Posies and Tweets awaits a great-great-niece!

I'm blessed to be great auntie to my nieces' and nephew's children. They're all growing up so fast with two of my great-nieces now married. The oldest had her daughter in December 2013. I made Opal's Owl for her from the Remember Whooo Loves You pattern. Little Opal didn't get her quilt until her first birthday because I entered it in the county and state fairs where it won blue ribbons! The quilts I have made for my great-nieces' babies were chosen because the girls' MomMom, my sister-in-law Cindy, truly loved Irish Chain quilt patterns. It seems like nearly all of the UFOs she left behind when we lost her to cancer were Irish Chains, from miniatures to full size quilts. I stitch little bit of their MomMom (gramma) into each quilt that I make for them by choosing the pattern she loved most.

Remember Whooo Loves You for Opal

My middle great-niece and her husband just celebrated their first anniversary and are due with their first child--a baby girl--any day. I spoke to my niece several months ago and asked if they wanted me to make a quilt for the new baby. I got a definite Yes as I'm now filling my sister-in-law's shoes as great-auntie/quilter. While spending a getaway weekend in Branson, MO, my friend and I went to several quilt shops where I found some fabulous "shabby chic" fabrics that my niece said would be perfect after I messaged a picture to her. That was the beginning of Posies and Tweets, yet another Irish Chain baby quilt.

My niece said these fabrics were a perfect "shabby chic" for this quilt

This time I chose to make a double Irish Chain out of the soft brown and light blue and feature the pink print with the birds sitting on blossoming branches in the offset blocks. I played with the layout in EQ7 in order to get a sense of what size blocks I would need to make the scale I wanted for the baby quilt. Once I knew what sizes I needed, I cut the strips and strip-pieced the chain blocks as much as I could to speed up the piecing. Once the blocks were made and rows were layed out, I sewed rows together and pretty quickly had the top completed.

I added an inner border of the brown before adding the final border of the pink, pinned the layers and started quilting. I had purchased enough pink flannel to back it with, but thought the finished size would be smaller. I had come up short, but with a strip of leftover blocks added along one edge, I made it stretch quite nicely. I ditched all of the seams before quilting simple orange peel in each of the brown squares to make the chain pop, added swirls in the brown inner border, and swirly feathers around the outside border. However, I was stumped how to add something special to the pink blocks.

Looking at the quilt from the back after completing all of the stitching in the ditch, I could see possibilities, but wasn't sure how to accomplished the look I wanted. Then, while sitting at my Sweet Sixteen, I happened to spot a set of rulers I had purchased recently that include half-circles. I had a light-bulb moment and thought how fun it would be to add some curves to all of that straight piecing.

Ditch work complete and contemplating what to do next.

Being a huge fan of 54-40 or Fight blocks made with tri-rec units that create a curved look, I wondered about using the half-circle rulers to create curves where there were none. I got out my chacoliner and drew four half-circles on point in each of the pink blocks, making an on-point curved diamond in each. Following those lines, I quilted the curves and added a variety of free motion flowers in the pink blocks to complete the quilting.

The half-circle rulers added the perfect touch of curves to soften all of the straight piecing

As I was adding the final stitches to the binding, my granddaughter and I talked about what to name this quilt. We came up with Posies & Tweets because of the pretty little blossoms on the branches the birds are sitting on. I'm hoping that once little Maddy arrives that I'll get a picture of her wrapped up in her quilt to add to my scrapbook. Welcome to the world, Madelyn Estella!

A week or so into making the quilt, I got a phone call from my niece letting me know that the baby shower was scheduled for July 11 in Fresno, California. I knew I wouldn't get to attend, but had a deadline by which to get the quilt finished and shipped in time for the shower. Amazingly, I made it! I was so excited to have it done that I packaged it up and had it ready to go to the post office when I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of the completed quilt! I carefully slit the tape on the bottom of the box (the label was over the top flap, securely taped down), took it out and hung it up in my living room and took several pictures. Then it was back in the box and off to the post office.

