Foxes In The Desert

Just a few short weeks ago, my newest nephew was born. I have made a quilt for each of my nieces and nephews. This makes number 13. My brother and his family all really loved that 'What Does The Fox Say' song. I have never heard it - I may be about the only one on the planet who hasn't. Non-the-less, when I learned they would be having another boy, I knew I wanted to make Elizabeth Hartman's Fancy Fox Quilt. I was so anxious to make this quilt, I started pulling fabrics before the pattern even arrived! When the pattern finally did arrive, I had this cute little top put together in about 2 days! There was a lot of trimming and pressing, but all worth it. 

I've shown a few pictures here and there of my progress on Facebook. I'll share them again below, in case you missed it :)

This quilt is being hand delivered by my parents who are currently driving through 5 states to meet my new nephew, and will be arriving today. Sometimes quilts make me so happy I can hardly wait to give it to their intended. This is one of those of quilts. 

I held off on taking pictures of the final quilt for a few weeks after it was finished, only because I was going to be taking a mini-trip to Capital Reef and already knew it would be the perfect place to take pictures of these foxes. I toted it around on one of our hikes, placing it in the little 'cubbies' in the sandstone walls, finding that perfectly angled flat rock it could lay on, or over by that tree that is also very beautiful, standing tall above the rocky surrounding as if it too, was taking in all the beauty that was before it. I got left behind. A lot. 

When I finally caught up to everyone else, I saw the most perfect rock to hang the quilt from; with a little help from my mom (who is huddled along the backside).

I love this fox with the glasses on. There was a huge argument between my kids on which one I should put the glasses on. Ultimately, I decided slightly off center would be best. My boy keeps telling me where I really should have put them.

I quilted it with an all over wood grain. This is one of those patterns I felt so intimidated to do. But after squiggling it on paper a few times, quilting it was a breeze. I quickly fell into my niche, and had it quilted with in a day. Such an EASY design that I will be doing again! :)

My kids also fell in love with the foxes. They have decided that they, too, want their own fox quilt. They have been going through my stash to pick out their fabrics, and have even helped with the sewing. One top is done and currently 13 foxes into the second one. It's been fun sewing with them. I'm even more glad it's something they want to do too :)

Backtracking

I haven't been to good at keeping up on the blog lately. I've either been procrastinating or forgetful, or both. I think today's quilt falls into the 'both' category. I kept putting it off. I didn't want to spend the time downloading the pictures off my camera, not when there were other quilts, dresses and shorts to make!

And then I forgot about it.

When I found this quilt on my camera a few days ago, it took me a moment for me to remember when I quilted it, and who it belonged to. My husband's aunt made this quilt, and asked that I quilt it for her, giving me free range.

I quilted feathers down the strips, surrounded by bubbles with curved lines in all the sashing. 

I did a ribbon in the checkered border and large stipple on the outer border. 

The texture on this quilt is amazing. I love how it looks in the crisp morning light. 

Snowman Wall Hanging

This weekend, I filled the SD card in my camera. While I was searching through all the pictures to see what I could delete, I re-discovered these photos of an adorable snowman wall hanging I quilted a couple months ago. 

The only request was to have snowflakes quilted in the white hexagons at the bottom. I used a light teal thread to help the snowflakes pop. I really love how they turned out. 

2014 Challenge Quilt

I was going through the old camera again, and realized I never blogged about this quilt. My husband's aunt made this for her entry in a charm challenge at the quilt shop in her town (yes, there is only 1!). I was asked to quilt it after the contest. I love how it turned out!

She backed it with cuddle fabric and doubled the batting.

I love how the detail really pops on the cuddle.

And, makes my quilting look WAY better! ;)

Despite the beauty of this quilt, it did not win this year :(. But now she has a gorgeous quilt to cuddle up under. I think it's still a win!

Jungle Baby Quilt

Last week I machine quilted this adorable jungle themed baby quilt. 

These elephants are my favorite! I had so much fun quilting around each elephant, and did a little swirl from trunk to tail to connect them. 

A row of feathers in the strip of red. I also used red thread, which really shows up on the back :) 

Here's the back of the elephants.

In the center, I quilted a bunch of swirls. I really felt like my swirling skills improved with this quilt. 

The 2 rows next to the center where lined with ric-rac. I lined the ric-rac then did this fun design in between.

Just look at those feathers! I love the pop of color!

