World Map Quilt

This one is for my sister.  Shhhhh..... she's having a baby in December.  I'm so over the moon excited for her!  Anyway, they're world travelers so this quilt is right up their alley.

I had this fabric in my stash.  No clue when I bought it.  I know I got it at Joann's as a remnant.  A full panel as a remnant.  Yes, thank you!  I bought it, figuring I'd do something for my classroom with it later down the line.  Never happened.  It got buried in my piles and mounds of fabrics.  A few weeks ago, I stumbled on it when I was cleaning and organizing my disaster.  When I saw it, I knew IMMEDIATELY that it was meant for them.  My sister is from the Bay Area of California.  Her husband is from England.  I put a heart at each location on the map.  I toyed with tying it in all the places they have been (and can still do that later) but didn't like that idea since it's for a tiny baby.  I knew I had to do something with the printed lines of latitude that were on it.  DING!  Use those to quilt on!  Then I figured out lines of longitude and did 0, 60, and 120 east and west.  Done!  I did stitch in the ditch on the border and bound it in black to make it look like a frame.  I think it turned out pretty darn cute!  Hope they love it and it gets lots of use to snuggle and play on the floor with!

Mom's Quilt

This is a special quilt for my mom.  She's awesome and is in need of some extra cuddly love.  Since I don't live super close by and can't see her as often as I wish to, I wanted to make her something that she could feel me in.  Weird, yes.  Do I care?  No.

I was on Pinterest and saw this great quilt from Red Pepper Quilts.  I knew I wanted to make a checkerboard style quilt the moment I saw that one.  I know my mom likes lots of colors so it made sense to make this one for her.

The multiple colored fabrics all came from my stash.  Yes, I have THAT much fabric!  And, it's ALL in those tones.  Nice and bright and fun colors.  I originally had a white with small colorful dragonflies that I was going to use as the alternate squares but then I realized that I had about 1.5 yds and I needed almost 5!  Wasn't going to work no matter how creative I got with my cutting.  So... off to Joann's I went in search of a white/neutral.  The first white I picked out had much smaller dots.  There wasn't enough on the bolt and there weren't any more bolts of it.  Since the cut counter line was crazy long, I ran back and grabbed this one.  It was my second favorite anyway.  I think it worked out better than either of the others would have.  Since I love making huge projects that I can't get a solid piece of backing fabric for, I knew I would have to piece it.  That said, I got 3 pieces of flannel and pieced the back.  I used black to do the binding and tied it with black pearl cotton thread.  I think the black binding makes it look like a frame.

To cut the squares, I bought a new die.  Yep, had to have it.  I got the 3.5" unfinished square die from Sizzix.  It made cutting all those squares (560 to be exact) so much easier and faster!  I'd say it took me about 2.5 hours total to get them all cut.  I had to cut from a chunk, iron, run thru the die cutter.  It went together pretty quick.  I spent probably 20 hours total on it.  Not too shabby.

Before I started this project, my darling almost 3 year old daughter decided to play with "the machine" and messed my stitches up something horrible.  I had to get it serviced.  :(  Turns out it had an issue that has nothing to do with her.  I'm not telling her that tho!  My dad came to the rescue with a machine that belonged to my Nana.  He took mine to a friend of his for service and loaned me my Nana's Babylok machine.  I really do NOT like that machine!  But, I persevered and made the ENTIRE quilt with it.  When I took the quilt to give to mom, I got my machine back.  My precious machine.  :)

So.... here's Mom's Rainbow Quilt

 Mom opening it

 The Front

 The Back

Spawn's Monster Quilt

A friend of mine (and her huband) is having a baby.  They know the gender but aren't sharing.  The theme of the baby's room is monsters so.... I made this cute little quilt to be loved on.  I'll tell ya, not knowing gender it's hard to make anything.  I think this one can go either way.  It's not overly blue and it's not ungirly.  I can't wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl.  My guess is on girl.  :)

I used my favorite Sizzix tumbler die for the front pieces.  It just cuts them so nicely, 10 layers at a time, and the corners match up awesome.  So much better than hand cutting!  Now to get it sent off before the little Spawn arrives!  I hope she or he (but I'm still going with she) LOVES it!  :)

 The Front

The Back