It's amazing what we can accomplish with a request and a deadline to go with it. This quilt was completed in just a few short weeks around my teaching schedule. Fabrics were purchased the first weekend in June and it was shipped the first week of July in time to arrive the day of the shower.
I hope you've enjoyed this journey of love, making a quilt for my newest great-great-niece.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

WIP Wednesday--Misc. Projects

I spent the last three days having a sew-in with a local sewing buddy who lives about an hour away and comes to my place to camp out for a few days every month or so. It's been great fun building our friendship! We have more things in common and have become fast friends since we first met at a quilting retreat in August. I'm originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and so is she. We both ended up in Kansas, living just an hour apart. We're both avid SF Giants fans and, while I'm not much of a football person in general, I do cheer for the SF 49ers who she also loves. And the list goes on. Oh, and we both quilt, crochet, have Brother embroidery sewing machines (same model!) and we both do English smocking! Crazy! So, Sharon left yesterday afternoon after a successful visit. She spent time getting borders sewn on two of her quilts, finished two toddler bed sheets for her grandson, and got a pair of fun PJ bottoms nearly finished for her daughter. I managed to get a shopping cart cozy made for my grandson that is turning out real cute! I have a second one to cut out and assemble so my daughter and I each have one so we don't  have to remember to swap one back and forth. It's always going to be in the other car! With Jacob only 2 pounds under the weight limit for the baby car seat, it's time to get it done so he can sit in his cosy when we take him shopping and have to leave the new big-boy car seat in the car.

So this is the pattern I'm using--McCall's Crafts M5721. It's pretty straightforward and other than eliminating some of the pockets, it came together nicely. Silly me, I forgot to read the directions thoroughly and had to go back and sew around the leg holes after I had layered the top fabric on in the sandwich. Getting all of the high-loft batting stuffed into my machine was a little challenging, especially since I didn't do it first before sandwiching all three layers. Did I say I hate directions? And I learned a few things that I will change when I make the second one.

Getting the casing made for the elastic went much easier once I got the steps done in order. Oh, and I should have sewn the bag onto the back before I put the elastic in. Geez... I have to remember to do things in the right order next time.

Anyway, here it is! Hanging over my sewing chair. I added some ribbon loops to hook toys onto or a binky-strap. And I love the bag that attached on the back to hold Mom's stuff while shopping and to stuff the cover into for easy storage/carrying when not in use. Now to add a handle and a velcro patch to hold the bag closed when in storage and it will be done! I LOVE the monkeys in the trees on this fabric. I think I'll keep this one and give the Toy Story version to Ali to use. 

Next up on the project list is to get a baby quilt done for a sweet young friend of mine. Lizzie, who missed being born on my birthday by only a few hours, has been like a daughter to me since she was about 3 when her dad and I dated. She and I have kept in touch and I'm Momma Liz and on quick-dial on her phone still. She's married now and having a boy real soon. Her husband is an outdoorsy Marine and hunter and she's following suit by registering for everything in camo! Well, I'm not too sure about that, so I asked her if she trusted me when she asked me to make her baby's first quilt. Luckily she said yes and I'm going to have fun with it!

I've gone with nature prints and a small print that looks almost like camo for the backing. Typically I make things more complicated than they need to be and decided this time to keep it simple. So, I'm going to do 9"x36" strips with a 2" sash out of the gold print at the upper right (up close it looks like pheasant wings) and border it with the dark brown vines. There will be a blue strip at the top with part of "Home on the Range" machine embroidered onto it to tie in the buffalo and the deer and hook Lizzie back to her Kansas roots. This is what I came up with in EQ7 as a draft to get myself some dimensions to work with.

Now to find some blue for the sky that I like. I didn't think of this when I was buying the nature prints, so have been scouring my stash. I do have one dark stary night fabric that might work with light embroidered letters. I'm still auditioning and may have to make another trip to the quilt store. Oh darn!

That's it for today's additional WIP. I'm also getting ready to go back to the 2013 FMQ Challenge Embrace Your Love quilt, but am trying to decide if I want to dive into fabric painting or whether I want to do something different for this week's step. Hmmmm... More thinking and considering is in order.

For quilters who may drop by, I have a prayer request to put out there. My sister-in-law Cindy, who just turned 65 in October, has been rediagnosed with cancer. She went through chemo and radiation that ended two years ago when she lost her health insurance. Medicare kicked in and she's now covered and going to the doctor almost daily it seems. She is an incredible quilter, but with her health issues she hasn't been in her sewing room in way too long. There are so many quilts started or waiting to be started for her three kids, seven grandkids and two great-grandsons. She has Stage IV lung cancer and thoracic lymphoma, and this week's tests showed spots on her kidneys. Needless to say she is scared and has asked me to put her on any and all prayer lists. I'm grateful I got her snowflake quilt finished and sent to her at Christmas last month. I've told her she should take it with her to chemo as her comfort quilt when she starts treatments next week. Thank you to any who offer up prayers for her.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,

Liz