Grandbaby = Quilt time

About two weeks ago, I had a happy epiphany. Since Jordan is having a baby, I get to make a quilt! Somehow with all the hustle and bustle of the past few months, that had completely escaped my mind.

I made up my own patterns for 3 of the 4 quilts I have made for my grandchildren. The other pattern was from a website. I decided to try some quilt books from the library this time. I checked out one by Alex Anderson called Baby Quilts with Love. I selected several patterns and showed them to Jordan. She liked one  called Baby Crackers and asked for some yellow in it.

That sounded easy enough, but when I got to the quilt shop, I was stymied. There wasn't any tone on tone yellow. I ultimately settled on a solid yellow. Then for the prints. I was lured in by some batiks and used them to select my fabrics. I made my purchase, but something the lovely teenager (she was so nice!) said made me question my choices. "I love it when baby quilts are made from nontraditional baby fabrics."  Hmmmm. Is is baby enough???

I actually found some tone-on-tone yellow that I had used in Jordan's wedding quilt and used it in place of teh solid. I like the quilt, but I am concerned it isn't juvenile. What do you think?

I will add some borders, but this is the main part of it. I thought I would do a pieced backing with more traditional fabrics.

Update from last week. These are the cards I made for my girls. (Brooke don't look! I haven't given you yours yet.) I was in the weaving heart mood, so I needed to figure out the message. The scriptures always have the answer! "Hearts knit" as one is a theme of many verses about unity. What a great message (and it was related to the weaving!)

Valentine's Day Mantle

Jaime's post yesterday inspired me to decorate for Valentine's Day. I got out decorations out and bought a few new things.

I had this pinned and once I went to at the tutorial I noticed it is in Chinese and even when Google Chrome translated it there weren't any instructions. So I wrote up a tutorial for you guys and I even remembered to take pictures!

Felt Hearts Garland

All you need is felt (I used about 1/6 of a yard of each color) and your general sewing materials. Try to get stiffer felt

1. Cut the fabric 4.5 inches wide. Mine was felt by the yard but it you use the sheets just cut them in half lengthwise. Sew up one long edge of each color.
2. Draw with a fabric pencil every inch horizontally one color on the inside and one color on the outside. This is important! Cut the color that you marked on the outside along those lines. The other color turn inside out and line up the edge and sew. Cut along the lines. 
3. Take the unfinished hearts (mine are pink) and hook together two finished hearts (mine are red). Turn inside out and sew the bottom edge. Continue on until your garland is finished. A trick for sewing these are to line them up and don't cut between the edge. See below.

When you're done it should look like this and you can cut it apart.

Here is the whole mantle! 

$2 Doily Window Display

We're so excited about all the great crafts being shared at our very first Wayward Weekend! It's not too late to join in!


Valentine's Day is coming and this year I want to throw a party. I thought I'd see what I could make using supplies from Dollar Tree. I got two packs of doilies and went to work.

Supplies:

Foam board

Clear plastic string

Doilies

Tape

Tools:

Box cutter

I started by cutting a piece of form board about 4 inches wide by 30 inches. 

Next I laid out the doilies on the floor the way I wanted them to look:

Then I took the clear plastic string (jewelry making supplies) and measured out equal lengths for the first layer. I taped them to the board and to the doily. When I tried them out, I noticed that I needed to back the red ones (they are only colored on one side). I repeated the same thing for the second layer. I decided on only two for tonight. I might add more later.

The final product looks pretty good in my window!