Baby Elliot

This was made for Baby Elliot, the first daughter of Scott's cousin Ryan. Growing up, Scott spent a lot of time with his Aunt Monica and Uncle Greg during the summers. Monica is a vet and lives on a large farm. Scott got to participate in 4H and work with animals during his times with them. Monica and Greg have five children and are wonderful parents. Scott loved being in their home and learning from their examples.

This was one of my favorite novelty baby lines of fabric. I love the trees and owls and the colors are perfect. My favorite quilts always have white spaces in them. I just love the space for the eyes to rest between the patterns and colors of the main body. I spent quite a bit of time just staring at this quilt top hanging on the rack, trying to figure out how to quilt it. I like the overall effect in the end, it was the first time I branced out from stitch in the ditch or all over stippling.

Baby Luke

A year later, this is still probably my favorite baby quilt. I say that all the time but actually this may be it. I love the colors, the fabric, the design. The finished product was exactly what I had pictured as I was designing it. That doesn't always happen.

This was a gift for Baby Luke, the son of my cousin Josh and his wife Meagan. She posted a video on facebook once to show Luke rolling over and he happened to be on this quilt so I got to see it being used. It made me so happy! Especially because it was not a posed picture to show me, it was just there being used. That may actually be part of why the favorite scales were tipped to this one.

Plus, the back was really cute too. And the gold dot binding may just be the perfect shade of gold and I have replaced my stash of it twice now. I am always torn in my fabric buying because there are certain fabrics that I just want to have available forever but then there are so many fabrics available that I want to keep finding new ones.

A Baby Gift

My favorite part of quilting is making baby gifts. As soon as I find out that a friend or cousin or someone that I care for is expecting a baby, I start planning a quilt. It has occurred to me that it is probably best that I didn't pick up this hobby when I was in the prime baby years with my friends- that would have been a little crazy. Now that I am getting older, although not very old, most of my friends are wrapping up the baby years. It is even more fun to make a special quilt for 'seasoned' moms. I think first time Moms are pretty wrapped up in baby registries and matching nurseries and would really rather have something from Babies R Us.
This particular quilt is one of my more recent ones. I almost didn't make it or give it because I don't know the mom all that well. She has a son that is the same age as Mark and our paths have crossed at church a bit, but really not that much. She had 5 boys (really!) and so needless to say there was quite a bit of speculation about whether or not this baby would finally be a girl. It was followed on Facebook and around our small community with an almost comical level of interest. When it was announced that they were having Boy #6, I started thinking of the quilt that I wanted to make for him.

It is a simple design made from fabrics that I pulled together at home. (I must say that I am loving having a fabric stash building up). It is bright and cheerful and I have a particular fondness for monkeys. And what could be more appropriate for a house with 6 boys than a bunch of monkeys swinging around. I only have 2 boys and I can only imagine...

I know I caught her off guard when I dropped off the quilt. She wasn't really expecting presents for boy #6, so this really surprised her. I just figured that most people don't give presents for sixth children, especially when the family has all one gender.

Ellie told me that she had seen my quilt at church and the next Sunday when they walked in with the baby wrapped in his monkey quilt, the kids all turned to me and started pointing and whispering. It made me happy to see the quilt being used. His mom told me after church that the first five had homemade quilts made by a great grandmother who has since passed away. She was so happy to that this baby would also have a quilt that was made just for him.

My First Quilt

This is the first sewing project I ever completed on my own. I saw a sample like it at Ben Franklin and decided I wanted to make one for a baby gift. I owned a sewing machine only because my mom bought one for my sister and wanted to be fair. I made a template of an 8 inch square out of a piece of white typing paper and then roughly cut out squares of fabric with scissors. I joined the blocks together and then the rows without pinning anything. I had never heard of a walking foot and didn't even own a rotary cutter. Considering all that, I am pretty proud of this blanket. I added a satin binding but forgot to take a picture of it after I had completed it. The fabrics are light blue, cream, and white and all very soft. The back is flannel. As imperfect as the finished product is, it was so graciously received that it encouraged me to want to keep sewing.