Category: quilting

It was great to receive this bundle of Wee Wander fabric I had ordered in the mail.  Mimi fell in love with it and walked around the house clutching the little bundles to her chest–so cute!  She kept asking if I was going to make her a blanket out of it and how can I resist that?  It’s been almost a year since I’ve made a quilt so I’m looking forward to it.

I’m having trouble deciding what pattern to use.  I received a pdf of this lattice quilt pattern with the fat quarter bundle I bought and I like how I show off the prints but part of me feels like I’d like something with a little more room for creativity.

photo and quilt by Simple Girl

I like this star quilt by Allison at Cluck Cluck Sew and I think it would be cute to fussy cut squares from the prints for the centers of the starts but I’m not really convinced that this is the fabric to make this quilt with.  

photo and star quilt by Cluck Cluck Sew

I think this pattern, Fussy Framed might be the answer.  I like that allows you to fussy cut the part of the print that you want to feature AND that you can cut out two blocks at once so it will go fairly quickly.  Kate’s tutorial looks great and easy-to-follow.

photo and quilt by Kate Conklin

I have some boring sewing to take care of first (hemming curtains, bleh) but as soon as I get that out of the way I’m going to get started on Mimi’s new twin-sized quilt!

So I haven’t made much progress on cleaning out my it-could-be-featured-on-Hoarders basement this summer but I did just finish sewing another baby quilt.  Because you know, PRIORITIES.

This is “The Color Block Quilt” from Allison Harris’ book Growing Up Modern: 16 Quilt Projects for Babies & Kids. Allison runs the blog Cluck Cluck Sew which I really enjoy so I knew her book would be good (and it is!) 

I made this quilt for my good friend Kristin; her and her husband recently finalized their adoption of a sweet baby boy named Fredrick. We attended a sealing ceremony for their family in one of our temples on Saturday and it was beautiful.

To add a few personal touches I hand-embroidered Freddy’s monogram on  the front of the quilt and sewed one of my custom labels on the back.

I think I say this every time I finish a quilt but this is one of my favorites so far. I’m a sucker for rainbow color schemes and I like how the squares are offset. Also, several of the fabrics I used came from my stash which was very satisfying in a way–it made me feel thrifty and like a legit quilter 🙂 

It’s finished! This plus quilt is the latest baby quilt I’ve made. It’s for my friend Carol’s sweet baby girl, adorably named Naomi like our Mimi.

I first met Carol on a university study abroad trip (the same one where N and I started falling in loooove) and a few years ago her and her family settled in my home town.  We usually get together when the kids and I visit my folks in the summer and it’s always a highlight for me. (It doesn’t hurt that our get together usually involve all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ and foot massages.) When I heard Carol was adding a baby girl to her family of gorgeous boys I wanted to making something for her.

For the quilt top I followed this pattern by Jeni from In Color Order. Cutting out the pieces is my least favorite stage of making a quilt and it was nice to have all the planning and and dimensions worked out for me. Referring to Jeni’s pattern made it easy to change the size of my blocks from 4.5″ to 4″ which worked better for my cuts of fabric.

After I pieced the top I decided to stretch myself (and save some $$$) and machine quilt it myself. I’ve always had my quilts machine-quilted by a professional but last summer I lost my great  work-from-home job and I’m trying to spend less money in general. And since I’m having trouble cutting back on fabric, something else had to give 🙂

I picked a very simple pattern–quilting in a straight line .25″ away from each seam. While there might have been a few (okay, several) curses muttered under my breath during the process in the end I was happy with how it turned out. My lines aren’t incredibly straight, but N said it makes it “charming.”

I decided to personalize the quilt by hand embroidering the baby’s name on the front.  

And I attached one of these personalized labels I ordered online with the most amateur-looking stitching ever (also file under charming?)

And that’s it!  My next project is going to be a baby quilt for my friend Kristin’s sweet baby boy but I have yet to start cutting yet. Once I start making some progress I’ll keep you posted. 

And now since both E and Mimi are taking naps/having quiet time in their rooms so I’m going to sneak up to my own bed for a quick nap so I can hopefully finally get over a bout of food poisioning that has laid me low since this weekend. 

Several of my good friends are expecting babies in the next few months so I’ve been working on a few baby quilts.

The main print is from the line, Pierre’s Famous Traveling Circus, by Michael Miller.  I love this print–the colors are bright and cheery and the animal illustrations are very charming.  The tiger is my favorite 🙂  I made this quilt for a baby boy but I think these fabrics would work just as well for a girl.

Do you have any big plans this weekend?  I’m helping host a baby shower for my friend Stephanie tomorrow so until then I’ll be running around getting things ready and mildly freaking out as I am prone to do before any social event 🙂

Today I mailed this quilt off to a friend in the UK.

I don’t have a lot of time to spend on quilting so I’m always on the lookout for simple, quick patterns.  When I came across this tutorial on Cluck Cluck Sew and saw that it used one of the same prints I already had set aside for this quilt I knew it was fate 🙂 

I backed it with flannel and then had Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting machine quilt it with a simple bubble pattern.

I really liked this tutorial, so much so that I used it to make another quilt for another friend.  This is a great pattern to try if you’re looking for something a step up from a strip quilt. 

I am finally sending this quilt off to to my newest baby nephew.

I fell in love with Sarah Jane’s “Children at Play” fabric line the moment I saw it; it was a lot of fun to work with such great fabrics.  I can’t wait to see her new “Out to Sea” line in person!  

The pattern I used is pretty simple but I thought the long strips showed off the fabrics well.  Even though it was an easy pattern, I still had issues with clipping the corners off of some of the triangles.  (But that just adds to its charm, right?)

After I finished the top I took it to Melissa at So Shabby Quilting and she machine quilted it with a cute rockets-and-stars pattern. She does a great job so if you need something quilted I recommend her work!

I have a few more sewing projects I want to work on but to tell you the truth I’m kind of burned out right now.  Lately, my idea of being productive is folding laundry while I watch Korean dramas on Netflix 🙂