Christmas

In October 2009, I decided that I was going to learn how to quilt AND that I would be giving quilts as Christmas presents. I bought a quilting magazine called "Easy Quilts", flipped through and found a pattern that I really loved called "Serendipity", and went straight to my local quilt shop.

My first quilt went to my friend, Charmain. I used "Serendipity" to make this one. I used pink and green fabrics because her sorority colors are pink and green.

The second went to my step-mom. She loves the color peach.

The third quilt went to Charmain's daughter. Her nickname is "Ladybug". I made this one without a pattern.

The last one of 2009 went to my sister. Her bedroom has a blue accent wall. This is a traditional rail fence design.

This year, I wanted to make quilts for my Mom and Dad for Christmas. Before I could create what I had in my head for them, I made one for my grandma. I had some 1930's reproduction fabrics in my stash and saw a picture of a quilt I really liked. I put this together by guessing about the construction of the quilt in the picture.

Kaitlyn got another quilt this year. She really liked "Ladybug" from last year and had to be convinced that it wasn't a toy and should be left on her bed. Since she has a love of rainbows, she got a rainbow quilt. The pattern was inspired by a piece of fabric that I saw online. The striped side was supposed to be the front, but at the last minute, I decided to put her name on what was the back, and then it just made more sense for the back to become the front.

I had a hard time selecting fabrics for Dad's quilt. Surprisingly, it's pretty difficult to find masculine fabrics and it was even harder to find fabrics that were just right for my Dad. He really likes brown, so I went with brown and gold. Both Dad and I are pretty sentimental, so I decided to put the names of his family and his favorite scriptures on the quilt. The quilt is machine stitched, but the names and scriptures are hand embroidered. He loved it.

Mom's quilt came with a lot of challenges and as a result, it is still a work in progress. The cap from a highlighter marker came off and made a huge stain on the fabric. I was able to get the yellow stain out, but in the process, created another mess.

I eventually got that out and was able to finish the hand embroidery.

The angel is appliqued. I'm still bothered that, as of now, it's not as big as I want it to be. We'll see how it evolves.

Right now, I'm thinking that I will not be making quilts for Christmas next year. I said that last year, so...lol.

Deadlines Approaching

To me, Christmas feels like it will be here next week. I still have three quilts to finish. I have enough fabric for two out of the three. I just recently decided on what I'd like the back of one and now I need to find that fabric. Of course, it's not going to be an easy find.

I'm about to go back to work, but I just wanted to check in and let you know I'm still trying to churn out some fabulousness. :) Can't wait to post pictures of these quilts. Look for them on 12/26!

Christmas has taken over

I have been trying for awhile to launch my etsy shop, but have encountered things that I have allowed to be obstacles. Right now, Christmas is impeding my progress. I am trying to finish three quilts for Christmas. One for Mom. One for Dad. One for Kaitlyn. Since Kaitlyn is the only person not old enough to stumble across this blog, I'll post pictures of her quilt here.

This is the back of her quilt.

As with all of my quilts, the strip across the back is reflective of the front of the quilt. Once I'm done, I'll use scraps to create a scrappy heart that will be appliqued onto the bottom right hand corner. I've decided that a scrappy heart will serve as my trademark, or if quilts can't be trademarked, then my identifying mark on each of my quilt.

Here is the one that's on the back of a quilt I made for my grandma.

The front of Kaitlyn's quilt is not finished yet because I have run out of indigo fabric and am trying to find more now. I need to do a few more rows of ROY G BIV so that the quilt is wide enough to use for naptime. Kaitlyn loves rainbows, so I decided that I would put one in a quilt for her this year. I didn't want it to be completely juvenile because I wanted her to still appreciate it in her tween years.

I'm hoping I'll be able to finish this before Christmas. *fingers crossed*