Peak Hour Baby Quilt

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend. I finished up this adorable little car quilt.

Now I know it's no "knock your socks" off kinda pattern, but I am proud of this one. It is my first time putting together a pattern of my own. I love fabric and I love quilting. Trying to be creative...well, I'm not so great at that yet! Yet! I had a charm pack and 2 car strips and was determined to figure this out on my own. It is made with fabrics from the Peak Hour/Riley Blake line. I got these great fabrics from Melissa on Etsy. Her shop is craftconnoisseur and if you haven't been to her shop, you must check it out folks. She has awesome prices on this and other great fabrics. Along with that, you couldn't find a more helpful or nice person to deal with, honestly! The backing is a Riley Blake/Zoofari dot print that I also found one time on one of my trips to SAS Fabrics in Phoenix. 

The colors are so bright and cheerful, I just love this fabric for a little boy!

 

And the little classified ads...too cute!

I think this is a great quilt pattern if you only have a small amount of fabric to work with. It only takes 20.5 charm squares and the two strips. I evened the strips up at 5.5 inches. You could get two quilts with a Moda charm pack and a 1/3 of a yard of your favorite print from the same line or a coordinating fabric. The only regret I have is that it didn't end up a bit bigger. I always manage to lose an inch or two on my quilts. I've yet to figure out how this happens...I have supplies to make another one, so it will be bigger. This one I listed in my Etsy shop as well...SOLD. Maybe this will be my first tutorial once I get a few more followers. Have a great day!

Baby Plus Quilt Finished

I finally finished the baby plus quilt. I ran out of pink thread while I was doing the binding, this time I bought a big spool. I figured having 5 grand daughters now...it will get used! It is made with Sunny Happy Skies/Riley Blake fabrics in the pink colorway.

Each plus is made with (2) 3.5 inch squares and (1) 3.5 x 9.5 rectangle. This is my first plus quilt and I will most likely make more, I just love them. Luckily I had learned how to join pieces starting in the center when I made my Sweet Jane's Tea Party quilt. As I was stacking my rows up for sewing, I hit a hmmm moment. The vertical rectangles on the sides couldn't be stacked in a square like the others. So I had to sew a few rows without the end pieces, then join them all together using this method (I am still unsure what this is called). If I hadn't experienced this already, I would have had a tough time figuring out something that is quite easy. As always, no matter how simple or complicated, I learn something from each quilt I make.

 The back and binding I purchased on sale, a long time ago. It wasn't my preferred choice, but it's what I already had. I quilted along both sides of every seam, the same way I do the patchwork quilts.

It finished up at 36x44. I love this little cutey and it has been added to my Etsy shop sold!

On a different note, if you saw my Bijoux post here, I added a few pictures that turned out a bit better. 

I put together another baby quilt top a couple days ago on a whim. I had a charm pack and 2 car strips from the Peak Hour/Riley Blake line. This is my first creation of my own and I love how it's turned out. It's hard (for me anyway) to come up with different ideas using just one charm pack, and not be just squares. So I'm pretty happy that I came up with something that turned out so cute :) Just need to layer and get it quilted.

Have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

Awesome Ebay Score!!

Someone had a stack of 102 layer cake squares from Aneela Hoey's lines Posy, Sew Stitchy and A Walk In The Woods.

There are so many wonderful prints hiding under there that you can't see. I'm so excited to have gotten this. If you have bought a layer cake stack, you know they aren't cheap. I got all 102 pieces (which is about 2 and a 1/2 layer cake stacks) for less than the price of 1! Woo hoo for great fabric deals!

The whites are definitely going into a pile for a low volume quilt. I have been wanting to try one of those as well.

I should be able to get quite a few baby quilts out of all these squares. I have 3 in mind, but I am on the lookout for good baby quilt patterns to suit this line. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Weekend Sewing, Sunkissed & Sunny Happy Skies

I have a few more of my Sunkissed hourglass quilt blocks sewn. I'm afraid I miscalculated, and may have to make a few more rows.

