Basket Quilt

I finished the Basket quilt and thought I would share.

This was a Buggy Barn pattern.

I used a bunch of older Moda lines that are super soft.

I had 12 baskets finished and made 24 more to make this larger.

For some reason Hallie really liked that block with the pastel multicolored star.

I used a vintage sheet that I had on hand for the backing.  

Kathy at Threadbear Quilting did the quilting.

I'm not sure what I am going to do with this just yet. 

 It certainly is very feminine and soft! I do have someone in mind to gift it to.

Could it be YOUR new quilt?

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Friday.

~XOP~

Ocean Waves

I know you all may think I have forgotten about my Ocean Waves Quilt Along but I have NOT. 

 I have been steadily working towards getting all my blocks finished. 

It takes forever just to prep all the HSTs that go into each and every block!

I sewed up three blocks worth of HSTs over the weekend.  

I got one block's worth pressed. 

 Last night I pressed one more set of HSTs and then trimmed 2 blocks worth.  

The pressing and trimming took me an hour. 

 I still have one more set to press and trim!  That's just to be ready to sew. 

 I have had a goal of sewing one OW block per month and so far I have kept to that.  

I have 19/36 completed.

Here is what one blocks worth of HSTs looks like after trimming.

And this is the second block.

All I have to say is THANK GOODNESS for my Bloc Loc ruler!!!  

I would be completely insane without it!!!  

These HSTs are all trimmed to 2.5". 

 If you need a Bloc Loc ruler to make your life easier please go here and buy one!  

Another MUST have is the Clearly Perfect.  

You no longer need to draw lines on your squares.  

Just follow the line and sew!  

Do you have any idea what a time saver this is??? 

 Imagine that I have 24 HST in each quarter of my block.  

That's 96 HST per block and there are 36 blocks, so 3456 HST!!!  

If I had to draw lines on all of those I would be driving further down the road to crazy.  

If you need your own Clearly Perfect, 

go visit my friend, Cori's shop (Crazy Quilt Girl Fabric Shop) and pick one up.  

You can get the Bloc Loc and the Clearly Perfect at the same time and save on shipping too.  

I will have a finish to share with you all tomorrow too.

What are some of your favorite "must have" notions?

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

I have been working diligently on finishing some older projects.  

I hauled out the HSTs and did some sewing so now need to do some more trimming.  

Can't make more blocks without more HST units.

I have 19/36 blocks made for this quilt.  

I've been striving to make one each month.  I think I need to make 2 each month.

I met a friend for lunch last week and she gave me this crocheted Jack the cat.  The cats love him.

 I am almost finished with the binding on the basket quilt.  I can't wait to be finished and to show it.

So, really that's all I have been up to.  I finished the binding on the green quilt which I need to photograph too.

I am linking up with Sew Fresh Quilts.

Now it is your turn to link up here.

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

My List

I was not feeling particularly productive this weekend.  

I have a million things to work on and zero motivation to work on any of them.  

What's up with that??

I finished the quilt for the church and delivered that to the woman that asked me to make it.  

I completely forgot to take a photo of it all done though.  

I decided to tackle a project I had been putting off for awhile.  

When I was in California last year I visited some old friends.  

One of them has kids.  

When her middle daughter was born two of my friends in MI and I made a quilt for her 

(we made them for all of her kids). 

While I was visiting these friends the little girl took me into her room and 

showed me the dolly quilt on her bed.  

She was so proud of that quilt!  

Then she pointed to one of the dolls on the quilt and asked me if I would make her doll a dress?  

I smiled and asked if maybe she would like a skirt instead.  

To which she replied very enthusiastically "YES, and one for my dolly"!  

HAHA no good deed, am I right?

Later during the visit we all walked to a fabric shop and she chose some over priced, adorable fabric.  I realized there was not enough to make a doll dress AND a skirt,

 but I really was not planning on making the dress. 

 I was at JAF during one of their pattern sales a few months ago and 

picked up a doll dress pattern that looked pretty simple.  

It is a Simplicity pattern.

Amazingly I found an AG knock off for $15 and bought that too 

(for the dress I was not going to make).

Here is the skirt from the chosen fabric.

Here is the doll dress with the matching skirt.

They really did turn out cute.  

This package will be on it's way to California soon to a special little Miss.

Lord help me, I hope she doesn't need more dresses for her!

~XOP~

Double Finish

You saw the Totoro quilt I made for my new great nephew.  

Well my other niece just had a baby too (they are SILs).  

I had not made a quilt for her first baby as my SIL (her mother) is also a quilter. 

 I got UNENDING grief over that from her, LOL. 

 How those babies needed a quilt from their Aunt Pam 

(Never mind their grandma had mad them a gazillion!!)  

So I decided that when this new baby came I would make one for each of the girls.

I thought this mermaid was perfect for the "big" sister.  

I found the cutest gold metallic stripe for the binding.

The mermaid pattern is by Kidgiddy and can be bought here, if you need to make one too.

Just note that I designed my pattern around the mermaid.

I also mirror imaged her which is not in the original pattern.

One mermaid was done with silver metallic accents

The other was done with gold metallic accents.

