Lauren's Graduation Quilt

This Quilt was inspired by a photo online of hexagons made from triangles but the fabrics were solids.   My friend Ang wanted to use FUN bright prints for the triangles for her quilt.   Also we personalized the quilt with the recipients NAME and graduation date ;c)

 A couple in-progress photos -   closeup of the fabrics that make up the hexagons, and the quilting as it was just in the beginning stages.

 Ang chose to use the PINK fabric for the text , and since it didn't show up as much as I expected, I outlined with a darker thread color = purple.     Now it really pops!

I did the quilting with my regular piecing foot on my Juki DDL 8700 - We decided to do a simple straight-line quilting design in parallel lines all-over.     This design is still quite time-consuming. . but simple none the less.   

 my sweet little "helper" 

 the back 

my new label 

Amelia's 1st birthday Quilt with Minkee Backing and Binding.

I wanted to give sweet baby Amelia a "Katie Quilt" for her birthday.  I used everything from my stash.  I started with this large piece of minkee fleece that I had leftover from another project.  It's super soft and BIG so I didnt' have to piece fabric together for the backing.   I have used Minkee for  backing before, but I always used batting ALSO, but this time I left out the batting.  For a large, bed-size quilt I think batting is fine, but I wanted something that she could lug around herself, so it needed to be LIGHT too.   

Double Sided Minkee is thick enough that it doesn't require batting.  Also, it gives a very nice effect when free-motion quilted.  However there is a slight downside when you omit the batting.  When there is no batting, there is nothing for the fleece to stick to.  The batting acts as a stabilizer so that your fleece doesn't shift around.  To remedy that problem I just used lots of safety pins in the basting process.  

For the quilt TOP I pieced together feminine prints of pink and grey.  Honestly, I'm not real sure what I was going for here - just scrappy I guess!!  Who knows, it was late when I came up with this design ;c)  I think a quilt looks best when you incorporate elements from the back on the front, and vice versa.  So for the front, I appliqued circles of minkee and also used the minkee as the binding.

** I have a tutorial on how to do self-binding with fleece HERE**

 And for the backing I took one of the pink floral prints and used it to applique her name.

In this last picture you can get a good look at the quilting design I used.   I always want to try these fun large-scale quilting motifs, but am always too scared.   I love the look of all-over free-hand feathers, but every time I attempt them I regret it.   I think maybe it's because I think every tiny bit of space needs to be quilted - and everything needs to be touching.   

So for my last couple projects I have been trying to use more negative space.   I think just as rainbow colors only look good with a good amount of WHITE.   . . . "fancy" quilting only look good when there is some negative space?  Maybe?   I'm working on it anyway! 

2 Quilts finished for Baby Holden and Baby Corey

So many babies being born!!   So many of my friends are having babies right now - what a blessing. .  and what a joy to get to make so many fun baby quilts!  I love the look of this style of baby quilt.   Simple patchwork border, and solid center with the appliqued name.   Perfect for "tummy time" and . . PHOTOS!

Baby Holden, will be born to my friends the Roopers, Missy and Jason.   Their baby's room is very MODERN and colorful, full of bright orange, turquoise, grey and chevrons.

Baby Corey will be born to my friends Beth and Matt.  They have a more traditional style with boyish greens, browns, and dusty blues.

Each style equally beautiful, and equally unique.  So I had lots of fun making these together.

 A closeup of the quilting.  I went with a "modern" style of quilting for the modern quilt, and a more "traditional" motif for the traditional one.

 Here I am assembling a monkey ;c)

Quilt TOPS finished, complete with applique, before quilting.

Joey's Baby Quilt

I had this very "busy" FQ bundle that my brother got me for Christmas one year from a quilt shop in California.  I've been wanting to find a quilt to use it in for a while now.  I decided to try to use it up in a baby quilt for my friend's new baby boy.   If I had to do it all over again, I definitely would have paired the FQs with some solid white, or grey, or even BLACK fabrics.  But, overall it's cute I think. .but VERYYYY "different." ;c)