Photo Finish: A Finished Quilt

Oh my gosh, so apparently I never blogged about my finished Polaroid quilt? Yikes! It has been done for a few months! And I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE it. Can't emphasize that enough.

This was a bucket list quilt for me and I made most of the blocks myself plus a few sewn in from some quilty peeps on the East Coast (Hi Jen!). I used Kona Navy as the sashing and am quite chuffed about that decision, let me tell you.

Each "photo" is different and my kids can't stop looking at it when it is out and about. I need to find a way to put it into more regular rotation while still staying FAR AWAY FROM MY DUMB DOG (who eats quilts, if you're new here).

Here is Photo Finish (and did I mention I love it?):

Spunky Stack: A Finished Quilt

My younger daughter was in Junior Kindergarten this year and had an ECE (Early Childhood Educator) in her classroom along with her classroom teacher. My daughter has no idea which teacher has which role just that she loves them both and they encourage her and love her. So OF COURSE I needed to make a quilt not only for her teacher but also for Ms. S, her ECE.

I really liked the Stack Quilt pattern by Modern Handcraft and thought this would be a great opportunity to try it out. Then once I did my fabric pull...oh man, I was jazzed (I even cut two because I think I want to make another one with the same fabrics!)

And thank goodness that Cyrus also did a fabric inspection. Look at that Alison Glass! And the Tula! And the Lizzy House! And the Sarah Watts! 

The pattern is really well written and comes together quite quickly. I then added lots of white space at the top and did some simple straight line quilting. Here is Spunky Stack:

The backing is Lizzy House mini Pearl Bracelets (can you tell that I both love Lizzy House AND that Sew Sisters had this fabric on for $10.99/m??). I think this is the Aqua colour.

Ms. S LOVED her quilt and I hope she gets lots of love out of it. My daughter wrote the label for this one, too. Giving quilts to teachers seems super satisfying!

Brilliant Banners: A Finished Quilt

I really wanted to make a Banner Year Quilt by Andrea Tsang-Jackson of 3rd Story Workshop since I saw her pictures of it on Instagram. I figured a year end teacher quilt was a perfect reason to put one together!

I also thought that this pattern screamed out to be made out of scraps and I always have an abundance of blues so I dumped out my bins and paired a whole bunch of solids with patterns so that each banner would have both. 

I did mess up the placement of one of the banners which caused another banner to be in the wrong place but I take this to be an artistic choice instead of a mistake. Are you with me?

Here is Brilliant Banners:

The lap size was slightly smaller than I expected but now I know for next time.

There ended up being a range of blues AND greens to create some interest (and use up more scraps).

The back is more trusty Lizzy House mini Pearl Bracelets in Dragonfly. There is a handwritten label (by my 5-year-old) in the corner which makes it even more special IMO.

This quilt went to my Junior Kindergarten's teacher, Ms. M. My JK LOVED school this year and absolutely thrived under Ms. M's care and so I was delighted to gift her this quilt and that she was totally surprised! (Honestly I thought that by now the teachers at that school would compare who had my kids since I always make a quilt! Ha!)

Jungle: A Finished Quilt

A lovely human being at work, whom I consider both a co-worker and a friend, was having a baby. And we all know what that means. Baby quilt!

She did not want to find out the sex of the baby and decorated the nursery using a jungle theme and I knew JUST the Rifle Paper Co. fabric to make her vision happen.

Here is Jungle:

 This pattern is called Zebra Crossing and you may recognize it because it is maybe my sixth time using it? It makes such a sweet, quick baby quilt that highlights the fabrics but doesn't take too much time.

 You can see the Rifle Paper Co. fabric I started with. And look at those Cotton + Steel tigers!! Aren't they precious? I am all heart-eyes over the fabrics in this quilt!

 Including some Lizzy House mini Pearl Bracelets on the back! (In Dragonfly). 

It was gifted June 26 and good thing because this sweet baby boy arrived two weeks early on July 1! His wonderful mama already sent me this picture of him snoozing on his new quilt. Couldn't you just eat him?

Meadowland QAL

I have wanted to make a Meadowland Quilt ever since Then Came June released her pattern. I bought the pattern but assumed it would sit, as many patterns have, waiting to be made. Then it was announced there would be a Quilt Along and I figured that was my push to actually get one done!

Not to be reasonable, I decided to try to make TWO Meadowland quilts at the same time. One for my daughter with a bundle I curated close to two years ago and one with a bundle to make a quilt as a gift that is for secret sewing.

These are the two bundles I curated. Secret sewing on the left, quilt for my daughter (who is 10) on the right.

A closer look at the bundle for my daughter's quilt.

The piles to make the blocks seemed huge.

Mixing and matching them was interesting having never done it before. I learned afterwards that I prefer more monochromatic blocks.

First five done.

Look how cute one block looks!

The finished quilt top didn't come out quite how I intended (I decided I like a bit more restraint in colour to make this pattern pop) but I will finish it this summer and move on to the next one (that I need to get done for a September gift!)

Summer Sampler 2019 So Far

I really enjoyed the Summer Sampler last year so I signed up again this year. My quilty friend A is also planning to do this but waited for her kit to arrive and hasn't yet jumped on board. I think she may start soon as we have a sewing day Monday!

I just wanted to share my blocks that I have created so far. I ended up challenging myself to do this as a monochromatic scheme (in all greens with white and grey accents) after last year doing it all in neutrals. So far it is challenging me just the right amount and I think I will like the end result. I even know who will be the recipient! (Though he doesn't know yet!). I also like that I am using up lots of green scraps!

Here are my blocks so far:

Thank you Rose: A Finished Quilt

As is the case everywhere in the quilting world, I am not spending time on my blog. Instagram is giving me the fix that blogging once did except I see this still as what I always intended which is to track my finished quilts. So prepare for some finished quilt posts!

This one is called Thank You Rose and is for my daughter's grade five teacher. We had some ups and downs with this teacher this year but ultimately she did try her best with my daughter and she was very moved by the quilt. 

It is made with the strips I won at last year's West End Modern Quilt Guild Strip Poker game mixed with Essex Yarn Dyed Linen (I'm not sure which colour, but light grey?). It is supposed to be sort of rainbow order-ish and I quite like how it turned out. Ultimately it is just a lot of 16-patch blocks sewn together to make the colour gradation thing happen.

I just did simple echo quilting along every seam which I think was simple and effective.

For the backing I had this pretty print but not enough so I pieced in strip of a text fabric (Alison Glass) that is hard to see here.

The year is complete, the quilt is gifted, and now my daughter ventures into Grade 6!