Berenstain Star

It seems like I am in the middle of babypalooza right now – everyone is having babies ( and mine is only 5 weeks old) or has close friends having babies.  This means I seem to be making a lot of baby items these days.  The latest finish is heading off to a coworker of my Mom.  The Mom to be grew up reading the Berenstain Bears so it was easy to pick the fabric – the pattern on the other hand took some time to figure out.  Finally upon playing around on the Moda Bakeshop I found a great pattern I loved – Storybook Star.  I do love the incredible number of great free patterns on the Moda Bakeshop and they have great ideas for precuts.

The front uses a charm pack I had from Welcome to Bear Country and the backing is from the second Berenstain line – Bear Country School.  The green dot fabric is from Riley Blake and I love how well it goes with the other fabrics in the charm pack.

The quilt came together quickly and I quilted it straight line stitches inside the star and a simple stipple outside to try and highlight the star.  I love the straight line quilting and would do the entire quilt this way if I ever did it again.

The future owner of this quilt is due to arrive in early August, so I have a few days to figure out what to put on the label before I send it off!  Then I have 2 more baby quilts to make for fall arrivals!

Quilt Stats:

Pattern: Storybook Star

Fabric: Charm squares Welcome to Bear Country by Moda, Kona Ash, Riley Blake dots

Backing: Bear Country School by Moda

Size: 41 x 41″

Link ups:

Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

This is my first finish for the third quarter of the 2014 Finish-a-long (list of projects is here).

Beary Stars

One more baby quilt top done!  I feel like I am finally getting some things accomplished in the sewing room these days, which is good as the deadlines (and due dates) are quickly approaching.

I am making this quilt for a cooworker of my Mother’s.  The soon to be Mom grew up with the Berenstain Bears, so what better fabric to pick then Moda’s Welcome To Bear Country!  I happened to have a couple charm packs around still and found this great pattern on the Moda Bake Shop.  It came together quickly in a single afternoon!

I now have the quilt basted and am going to have start quilting it as soon as I can figure out what I am going to do.  I am thinking of trying out some stippling with loops or possibly some swirls.

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.