Tracy's quilt

While we were at the beach, I finished up a quilt for my friend Tracy's soon-to-be-arriving little boy. I used the same line of fabric from this quilt I made last fall. It was a fairly simple quilt to put together. I used this tutorial, with just a few modifications. I used a 5" square for the center block, and adjusted the surrounding rectangles to 2.5x5" and 2.5x9" for a finished 8 1/2" block. It was fun taking pictures at the beach instead of my backyard (especially given the nautical nature of the fabric), though I'm sure the other folks on the beach thought I was crazy! I'm really happy with how this one turned out, and I'm excited to start up the next one!

Abigail's quilt

My sister-in-law Jennie and her husband Josh had a baby girl named Abigail on August 1st. I decided to play around with half-square triangles for her quilt. Those buggers are a beast. It took almost two days after completing the squares to figure out what to do with them. I tried out I can't remember how many different layouts before finally settling on this one. And since I'm a little bit of a lazy quilter and don't iron my seams open, the corners where all the triangle points converge are fairly unwieldy. Lessons learned. I do like how the diagonal, horizontal, and vertical quilting came out, though. At least that was a success. Jennie seemed happy with the quilt, and in the end, I'm happy with how it turned out as well. And I have now learned my lesson about triangles and pressing seams :)

Whew...

I recently finished up two more quilts! These were for newborn twins that Chad's brother and sister-in-law recently adopted. I wanted to make them each their own quilt, but yet keep them similar as a nod to them being twins. So, I used the same fabric but with a different pattern for each.

Some quilts go together really quickly and fabulously, like this one. I'll be using this pattern again for sure. I love how it highlights the fabric, and this combo is one of my favorites. Of my next four quilts, I think fully half of them will be using this fabric. I also branched out with my quilting and went on the diagonal this time. I'm happy with the results. All in all, one of my favorite quilts to date.This quilt, on the other hand, was much more of a learning process. I used a disappearing nine patch pattern, but the way I used it was not so error-friendly. I also didn't baste quite as I should have, so the quilting pulled the fabric, leading to some unintended wonkiness. Oh, well. I still like this quilt, but would use the pattern differently next time.The recipients haven't sent back either quilt, so hopefully they and the new little ones will enjoy them. Now onto the binding of two more quilts, maybe before Monday? And off to the doctor today for my pre-surgery appointment! Yea!

Yet another quilt

Yep, another quilt. I promise we do things other than trash garage doors and quilt around here, but it's all pretty quiet and un-exciting. I'm also trying to get as much done before New Baby's arrival as I can. Anyway, here's the next quilt, made for a friend in the ward expecting her second girl. I used this tutorial by Crazy Mom Quilts (she's amazing). I used a jelly roll, cutting the coins 5.5", made the outside sides and bottom sashing sides 1" larger, and only made four stacks to make it the right size. The math of a quilt top is one of my favorite parts of quilting. I realize that makes me not quite right. I also experimented with some straight-line quilting in the white sashing for some interest, and I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. Anyway, mom seemed to like the quilt, and I'm hoping the new baby girl will when she's big enough. Now on to the next two quilts for some newborn twin boys :)

The next quilt

Several weeks ago, I finally finished this quilt for my nephew. He arrived back in December, but I'm moving just a bit slower these days. Not quite sure why...

Anyway, the pattern came from Oh Fransson's Mod Sampler quilt-along. I used fewer fabric pairs and dropped one of the block patterns to keep it the right size. The fabric is from Lizzy House's Red Letter Day collection (Side note - I posted this quilt on the Red Letter Day group on Flickr last week, and guess who commented on it? Lizzy House herself! I saw it this morning, and it *totally* made my day :)

Hopefully the new owner will enjoy his quilt (I hear his big sisters do already), and I'm excited to be moving onto the next one!

The next quilt

One of these days, you'll get tired of seeing the procession of completed quilts. Hopefully that day hasn't come yet, because there are a *lot* of pregnant ladies in our ward, so I've got lots of quilts coming. Plus one for New Baby. Anyway, this one made it to its new home a little over a week ago now, a simple four-patch using fabric from one of my favorite collections, Red Letter Day by Lizzy House. I love the all the ducks and the lollipop trees. And I think the striped binding turned out quite nicely. Now back to work on the next one!

Finally!

So, looking back over old posts, I started this quilt back in October. It was a completed quilt top before Halloween. Then, the first trimester of pregnancy plus the holidays hit, and it's just taken me awhile to get my feet back under me. But, we're finally getting back into the swing of things, and this quilt is finished! Yea! I found inspiration here, here, and here when planning this quilt out. I loved it at the beginning, grew really tired of it during the four months it sat in my front room, and then fell in love again when I finished it this morning. I might even be liking it so much that I repeat it a little larger for New Baby. We'll see. Enjoy!