Girl on Swing

When I made that giant quilt for Kate, I had a ton of scraps left over. Recently I found this tutorial and decided it was perfect for all those scraps! I quickly cut them all down to blocks and ironed them onto my base fabric, and then it sat there forever waiting for me to quilt it. =) I finally finished it this weekend and love it! Aneela Hoey rocks for sharing that tutorial, especially for free!





Such an awesome mini-quilt, and I didn't have to buy a single thing for it. The fabrics are Kona Cotton in white, a random array of Amy Butler fabrics and scraps from here and there for the tree and dress.

I should have done something like this first. The size of it was so easy to manage while I was quilting. This one is going to go over Kate's bed as soon as I can part with it over my sewing machine. =)

Kate's School Bag

My husband is a wonderful stay at home Dad who recently started a part time sales job that he can do at home. After the first few weeks he realized he really needed some daytime hours to do some work and it's hard with Kate home. She's 19 months old now, and quite the chatterbox. And her naptime is usually around 12 or 12:30, and my 3.5 year old comes home from preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1, so he didn't have much time to get anything done. He wanted to enroll Kate in the same school Dash was in, and it kind of broke my heart. She's so tiny! I know, I'm being silly, but I really had a hard time letting her go. One of the few things that made it easier was deciding to make her a school bag. I couldn't let her go to school with her stuff in a plastic bag. ;)

I took one of my favorite purses that is actually a small diaper bag and just traced the dimensions on paper. It's a pretty basic bag design (and my first attempt at this kind of applique, don't laugh) so it came together quickly. Next time I'll choose blockier characters. :)

Here's the front:



And the back with the fancy pocket. :)

Birdie Stitches of the Month

I love embroidering but I don't do it much. I came across this block of the month though that featured embroidery and the patterns were right up my alley. Here is block one:



And block two:



I washed the white fabric so it wouldn't shrink in the wash, which I still think was a good move. however, I washed the charm pack used for the border (I should have just been able to quarter each 5x5 square to make each little square) and they shrank too, of course, so they weren't quite 5x5 anymore. What a mess. The first one, I did the best I could and just did the seam allowance smaller than I usually do and trimmed them up at the end. The second one, I cut the charm squares in half, sewed them together and then cut the long strip in half so I made two sides with one cut. WAY easier.

The Birdie block of the month can be found here and if you look over on the right hand side she has a link to each block so far and the supply list. Super fun.

http://www.littlemissshabby.com/

Quilt number 4

I know, I'm missing number 3. :) I was so down to the wire on quilting that one that the only picture I took of it was in my car while I was driving to the baby shower. It's the same as this one though, just different fabrics. That one used Urban Zoologie, this one uses Alexander Henry and a ton of random fabrics.

This one was for my friend Amanda who welcomed her little boy at the end of January. She loved that Alexander Henry print and we just coordinated the rest from all over the place.





This pattern is from Oh Fransson, you can find it here. I can't say enough about her patterns. They are SO easy to follow. She tells you how to cut it, and her directions for piecing are crystal clear. Plus, there are actually 3 patterns in that one PDF, such a good deal.

My Very First Quilt

After my little girl was born in 2009, I wanted to make something girly for her. I always admired quilting but thought it was WAY too hard for me, I didn't even know where to get started. I came across Oh Fransson and she had a great step by step tutorial on getting started. I found a quilt I liked over at Retromummy and decided to give it a shot. I had NO idea the quilt I was making was a twin size quilt. :) I just saw it and liked it and started cutting. After I pieced the first row I realized I had bitten off quite a big hunk for my first quilt!! It all turned out ok though and by the end of it, I had free-hand quilting down pretty well. :)

See? It doesn't look that big does it?





And RIGHT behind that was my second quilt:



Maybe I had a bit of a thing for Amy Butler fabrics. :) I really need to post a picture of that finished quilt. It's backed with a minky rip off and straight line quilted, my daughter sleeps under it every night. I LOVE that quilt. Probably my favorite so far.

the second one was CONSIDERABLY better, especially the corners. Again, the Oh Fransson tutorials are awesome. That pattern is here.

Introduction

Hi! My name is Colleen and I'm new to quilting. I started my very first quilt in September of 2009 and I've been on a quilting spree ever since. I have a personal blog that I update with info about my kids but I really wanted a separate blog where I could focus on quilting. So here it is! Let me catch up for a bit and then I'll get this show on the road!