my boys clearly use their knees more than their feet... I practiced pebbling a small blanket for Charlotte's babies... I made a Bible cover for Hunter and pebbled it as well... So with that little practice I thought I was ready to get this quilt top out and finish it up.

 I had no idea what I wanted to do to it, but I really liked the flowers and they seemed easy enough. I didn't anticipate doing the square meandering over the whole but it ended up that way. I was going to pebble in between the flowers, but because I was working with flannel, it was really hard to move, so pebbling was out. I'm impressed with how it turned out! An other than the binding, I was able to complete the quilting portion of it while Perry was out of town. (That means I was able to leave all my sewing stuff out on the kitchen counter for the week!)

I've been wanting to make a quilt for my dear friend Britta because she's had a rough year, but she won't pick out a darn pattern she likes! I've got one in mind already, but I did recently fall in love with a hexagon quilt and bought fabric to make it already so hers might be next after this one...

Stacked Squares: A Quilt for my Patio

Not long after I finished my first quilt (we *still* need to add our handprints to it...), I was ready to make another one. I hadn't spent much time perusing Pinterest when I came across this one called Stacked Squares.  

Quilt by Erica Jackman

To make this quilt, I used the directions found on this page. The tutorial is very straight forward and easy to follow, despite how it looks!

I actually enjoyed making this one more than the first one - mostly because I didn't have to rip out nearly as much and I had more of my own touch to it. Hunter and JP went to Bible School every morning for a week in July and I hunkered down and sewed the top of the quilt together in a week. 

 It took me another week to get the back done, which used most of the scraps from the top. Do you know how hard it is to lay a quilt out on the floor with kids home? Nearly impossible!

The back was especially challenging because I wanted it to look like the squares on the back were stacked too. (On the quilt I had seen, she laid the miscellaneous pieces out randomly in a row.)

For those of you wanting to make your own "Stacked Squares" quilt, you can follow the original pattern or use my altered measurements below.

Fabric needed for the top:

*2 Jelly Rolls (I used Hoffman Macaron Bali Pops) 

*1 Layer Cake bundle (I used Mormor by Lotta Jansdotter)

Cutting:

Trim each of the 10x10 squares to 7.5 inches. I have no idea why I did this in the first place, maybe to build my scrap stash?!

Cut coordinating jelly roll strips, to form inside square, into 2 strips measuring 7.5in x 2.5in, and 2 strips measuring 11.5in x 2.5in.

For the outside squares, cut coordinating jelly roll into 2 strips measuring 11.5in x 2.5in and 2 strips measuring 15.5in x 15.5 in.

Follow the directions in the link above for the step by step but the gist is sew your squares together, then cut each square into four squares. Lay them out to make them looked stacked and then sew the rows together.

Before you know it, it'll be time to quilt it! But make sure your blocks all make sense! I studied mine over and over and I just now realize one section is a little off. That'll bug me now! (Even the quilt above has a mistake on it!)

The back was going to be an off-centered cross, but I ended up having barely enough fabric to finish off the corner. I had my mom quilt it for me - she practiced a few new stitches on it and managed to free motion quilt all of our names plus a few more words, like laugh, love, family, onto it too. The quilting turned out great! As I said, it's a quilt for my patio, but I've only used it indoors! The kids have learned both quilts are great for forts!

My First Quilt

I visited the farm during spring break at the beginning of April. While I was there, my mom had a few of her quilting magazines out, so I browsed through a few. I mentioned to her that I was thinking about making a quilt that my family could use on picnics. Then she took me upstairs to the quilting loft and pulled out some patterns that she already had. 

 Within a few days of getting home, I went to the quilt store, which is practically across the the street from my house, and bought fabric. By the end of the night, I had everything cut out and ready to sew. 

 And by the end of the week, I had the top almost done.

 When I laid it out on the floor though, I decided it was going to be too small. I wanted it big enough for all of us to fit on it, and so that Perry could lay on it. After another trip to the store, to get more fabric, I was back to sewing on three columns to each row and then two additional rows to the bottom. (Roxy's back leg was originally how wide it was.)

 But once I had the additions sewed together, I realized how uneven it was so I spent another solid week ripping out and re-sewing the first few sections I did so they would line up better. (The left row was about 5 inches shorter than the right row...)

I sent home with Robin when she went to her friends' bridal shower and my mom quilted it for me.

Surprisingly, only a month later, I am happy to say it's *completely* done. Okay not completely. To personalize it a little, we're going to put our hand prints on it, and then have people sign the back when they use it with us. Picnic anyone?

Do you know how hard it was to get this picture? Hunter and JP have been eagerly waiting for it to be done so we can go on a picnic that all they wanted to do was sit on it while I took a picture.

 And then Kiki joined in...

 I seriously have no good pictures of the three of them together. This is how they all turn out. One kid looking, usually it's the baby...

This girl LOVES being outside. Can't believe she'll be *one year* next week!