Project: Baby Girl Quilt (a few months too late)

I feel terrible that this quilt is finally being worked on- It was supposed to be fast and before my friend's baby arrived... BUT, so much changed from when I was going to get it done until now (a BIG move, a crazy pregnancy, and some pressing jobs). Now I get to work on it. These colors are what I planned on working with as soon as she picked out this quilt. I bought the "skinny strips"* from Missouri Star Quilt Company (*"skinny strips" are just 1 1/2" strips). I love the colors and the design isn't that difficult. The pattern is free as well:(http://www.robertkaufman.com/quilting/quilts_patterns/kite_flight/)

The one pictured above was sold as a kit (that I didn't buy) and they used 2 1/2" strips instead of 1 1/2" strips but the pattern with the link used the 1 1/2" strips and I thought that would be a better fit for the baby quilt. I laid out all of the colors and started to group them together:

All bagged in their groups of threes:

I looked at the picture above and started sewing the strips into sets of 5 colors

(white at the beginning and end and then the three colors in the middle):

All pressed and ready to be cut:

Cut into triangles 

and hung on the design wall (different stages):

Identical to the original picture but not big enough:

Used all my pins and this is how much I could hang:

I had to start sewing blocks together so I could use more pins to finish up the design:

Design all finished up with some blocks made- 

I had to extend it out and down even more to make it a better crib sized quilt:

Quilt top finished:

Now, she wanted me to keep the quilting very clean lined and modern. 

The backing was requested to be white to keep with the simplicity of it as well.

Here it is all quilted and trimmed:

And then I used white binding to finish it off:

All laid out front and back before the wash:

And here it is all washed and dried and ready for delivery:

Close up:

What a fun quilt to make and I'm glad to send this off to it's rightful owner!

P.S. I did still use a color catcher on this quilt because I did not pre-wash the fabric. It did end up picking up some of the colors that would have bled.

Project: Pink Dress Revisited

So, some of you may remember my post about making this dress for my then 4 yr old. She has since grown like a weed but only in length and is now a lot of leg. We've been having a hard time with skirts and dresses being knee length again so I decided to take matters into my own hands and try to re-work this "old" dress into a skirt. It was REALLY simple.
http://thewrightsideofapenny.blogspot.com/2015/05/project-pink-dress.html

Here's what I started with:

Then, all I had to do was detach the bodice and zipper from the skirt part of the dress:

I then made sure the skirt part of the dress would still slide up and down on her if I just closed up the zipper seam or if I would need to take the box pleats out and just scrunch it with the new waist band. THANKFULLY, closing up the zipper hole didn't change it going up and down so we got to keep the box pleats on this skirt! So, next I measured her waist and cut the elastic. I sewed the two ends together of the elastic by just going around in a square-ish shape (which will also help her remember which side is the back and which is the front). I folded the waistband in half, pinned it, and then did the same so that there were pins quartering up the waistband evenly. Next, I quartered up the skirt so that I could just line up the two sets of pins and then stretch the elastic in between the quarters so that the gathering would be even. I used a zig-zag stitch and had the elastic on top when I sewed the two pieces together. I finished it while she was already in bed for the night. I was SO tempted to wake her to be sure the waistband would fit (there was an earlier attempt but the band was just a hair too big so it would slip down her waist).

And a perfect fit and a happy girl!

Project: A Baby Boy Quilt

Here is the inspiration for the next baby quilt. Now, this design is called "Square Dance" by Gigi's Thimble quilt patterns.

*Link to the pattern- https://www.etsy.com/listing/96903631/square-dance-paper-pattern-0709?ref=shop_home_active_2

However, I was able to sketch it out and decode it to know how much fabric I'd need. When you click their link to the quilt, they tell you how big the finished project should be (around 38" by 58" ish) and that it is "charm pack friendly" (which are 5" squares). When I did this sketch, I just used all the "boy" colors I had in my colored pencil box- not mapping out where to put what color because I still hadn't decided on a color scheme.

Final color choice:

All pinned up on the design wall:

(I need to cover my design wall soon)

Adding the outside border to the four patch:

Four patch done:

Quilt top before outside border added:

Quilt top all done:

The stencil I chose to use:

Fabric I chose as the backing- 

I feel like it pulls the oranges and blues out from the quilt:

Quilt all basted:

Starting to stencil out the quilting:

Front view after washing:

Back view:

A close up of the quilting:

I hope this baby boy quilt gets well loved! I'll post a picture up when the mom to-be opens up the box (because she doesn't know she's getting it yet ;) )

Project: Full-size Blues

Here's my latest and greatest project:

This was the original post I had pinned but obviously this isn't a full sized quilt 

so I had to extend it across and down and this is what I came up with:

Pretty simple design as far as what kind of blocks to make- Half square triangles. These are my FAVORITE because they go so fast. You take on white square and one color square and put right sides together. Then you mark with a pen or whatever you want down the middle of the back, corner to opposite corner, and use that as your line to follow with your 1/4" presser foot. So, you get 2 blocks from each set of two.

Pairing up the white blocks with the blue:

Stacking them up as I draw a line down the middle:

Chain piecing them all:

Finished chain piecing and putting like blues together so I could lay them out without having two of the same fabric next to each other:

Blocks cut in half:

Half of it laid out:

All laid out on the floor (old house):

All bagged up for the move:

All pinned up on the design wall (new house):

*I had already sewn about 7 rows before the move*

All blocks sewn into rows:

Quilt top made and pressed:

I decided to keep the quilting simple on this quilt by outlining the inside of the white stripes:

I laid it out mid quilting and feeling good about it:

The quilting went well. I, then, added the red binding on and 

used my new clips to hold the sides down as I did the top binding:

These are AMAZING, LIFESAVER clips. My loving mother sent me home with them 

(along with a suitcase full of fabric so keep an eye out for more quilt projects):

This is after the binding was ALL DONE and the quilt laid out on my (*queen sized*) bed :

(pre-wash)

I think this turned out phenomenally!

Here is after being washed (front view):

Close up:

Back view:

Close up:

I love how on the back, the quilting stands out and are clean lines. I really lucked out because I found a sheet that was the right size and color for this quilt so I didn't need to piece the backing (which also helps the quilting look amazing because there are no other distracting lines). It's being shipped out first thing tomorrow morning to it's new home!