Geese A Flutter baby quilt has been in the works for over a year. Can’t believe that is true. It started with an idea from the Handmade Swap last spring. Soft girly colors for a baby quilt. Shortly after our friends announced they were going to be having a girl.
I started with stacks of flying geese and started building my 4 block units. These come together rather quickly.
Laying out the blocks revealed a small hiccup with my original idea. The quilt would be too narrow.
At the IMQG retreat this winter I added thick borders. So this baby quilt is really more of a lap quilt size.
I chose the Art Gallery butterfly print in my stash as the backing. Using free motion loops I was able to quickly quilt this up. Binding is one of the blue floral prints in the quilt.
Then the quilt sat in my sewing room. It’s been done since May or so. The baby was born in December. I found the quilt while cleaning out my sewing space this summer.
It got a good tumble through the dryer, a new photoshoot, and then wrapped to send.
It’s enjoying snuggles with it’s new owner. While I say it’s my last flying geese quilt for a bit, I doubt I’m done. They make great srappy quilts and come together smoothly.
This is number 14/40 for my baby quilt goal for 2018.
The calendar turned to September 22nd and Mother Nature brought in fall with force yesterday. Temperatures dipped into the 60’s. Suddenly a jacket or sweater would be required. The air was still, perfect for taking in the transition to the new crisp weather. I grabbed my fall wreath and quickly put it up as well since the temperature finally felt right.
I embraced the change of weather by grabbing a comfy sweatshirt and working on a new Halloween quilt. Last weekend at quilt guild a member had a layer cake of Patrick Lose’s Happy Halloween fabric. It’s rustic, feminine, and perfect balance of spooky.
During this past week I sorted the fabrics and decided that a large half square triangle quilt would be right for this. The fabrics were sorted into black/white and orange. Then I just cut each on the diagonal and pieced them together. One from each stack.
Yesterday I started pressing the seams towards the orange and decided to see if I could finish before heading a friend’s house at 6pm. I love a good time challenged project. Soon I had the entire top pieced and ready to start thinking about backing.
In my stash was a lovely black and white tiny houndstooth print. It’s perfect for a backing since the print can look a little overwhelming. I pieced together a strip of halloween fabrics I had in my stash that coordinated with this layer cake. Piecing the back and pressing it took the longest out of the entire process, even quilting.
For quilt I opted for loop de loops with free motion quilting. It just blends into the quilt, allowing the fabrics to be the showcase.
I was able to finish quilting and use the remaining houndstooth for binding. Lately, a 2 inch single fold binding has been my go to. I piece the binding onto the back and turn the fabric on the front of the quilt. It’s the perfect width.
The quilt was quickly put in the washer at 5:42pm last night. Just in time for me to make it a friend’s house at 6. Once I was home I put the quilt into the washer. This morning I ran downstairs to grab it. The sun wasn’t quite up yet and it was the best time for pictures. Not too far from my house is Locally Grown Gardens. They turned an old gas station into a neighborhood produce stand with delicious locally sourced foods.
Their pumpkin selection is amazing and most years this is where my pumpkins come from. I ran over there this morning to grab a few pictures of this quilt with their gorgeous pumpkins. No filter or editing needed on the photos with the pre-sunrise light. Those blue pumpkins are my favorite and I will have to go back and get one.
The quilt measures 53″ x 53″ and is a great lap sized quilt. It is available for sale if you’re interested. P doesn’t think we need another Halloween quilt, but I think he’s wrong.
Buy this quilt and enjoy some snuggles all your own under it. Everyone needs a Halloween quilt. Email me if you’re interested.
If you like Halloween and fall stuff check out my other projects.
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.
Etsy 
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 