Can you see the little bits of frost in the background? It's been pretty chilly here this past week, and we even got our first little snow fall! It wasn't much, but I'll take it :)

I don't know about you, but I'll be spending some time behind my machine today :)

Got another little quilt to finish before the end of the week.

Hope y'all have a great day!

Busy As A Bee

In the past week and a half, I have sewn 2 quilt tops (1 for a tutorial - coming soon!), 3 quilt backs, finished 2 Halloween costumes, pin basted 3 quilts, tied 5 quilts and machine quilted 1! Needless to say, I've been quite busy lately, and I may have neglected all social media because of it.

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to machine quilt this fun Halloween quilt for my husband's aunt. It's called 'Witches Celebrate'. It is the free pattern for the Witch Hazel fabric by October Afternoon.

She gave me free range to quilt how I wanted to. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the majority of the quilt as soon as I saw it. The only part I really had to think on was the maple leaf. In the end, I decided to curve around each seam and filled in the curves with lazy eights. Quilting so small in the corners was a little tricky.  

The pumpkin was easy. I simply made curves to make the ridges in pumpkins and filled a few with ribbon candy. It was my first time doing ribbon candy. 

I love this witch! As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted the witch to have hair. Although it doesn't show much on the quilt top, I did long skinny angled triangles to look like stringy hair. Swirls in the face and zig zags mixed with straight lines in the hat. 

I left the cat alone, since it was appliqued. I did trace around it, then stippled in the background. I did piano keys in the inner border and long swirls for the outer border. 

The thread blended pretty well on the top. Luckily, the backing was all white, so you can see the quilting really well. - - not sure if that's good or bad for me :)

I loved the corners in the inner border. For the piano keys, I followed one of the skinny black lines, but the corners I fanned out to turn with the border. I love the texture in this border; I love running my fingers over it to feel all the bumps. Kinda like I used to do on my Dad's piano when I was a kid.

I still have to take pictures of the Halloween costumes I made, and of course the other quilts that are waiting to be finished. I was hoping to have my tutorial quilted before posting, but I may take pictures of the top and show it quilted later. 

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a nice day!

Brick Quilt

My friend made this adorable brick quilt for her little girl. This is the first quilt she has ever made. 

Isn't it beautiful! She did such a great job! 

Over the weekend, I quilted and bound it for her. It was a pretty rainy weekend here, which gave me the perfect excuse for staying inside to quilt :)

I quilted it with an all-over meandering rose pattern. I had so much fun with this pattern! It was so easy -- and relaxing. Before I knew it, the whole quilt was finished!

I love the wavy petals, and the texture! Oh the texture! 

Just look at all that yummy texture!

You can hardly tell, but I doubled the batting. It was so thin, it needed a little extra for fluff and warmth. 

After a quick wash, it now has that scrunchy-soft homemade feel to it.

Finished at the right time, too. It's starting to get a little chilly here. 

This quilt will be perfect for the coming months :)

Slicing It Up

A couple of years ago I bought some fabric for a quilt. I know, SHOCKER! Well, after I bought all the materials, I never got around to making the quilt. As time passed, I decided I didn't really want to make that quilt anymore, but wasn't sure what to do with the fabric I had, until Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew posted this Summer Slice Tutorial on her site a couple months ago. I knew this would be the perfect pattern for the fabric I had been saving.

I wanted to use up as much of the fabric as possible, with as little cutting as possible, so I upped the size of blocks. Although I read the cutting instructions a few times to make sure I didn't cut them wrong, I ended up cutting only half of what was needed; thinking, for some reason that it was the right amount. I didn't discover this until I had sewn up all the blocks and was trying to arrange them, ending up with 2 or 3 extra blocks.

Doing quick math in my head, I thought I figured out the missing amount to fill in the extra spaces for what I already had. Wrong again. And now I was running out of fabric! Luckily I had a few fat quarters in my stash that looked like they could match, and hopefully blend in like they were part of the original design.

I am happily pleased with the outcome! This quilt is perfect for Summer. In fact, my kids refer to it as the 'picnic quilt'.

I quilted it with squares of varying size in the secondary pattern, to give it a little more dimension.

Since I purchased this fabric for a different quilt, I had also purchased fabric for the backing. On first measurement (as in holding the fabric top up the fabric back) it didn't look like there was enough length to cover the back. So, I pieced the back in a giant 4-patch fashion, with sashing between the giant patches. I then ended up with too much on the back! Totally fine with it though. I like the green polka dots :)