Lego Bricks and Bear

I recently finished a quilt that I designed.  It's been a while since I've designed a quilt from scratch...lately I've seen something that I like and then I adapt it to suit my desires.

Anyway, behold, a Lego Bear surrounded by Lego bricks.

I took the initial pictures and realized I had forgotten to add the mouth as I was looking at the pictures and comparing it to the Lego bear.  It looks a lot better with a mouth.

The bear was used because the baby announcements were Lego scenes.  Both of them had this bear in it... (picture link).  The parents recognized the bear right away, so that was a relief.

This was my first time doing circles.  I don't know what the official term is for what I did, but I folded the fabric over and then zig-zag stitched the circles on.  They weren't perfect by any means, but not too bad.  The colors I used were Kona key lime, corn yellow, citrus, coral, chartreuse, mocha, charcoal, steel, med grey, malibu, straw, pacific, and tomato.

I went with a maze design on the Lego bricks in a matching thread color.  For the teddy bear I put in loops as I thought imitates the fuzziness of stuffed animals.

This was a larger baby quilt than I normally make, and so the backing I got wasn't large enough.  I added some green around the plaid I had originally chosen.

(Part of the Q3 FAL)

Ovals and Diamonds

My mother-in-law brought over this cute little quilt for me to quilt.  She didn't love it so I was tempted to do a really fast all-over design, but decided to practice my ruler skills instead.

I put a plus of ovals in between each set of diamonds, and then a ghost diamond in the middle of the ovals.  The seams were in just the right place, so this is was and easy to line up the rulers to make sure I was centered or going to the right place.   Most of the ovals came out pretty good, but I need to remember to not try and take the bottom turn without changing my hand position first.  There are also a few diamonds that are a little bigger because I went to the wrong intersection, but I decided to leave them.

Finished: running around Mama's cottage

I finished the top for this baby quilt a while ago.  It took me the birth of a baby girl (and an empty quilter) to finally get it finished.

The pattern is on Confessions of a Fabric Addict.  (Although I'll admit I figured out my own instructions to get the size that I wanted.)  I used a random charm pack that I had gotten for purchasing "too much" fabric from the Fat Quarter Shop.  It is called Mama's Cottage.

I added some solids to it to help balance out the colors and tone down the emphasis on pinks.  (It is pretty balanced, but some times I like to balance away from pink for girls quilts.)  I did use a pink and grey minky for the back, so there is still plenty of pink in the quilt.

My quilt holder isn't quite big enough yet.  He tried really hard to hold it up and straight and flat, but needs a few more inches on his arms.

This is the first family that I've given three baby quilts to.  I thought for a while it was the first family to receive three quilts from me, but then I realized I've given four to my brother (phew).

I quilted it with double loops in a very light pink thread.  The quilting went really quickly...either I've been doing a lot of custom work lately or the sewing machine didn't give me many problems or I've gotten a bit better at this whole quilting thing. 

(Part of the Q3 FAL)

Table Runners

I met someone on the other side of our little lake that is also a quilter.  She wanted some table runners done, and so I did them for her.

Number One.  This one was done with leaves: white thread in the white parts and variegated green/brown in the leaves.

Number Two: same threads, but a stipple instead.

It was nice to find a new quilting friend.  It was also nice to have a white backing because I could see the quilting so well.

Q3 FAL

Q3

Here we go!  I made some good progress last quarter, even if I didn't work on many items.

1. Lego quilt (M): This is all made and the quilting is up next!  I'm not sure how I'm going to do the bear yet.  His stomach is two different variations of Kona straw (frowny face) so it needs to be semi-dense.  Also, ironically, I had to take the picture outside because the floor I normally take pictures on was too full of Legos.

2. Heidi's Wedding Quilt: I have a pattern and fabrics...this is the next item I will be piecing.

3. Stash Bee: I'm queen bee in July, so I have made my block and more are coming in!

The rest are hold overs from last quarter and I didn't work on them at all...
4. baby girl quilt: This is made but needs to be quilted.

5. Meshing solid HSTs: This needs to be quilted.  Densely, so the grey variations aren't so prominent.

6.  Scrap bee blocks 2017: This got all put together and now needs to be quilted.  I also want a scrap backing, so that needs to be pieced.

7. Temperature quilt.  I need to quilt this.  It's from 2017, so it's rather low on the priority list.

8. Rainbow Log Cabin.  I need to decide what to do with this.  I was thinking of making it reversible.  If I don't want to do that, I need to just finish it up!

