Oliver's Heart Quilt.

This quilt was inspired by this mini quilt -  I'm not sure who the original artist was but a google search brought me to THIS WEBSITE.  

Melissa wanted these two sleepers to be the "focus" of the quilt.  But since the logos are right next to the zippers, we decided that the best thing to do would be to make each onesie into a "half" heart, and then put them together side-by-side to make up a whole heart.     I took out 3 rows of stitches to try to get more room for the heart shape.    

 It still didn't look quite right. . I think because it was the biggest heart and right in the middle.   So then we decided to make them into two separate hearts.  

After some wiggling around,   we came up with THIS design -  I also added some more color, reduced the size of most of the hearts, and used the booties from the sleepers to add depth and more color.    -  much better!  

The top was complete, but I felt it really needed "something". . . so I decided to try to do a Mock Trapunto technique.    I used a thick polyester batting, and densely quilted in the background area and in and around all the hearts and applique shapes.  

I used stippling in the large open areas and pebbling inside the smaller areas inside the heart and around the text.    
Starting from the outside edges first and going around the edges.    I stippled first, and then once I got to the inside of the hearts, I started pebbling.    This pushes all the batting down, and into the open areas.    Then I outlined around each heart, and they magically POOF UP, making it look like you took a long time stuffing each heart or adding extra batting.  

 I didn't have quite enough of the fabric and they were sold out, so I pieced the backing and made it into a double-sided quilt.   

 Here you can see how poofy the applique shapes are - and also the quilting on the back.

Grace's Quilt

**To order your own custom baby clothes quilt - please go to my facebook page for pricing and info**

This quilt is made up of the clothing worn in the first couple years of Grace's life.  Her mom Melanie and I went to school together and we sang in Show Choir together.   

This is the 2nd quilt made of baby clothes I have ever made. The FIRST one, (Brady's Baby Quilt) was made entirely of BOYS clothing and blankets.  The boys clothing was a bit easier, since it didn't have as many small parts ;c) I wanted to conserve as many as the little logos and embellishments from these clothes as I could. This meant that I had to take the seam ripper and remove stuff, and then REapply it on the block before sewing it into the quilt.  

I still enjoyed every minute of this quilt!!  T-shirt quilts are my favorite because they are like a puzzle.  So when I get a chance to make these quilts out of baby clothes, the puzzle pieces are SMALLER, and more challenging/FUN.

 This is sort my screwed-up process of making a quilt.  First, I lay all of the pieces down, folded, as they would appear in the quilt.  Then I go in with a ruler and graph them out on graph paper and label each block.

 this is all the pieces, fused and cut, and the graph paper. . ready for the machine!!!

 finished TOP!

 Pretty zig-zag backing!

 awww, little quilt bundle of happiness!!!  

 Finished quilt - on a sunny, albeit very muddy, cold day ;c)