This is the finished quilt front.

I was kind of excited about this label too.  

The floss was variegated and I added in some sparkly filament.  

I think this silly girl loved the minky back the best!

For her sister's quilt I decided to keep going with fantasy and made a unicorn quilt.  

The unicorns are paper pieced (like the mermaids).  

I continued the sparkly fabric too and used it liberally!  

I was super excited to find the gradated fabric that I used for the inner border and the binding. 

   

Notice that some of the unicorns have the same stripe for horns that I used for the other binding!

Kathy, of Threadbear Quilting, quilted it with magic wands in variegated colors and it is just perfect!

These were so fun to make!

Pattern is by Unicornharts and can be found here if you need to make one too.

The back is castles and unicorns in flannel.

More variegated floss (without sparkle) for the hand embroidered label.

One happy little baby wrapped up in her new quilt!

I am so happy I can finally share these finishes with everyone!

I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for finish it up Friday.

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Happy Stitching!

~XOP~

She's Engaged!!!

My daughter got engaged last weekend on Saturday!  

My hubby and I knew it was supposed to happen.  

We were so happy and excited when they called us on Sunday!

I love the look on his face in this photo!

Congratulations to the happy couple!

He did a great job choosing the ring!

Let the wedding planning begin!!

~XOP~

WIPs With Friends

Since instituting my Google monthly goal spreadsheet with my friends I find

 I am being even more productive than I was before. 

 It is crazy, but I put some pretty lofty goals on it each month then kill myself to achieve those goals.  Now, every month won't be like that but for now it is working for me.

I have been working on some binding (with a helper of course)

My oldest daughter used to draw dragons. 

 She drew this one a long time ago and I promised I would make him into a quilt. *sigh* 

What was I thinking??  

Well I have come across him again and think he needs to go on the list of things to work on. 

 I blew up the drawing and have traced all the parts on to fusible.  

That is as far as I have gotten, LOL. 

 His name is Prismata.

On my goal sheet is also doing my Bee blocks every month and I finally did this month's blocks.

I also put one Ocean Waves block on the monthly goal list.  Here is this month's block.

Additionally I have been working to finish the green quilt's binding. 

I am almost finished with this one.

I leave you with Finny giving me a couple of "shaky" hugs. 

 He wraps his little paws around my arm and just squeezes so tight his whole body shakes! 

 It is the cutest!

Now it is your turn to link up with what you are working on.

Click on the linky button to add your project

~XOP~

An InLinkz Link-up

Friday Finish

I have several quilts that I have not been able to post about and this is one of them.  

My niece and nephew were expecting their rainbow baby. 

 I asked about what they were going to do the nursery in.  then answer was "Totoro".  

Say WHAT?!?  

I had absolutely zero idea what that was. 

So, Google to the rescue.  

I looked and LOOKED for something I thought would make a great quilt.  

I saw loads of cute things but didn't think I could translate them into quilts.  

First order of business though was to make a chenille blanket for them.  

I actually found some cute Totoro fabric to use for the back of the blanket.  

Here it is all finished.

I LOVE to make these for baby showers.  They are so soft, babies just love them!

I was swooning over the blue and green chenille.

This is daddy taking baby Q home from the hospital, wrapped in his chenille blanket.

This is the painting I fell in love with. The big animal in the center is Totoro. 

I thought it was so adorable and I thought I could make a quilt from it.  

FIRST though I had to ask the artist if I had permission to do so.  

Sakura Dragon, gave me permission to do it. 

I bought a print of this for the baby's room and framed it.  

That was also part of the shower present.  

This photo doesn't really do justice to how gorgeous the print really is.  

This is what I came up with!  

I LOVE how it turned out. 

 I used minky for the three little animals 

(which I had never done before). 

The quilting could not be more perfect!  

Done by Threadbear Quilting.  

Well done, Kathy!

The little black balls are called Soot Sprites.  

I had the hardest time trying to decide how to make them. 

In the end I chose a black fabric that had lines of different sized white dots running through it. 

 Some of the dots were close to the others so I cut out fusible circles and 

fused them so there were white "eyes" positioned where I wanted them.  

Then if there were any of the neighboring white dots showing, 

I colored them in with black permanent marker! 

 I was pretty pleased with myself!!  

Finally, I did a french knot in black in each white to form the eyes.  

To make the spikes, I free motion stitched around them and worked my way around each circle making the spikes thus securing the circles at the same time.  

I did the scribble stitching around all of the rest of the applique to outline everything and 

free handed the sprouts near the acorn.  

This shows the quilt (prior to my outlining anything) next to the inspiration painting.

So you see that you can take anything you find and turn it into a quilt 

(well maybe not anything, LOL), 

just be sure to ask permission if it is someone else's artwork! 

 I sent a photo of the quilt to the artist too.  

I will leave you with this adorable newborn photo that shows the hand embroidered label on the Totoro quilt. 

(Photo credit Grace Street Photography)

I am going to link up with Crazy Mom Quilts Friday Finish post.

I hope you enjoyed learning about my process.  Have a happy weekend!

~XOP~