9. Scrap quilt. Surprise, surprise, it needs to be quilted.

10. Winter quilt.  I have the fabric and an idea for the pattern.  It involves triangles and a sketch is somewhere on the blog.

11. Pillow with green/purple fabric.  I just want to make an easy pillow.  I just need to do it.

12. Black scrap quilt.  This is so close to being finished.  I want to square it up before binding, and the task seems daunting.

13. Wedding quilt left over HST II (JNK).  While I don't have a pattern in mind yet, finding one for HSTs will be pretty easy.  I was considering adding in some pink to have a pre-made girl baby blanket.

14. Green stripes.  This isn't square.  I don't really know how to square it up well (or easily), so it's been sitting around for a long time.

Things that don't count for the Finish-a-long but I want to remember them:

15. Jeweled floors
16. Wedding quilt pillows
17. Quilt for Ryan  
18. Trying to fit in - left over triangles
19. Fabric from Christmas 

20. baby quilt (BHS)
21. Christen's mom's quilt
22. Quilting some table runners

Joining the Q3 FAL.

Pixel flowers

My niece needed a new quilt.  We went to the fabric store last time she was in town and she loved the bright colored fabrics and fabrics with flowers.  While I didn't buy any of the fabrics that she loved, I still tried to go with the same themes. (Also, her mom wanted a quilt that would grow with her, which makes a slight difference.)

I modified a quilt block from the 2017 Quilter's Planner called Lauren's Doodle block.  As the original stood, it didn't shift the flowers over every row.  It wasn't quite what I was looking for, but with a very slight modification I ended up with a block that didn't have quite such an obvious repeat.

Purple is my niece's favorite color, so the flower centers are all purple (unless the leaves are purple) along with the binding and the minky on the back.

For the quilting, I did leaves with white thread in all the white spaces.  For the flowers, I did an eight-pointed flower in a matching thread.  Yes, this meant I had a ton of ends to bury at the end, but it was worth it, especially when looking at the back.

Do you see the fabric in the center of the purple flower?  I decided that I loved that fabric for the quilt and after a lot of searching I realized that it was out of print and no one had it for a reasonable price anymore.  Oh well.

This was the only thing I managed to finish in Q2 for the FAL, but I'm very happy with it.

Q2 FAL

Here we go!  I made some good progress last quarter, even if I didn't work on many items.

1. Lego quilt (M): The couple is big into Legos and used a Lego bear in both of their baby announcements.  I thought I'd try to make a quilt with both elements; we'll see how it turns out.  It's my first time with circles.

2. baby girl quilt (PSVK): This is made but needs to be quilted.

3. E's quilt: She is five years old and needs a new quilt!  We went to the fabric store and she had lots of fabric that she liked, but she seemed to gravitate towards brights, rainbows and flowers.  Her mom wants it to be able to grow with her.

The rest are hold overs from last quarter and I didn't work on them at all...
4. Meshing solid HSTs: This needs to be quilted.  Densely, so the grey variations aren't so prominent.

4.  Scrap bee blocks 2017: This got all put together and now needs to be quilted.  I also want a scrap backing, so that needs to be pieced.

5. Temperature quilt.  I need to quilt this.  It's from 2017, so it's rather low on the priority list.

6. Rainbow Log Cabin.  I need to decide what to do with this.  I was thinking of making it reversible.  If I don't want to do that, I need to just finish it up!

7. Scrap quilt. Surprise, surprise, it needs to be quilted.

8. Winter quilt.  I have the fabric and an idea for the pattern.  It involves triangles and a sketch is somewhere on the blog.

9. Pillow with green/purple fabric.  I just want to make an easy pillow.  I just need to do it.

10. Black scrap quilt.  This is so close to being finished.  I want to square it up before binding, and the task seems daunting.

11. Wedding quilt left over HST II (JNK).  While I don't have a pattern in mind yet, finding one for HSTs will be pretty easy.  I was considering adding in some pink to have a pre-made girl baby blanket.

12. Green stripes.  This isn't square.  I don't really know how to square it up well (or easily), so it's been sitting around for a long time.

Things that don't count for the Finish-a-long but I want to remember them:

14. Jeweled floors
15. Wedding quilt pillows
16. Quilt for Ryan  
17. Trying to fit in - left over triangles
18. Fabric from Christmas

 

Joining wiht Q2 FAL.