Coastal Cruiser

I am busy working on some Christmas presents for this year, because as we all know handmade presents are the best! First on my finishes for this year’s Christmas is a pillow for my brother in law.

My bother in law loves VW vans (well so does my Husband for that matter) and has been restoring one for the last few years. I knew when I saw the Coastal cruiser by Tula Pink pattern last year that it would be perfect for him, but at the time he was living with a bunch of guys and I had a feeling that a throw pillow would not be highly appreciated. He has since moved and I was told that his living room needed some color, so I am hoping this pillow will do trick.

The van is done in raw edge applique and I hand embroidered the logo before putting it on the pillow.  I love the way the colours turned out – like a van driving down the beach.  The only thing I think it is missing – a surfboard on the roof!

Well, that is one more thing to cross of my Finish a long list for this year! Now onto the second pillow!

Link ups: Lets Bee Social, Sew Cute Tuesday, Needle and Thread Thursday

Mug Rugs!

A friend of mine had requested some mug rugs to give to some family members for Christmas.  Well her plans changed and she ended up going to Europe to visit her Grandparents for the holidays (yay for her).  In all the haste of trying to get them to her in time, I forgot to take pictures – oops.  thankfully she was nice enough to take a few pictures for me before she left.

I did a few different designs, mostly whatever I felt like making when I pulled out the fabric.  Thankfully they turned out okay and my friend was pleased with them!  There is a mix of pieced and raw edge applique.

I am thankful I was able to finish these in time for her to take with her, and that I have a another project crossed off my WIP list and for the Finish along 2013.  As an added bonus, I was also able to use up some of my scraps as well.

Happy holidays everyone!  Hopefully I will get another finish in before the end of the year, but it is doubtful.

Beary Bubbles

I have been working on this quilt for a few weeks now in a rush to try and get it done for a friend’s little boy.  This little boy is going to have a lot of changes coming this summer – he is moving out of crib into a real bed and is getting a little sister in just a few more weeks.  I love making baby blankets, but I also like making the older siblings feel special when they get a new little one in the house.  When I asked my friend if she would like a quilt for her little boy, she asked if I could make one for his new twin bed that he would be moving into.  The only thing she could really tell me is that he loves Winnie the Pooh, (he is only 2 after all..).

I had been wanting to make a bubble quilt for a little while and thought this would be a great reason to do so.  I could keep it simple for him so he can use it for a few years and enjoy the bright colours without it looking to babyish. There have been several bubble quilts around the internet, but I based my quilt off a Moda Bake Shop tutorial for a Skittles Quilt by Piece N Quilt. I wasn’t using an ombre background so I simply cut 2 strips of the background wide enough and sewed together to make it long enough.  I used my Accuquilt Go Baby cutter to cut out the circles from a Welcome to Bear Country charm pack I had.  I pieced the “back” of the quilt, basted it and then glued the circles onto the quilt tip with a fabric glue stick.  I used my quilting to sew the circles on (the same sort of idea as Amanda Jean Nyberg’s Ticker Tape Quilt.

For the quilting, I tried my hand at circles for the first time.  Not all of them are very even circles (some are a little wobbly and others a little more like ovals), but I like the overall effect.  I filled in the sides with a stipple to help the circles look like they were floating up the quilt like a stream of bubbles.  The quilting of this was definitely the most time consuming part, and my arms are a little tired from tugging this around through the machine for the last few days!

I also decided to try a new way of binding the quilt using the backing and just folding it over.  I followed this tutorial on Sewn up, and I must say this was an easy fast way to bind a quilt.  I love the way it looks on the back but am having mixed feelings about the front.  My binding ended up much winder than the original tutorial so I think I must have folded something wrong along the way.  I will most likely try this again and play with it a little more to get the front to a point that I love it as well.

This quilt is in its new home and I am hoping making one little boy like his new bed!

 

Quit Stats:

Size : 66″ x 85″

Top: Kona Sour Apple, Welcome to Bear Country

Backing: Winnie the Pooh (can’t remember were I got this, oops), Kona Ash strip, name is in Simply Colour

 

I am linking up to Finish it up Friday hosted by Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Bloggers Quilt Festival – Applique Quilt

I have decided to enter a quilt into this year’s Blogger Quilt Festival this year.  This is a quilt that is a little older, but it is still one of my favorites.  I made this quilt for my Grandparents 50th Wedding Anniversary.  To celebrate their wedding and their life together, I decided to make them a family tree quilt.  Each branch represents one of their children while the grandchildren and great grandchildren are on the leaves coming off their parent’s branches.  Not all the leaves have names (we aren’t quite that fertile!), but represent the generations to come.

The tree is cut from one piece and machine appliqued onto the background.  The leaves and medallions have family members names printed on them (fabric was fused to sheets of steam a seam and ran through an inkjet printer) before being raw edge appliqued onto the quilt.

For the quilting, I tried to make the trunk and branches of the tree look like bark, and I wanted to outline the leaves to make them standout on the background.  The background of the quilt is done in a tight stipple to help the leaves stand out.  I love how it turned out and you can still see the tree by the quilting on the back!

I hope you enjoyed my quilt and you check out some others in the festival!

Jungle ABCs

A friend of mine asked recently if I could make a baby quilt for a friend of hers.  I love making baby quilts, so any excuse is welcome!  The fabric for kids is adorable and the quilts come together so much faster than the larger quilts. This particular quilt was going to be for a little boy and the nursery was being done in an woodland theme.  After a little looking around I found the Life in the Jungle fabric by Doohikey Designs for Riley Blake.

 This great quilt on Etsy served as inspiration for design.It was adorable and my friend loved it.  It looked like it would be easy enough to make as I only had a week between arriving back in the country (I was leaving for vacation a couple days after she emailed me) and when the baby was due.  I picked up a fabric panel and a jelly roll and had them waiting for me when I got back.  Using the original quilt as inspiration I started cutting – the precut strips made putting this together a breeze.

I cut out squares from the panel and gave them each a border with a jelly roll strip.  I had to do a little measuring for the longer rectangle as it was a little skinnier than the other blocks from the panel.  I think it worked out okay with a border that is a little wider.

Along the bottom I raw edge appliqued the baby’s name and then quilted with a simple stipple.  The binding is a scrappy binding that I made with the leftover strips of the jelly roll that I had not used to border any of the panel blocks.  The backing is Roll Call in green fabric from the Life in the Jungle collection.

It is going to its new home this week!  It feels good to finally complete a quilt this year!