Hello sunshines! Hope you had a great end to your summer. I have something fun to share with you. While I have a personal connection, I’m not receiving anything for this.
Do you like children’s books? Looking for an adorable new one to add to your child’s rotation or give as a gift? Let me introduce you to:
I Love You Like…
Remember my friend Scott? Yep, the one with cancer from this post. Well he has written a children’s book.
You can visit their site here. The illustrations are stunning and bring the characters to life.
Get a copy or two of this adorable book. You get a great story and help support my friend Scott. Need more encouragement? Here’s a link to an article on the book’s origin.
A scrappy postage stamp quilt can highlight fun fabrics. Could these be an updated version of I-Spy quilts? My friend Rachael noted, “Any fabric is cute if you cut it small enough.” While I don’t gravitate towards novelty fabrics, in small bits I don’t mind them.
In this quilt there are dancing mice, owls, and cats. Can you find them above?
With this version I started to hit the last bits of a couple of fabrics. I enjoy seeing them spread across different quilts. Each time they add to the story of the quilts I have made. They look different than the last project they were used in.
For the backing fabric I chose the remnants I had of some yardage. That brown print is from Sugar Pop right? Years ago.
With all of my baby quilts I hand embroider the baby’s name for the back. I place them in the upper right hand corner. That personalized touch gets rave reviews. How to do you mark or label your quilts? I also have an iron on label that is placed in the lower left hand corner of the back.
I buy my labels from boodybabies on Etsy. There are a variety of sizes and shipping is fast.
Another quilt to share finally that I worked on at the IMQG retreat in February. Somehow I forgot to share this scrappy boy quilt that I completed in March. The baby has been snuggling on this for months.
Goodness gracious.
Prior to the retreat I had pulled orange, green, gray, and blue charms from my V&Co stash. I don’t think you can go wrong having postage stamp quilts ready to go. That’s why I keep my scraps cut into sizes versus colors that many quilters do.
Sewing and quilting is a creative outlet for me. Keeping projects around that can be done in a day or weekend really helps me stay on track and work out stress.
For quilting, I chose straight line quilting. That orange stripe binding is pretty awesome.
The back is Kona Robin’s Egg blue. All stash and scraps feel great, especially when working towards the 2018 goal.
Creating a scrap quilt allows me to combine a variety of fabrics in a cohesive way. Keeping a simple design makes it easy to sew and quilt. More importantly, it can build your confidence as you start playing with your scraps. Postage checkerboard scrappy boy quilt is a wonderful way to use scraps quickly.
Look for a tutorial coming in August 2018.
This was a quilt I started over Memorial Day weekend in my raceday create-a-thon. My scraps are two inch squares. To piece the postage stamp blocks, I went to my random pulling method.
For each block I tried to avoid same color combinations. The random method does help with that. This isn’t for every quilter, but can be a fun exercise. You should try it some time.
Kona Ash is the gray surrounding the smaller blocks. They are also two inches. I had envisioned quilting with an orange peel design, much like this quilt. Instead I went with a quick free motion quilting. Looking at the finished quilt, the blocks stand out more than the quilting.
The quilting hides in the blocks and sashing. Look at how the colors are balanced and framed in gray. While pulling fabrics I found these two fabrics for the backing.
I had just enough to make the backing. Same goes for the yellow binding. I love how it sometimes just works out. This quilt is heading to meet it’s new owner, Henry. He was born a few weeks early and it currently doing well.
Fantasia fabric has been cut into charms and sitting my my stash for some time. Since creating this quilt in 2015, I knew I wanted to make a smaller version.
Digging around for scraps before the IMQG retreat this winter, I found the remaining charm squares. They were added to the mountain of stuff I was taking just in case I wanted a simple project. A simple project is a great way to get the creative juices flowing and help you accomplish a bit more.
Saturday night of the retreat I laid the blocks out in about 15 minutes. The top came together in under and hour. A plus quilt is one of my favorite patterns. Mostly because I can use charm squares in something more than just a patchwork top.
Somehow the Kona Mint goes with this color palette. It’s out of my element for sure, but it’s a fun touch. Again I kept the quilting simple.
No crazy machine troubles this time. The backing is pieced with left over bits of the fabric line.
The binding is a Kona solid. Soft green and a bold pink are an interesting combination. The blues are a great accent color.
This quilt is looking for a new home. Are you interested? It’s for sale on my Facebook page for $75 plus shipping. Buying a handmade quilt is a wonderful gift. I add a personalized touch of the babies name if you know it.
You can still find some Fantasia in shops. One of my favorite shops, StitchStashDiva, still has some available here.
Have you ever been stuck when it comes to naming something? Over the last few weeks, giving this quilt the best name has evaded me. Thank you to my wonderful Facebook followers for some suggestions. One suggestion was sea glass. I added the sparkling since the background fabric is silver metallic dots on white. Plus, it truly sparkled in this picture.
Background
Shout out to Nicole at Modern Handcraft for sharing her scraps from the IMQG retreat this winter. While I’m not sure what project the blue scraps are from, but there was enough to spark an idea. She had these castoff triangles that I wanted to pair with the same background fabric all over.
I was able to pick up the white with metallic silver dots, the metallic silver crosshatch, yellow and orange solids also at the retreat. The blues needed something else to complete the look. So why use the yellow and orange solid too.
The triangles were trimmed to three inches.
Time to chop up the dots for background fabric.
Conveniently, I had a sew day planned for race day here in Indy. Hubby rode out to the Indy 500 and P was away at the lake. Look how cute these trimmings are.
I had everything cut out before the race. Did you know in Central Indiana the race is blacked out for the live broadcast? We can watch a taped version usually around 6pm after the race. It’s been this way my entire life. Growing up we listened on the radio to the race every year. So I turned on P’s Lighting McQueen radio to listen to sew.
During the race I was able to get all the triangles pieced and another quilt top started. Now it was time to trim and sort.
Some of the colors were so close together, it was hard to tell. Piecing the rows went smoothly. The piecing was done with the random method I have done before. It can be challenging to not overthink this part of the process
Beautiful rows were sewn together and a top was suddenly finished. Take a look at this picture? I think it’s stunning.
Quilting
The backing is a Robert Kaufman light gray crosshatch on white. I kept the quilting simple with straight lines on the rows. However, my machine decided to be a royal pain in the ass. It was just in for service and I’m dealing with this crap?? UGH! The stitching was ripped out multiple times.
Finally something worked and this quilt got finished. I was able to photograph as the sun started to set, giving this warm glow.
My favorite detail in this quilt is in the binding. I ran out of the silver metallic crosshatch with three inches to go. Scraps of the blue solids were added to make up the length. It’s the perfect touch on this quilt.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 