 

 The backing also arrived

I did set this project aside for the moment. I want to get a few baby quilts made. I purchased a fat quarter bundle a long time ago of Sunny Happy Skies/Bella Blvd for Riley Blake. It has 3 colorways, so I decided to do 3 baby quilts out of this stack. I pulled all the blues and chose a simple brick quilt. The fabrics in the blue colorway are all so similar that I had to add some green and orange to give it a bit of help. The orange in the picture is not nearly as loud as it appears here. I am waiting on thread so I can get this quilted up.

For the pink colorway, I am doing a plus quilt. I've really been wanting to make a plus quilt, so I thought a baby one was a good idea. It's all cut and after quite awhile of trying to get the layout right, I have a few rows sewn. I think this will be a really cute quilt.

I haven't decided what pattern to use for the yellow yet, any suggestions?
Have a great week everyone, happy sewing!

Bijoux Patchwork Finish

This quilt is made with the line Bijoux by Bari J. for Art Gallery. I used a fat quarter bundle from Sprightly Fabrics and added in some solids.

 There are 352 three inch (finished) squares.

For the backing I chose a print from the line, ordered from Sprightly Fabrics. They are having an awesome sale thru this Fri, Aug. 16th I believe.

I quilted on each side of every seam, I love the simple and uniform look this ends up giving.

 It finished at 47 x 64.5, not quite as big as I like, but ok for a lap quilt.

As much as I love modern quilts, I still have to say traditional patchwork quilts are my favorite. This isn't the style of fabric I normally would purchase but I think it worked great for this quilt. I'm very happy with how it finished up! This is available for purchase in my Etsy shop is here. sold.

Pincushion From A Friend

I had to take a break from quilting my Bijou quilt and share a quick picture. My friend Brandy sent me the prettiest pincushion!

 

I use a magnetic pincushion so when I toss my pins in the general direction, they go where they are supposed to. I have been thinking of starting to collect some real pincushions, because well, they are pretty! She read my mind I guess. And I have really been loving navy lately so the fabric choice couldn't have been better. I just love it! And that wasn't all...

 She sent me my first spool of Aurifil, how great is that? A friend who shares Aurifil is pretty awesome, I can't wait to try it! Thanks Brandy :)

Sunkissed

A few months back, I was lucky enough to find a shop on Ebay that still had several prints of the Moda line, Sunkissed by Sweetwater. She kindly sold me 1/4 yard prints of all she had in the yellow, green and orange.

I purchased an extra half yard of the green stripe on the bottom so I had it for binding. I just started quilting a bit over a year ago and I am trying to get some of the older fabric lines rounded up that I love, but many are hard to find. I have been hoarding this stack, I love anything Sweetwater and have trouble cutting it up! I decided to use this for an hourglass quilt. I have 3 yards of Kona Maize, I chose to use that as my solid background (Not sure this works now, but...).

Over the weekend I started this next quilt. I got everything cut up. I am adding sashing between the blocks, so I cut a bunch of 2x4 strips for this. Then I chain pieced my squares, this saves so much time and thread!

Then I cut them up...

 

And ironed all those many seams open...

And sewed (I'm still wondering if sewed is really a word, hmmm) a few back together...

I'm bad about getting in a hurry and jumping ahead. I did a couple rows before finishing the blocks. It was one of those days for me, I ended up with some hourglasses turned wrong, grrrr, so I spent awhile with my seam ripper. After that it was one mistake after another, so I gave up for the day. Now my backing for my Bijou quilt has arrived, so I'm going to finish that up before working on this quilt again. I try to not have more than 2 projects going at once. Note I say, TRY :)

WIP

I won a fat quarter bundle of Bijoux by Bari J. for Art Gallery awhile back. I decided to make a lap size patchwork quilt in 3 inch (finished) squares. I added in a a couple premium solids from JoAnn fabrics and Kona berry.

I have the backing ordered and went ahead and got the binding ready to go. After it was finished I was wondering what I would do with it in the mean time. I had an empty thread spool laying on my table, so decided to wrap it up on there. I stuck a pin in it and it's all nice and tidy. I may start saving my spools for this!

Although the Bijoux line is not my normal style of fabric, I think this quilt will be lovely in the end. Looking forward to the finish!