Friend's Birthday Quilt

I am happy to share a big finished project today.  My quilt for my dear friend's birthday is all done and was delivered over the weekend (on her birthday, no less).

This project was 'born' two years ago when she turned 38.   I've sewn her small things over the last 7 years - little ditties/wallhangings when her babies were born for example, or I've mended things for her, but nothing major.  So when she turned 38 I told her, "You know what?  When you turn 40, I'm going to sew you a quilt.  A real, full size (vs baby sized), nicely done, just-for-you quilt."  She gladly accepted and that was that for about a year.  When she turned 39 it moved higher on the priority list.  I let her peruse through magazines to show me what she did/didn't like as far as patterns, styles, colors, etc and then give me some direction on fabrics she did/didn't like.

Her 'requests' were:

1. A traditional, classic pattern.  None of this currently popular modern/improv junk.

2.  A definite border to frame the quilt.

3.  Could I somehow incorporate things she likes into the quilt?  Like flower fabric to signify her love of gardening, something juvenile to represent her family, etc.  She wasn't sure exactly how that might come about, but I think I managed to get the general idea.  I did pick what I thought were her 'Top Two' things rather than branching out into gardening, cooking/canning, music, etc.  You'll see what I mean when you see the individually embroidered blocks.

And.... here is the quilt all finished!  

The pieced blocks are pieced on the machine.  I believe they are called NorthWind blocks. 

The white blocks are all hand embroidered.  I traced her kids' hands last summer when she wasn't looking so that part of the quilt was a super-fun surprise.  Thankfully her kids kept the secret.  :)  

Its hand quilted.  Soooo relaxing... its been a while since I've hand quilted a big one and it was very nice to work on.   The making of this quilt went fairly quickly - much shorter than the year I had planned (though that may have something to do with the fact that I didn't start on time).  I pieced the top in late fall through January and hand quilted it between late January and, um, last weekend.  

Here is the theme of the quilt, in the top center block:  

This is the bottom center block:  

And their four kids surround them:  

Meghan is their eldest.  

Hannah is Leah's age and they are good buddies.

Michael is a tad younger than Grace, and even though they are boy/girl they are buddies too because they are both at home right now while their big sisters are off at school.  

Henry is the two year old cutie pie.  

 This is the pieced block: 

I was really happy with how these turned out, which I wrote about in a previous post.
I'll definitely be using this block again in other projects.  

Here is a somewhat underwhelming picture of the back.  Its just a pretty gold-on-white paisley.  Nice and simple and I love how the hand stitching shows up on the back of quilt.  Most of it is in cream thread but some is in dark green to match the front.  

Every 'big' quilt gets my initials and the year I finish it.  This one happens to get the years I worked on it because the kids' ages on the front are their ages in fall of 2012 but I finished it in 2013 for the mom's birthday.  

This is where most of the quilting took place - on my great frame in my great sewing room.  Put my girls to bed, turn on the classical or the 'chick music' and quilt away - what a wonderful way to end the day.  

However, after it was off the frame I decided the embroidered blocks needed a bit more quilting.  They were puffier than the pieced blocks and it looked goofy.  So I used this cool old wooden quilt hoop that my grandma gave me to add some quilted hearts and scrolls around the hand prints.  It worked great and it was fun to quilt a bit upstairs after doing most of the work downstairs in the sewing room. 

So, there you have it!  

As with any project, there are little things I would change or tweak here and there, but overall I am happy with how the quilt turned out and my friend likes it too.  I knew she would.  

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With this giant project off my list I will take a little bit of time to sew some smaller, quicker things.  Some teacher gifts probably.  The girls are asking for 'boy dolls' to go with their girls dolls so that 'they girl dolls can get married to their princes'.  If it ever gets above 45 degrees this spring Leah will need some play skirts.  Quick things like that.  One of these months I need to work on making that sloper of myself so I can start on church dresses for myself.  The next major quilt will likely be to make a duvet-cover type thing for our biggest, warmest, snuggliest quilt but as that will hopefully be put away soon not to return till fall I can brainstorm on that one a little yet.  

Saving Faaaaaavorite Dresses

We've had many conversations like this one in our house lately:

Grace:  Hey Mom, look!  My favorite play-dress from last summer!

Mom:  Yes, thats nice honey, but look how short it is on you now.

Grace:  Its not too short, Mom.  See?  If I crouch down it covers my knees.

Mom:  Crouching doesn't count - look how high it goes when you stand straight or dance or twirl.

Grace:  But Mooooom, its my faaaaaaavorite.  It can't go in the Too Small Pile.  Puh-leeeease can I still wear it?


The thing is, Grace has grown 3 inches just since November.  So they are really really too short.

Mommy sewing skills to the rescue!  If you chop off a play-dress right underneath the armpits and then add a waistband it miraculously turns into a longer skirt.

Like this, see?

Before:  Faaaaaavorite twirly dress from last year

After:  Faaaaaavorite twirly skirt for this summer

(Side note: This photo makes the skirt look wonky and not straight, but its just the way its laying on the table - apparently I didn't straighten it before taking the picture. I assure you the hem/waistband are straight lines...)

Before and After (forgot to take a picture of the whole dress, but I bet you get the idea)

Before:  Way too short

After:  Just right for twirling

People often ask me if I save money by sewing my girl's clothes.  I always respond that its FAR more expensive to sew clothes from scratch than to buy them, (especially since I'm a garage sale, thrift store kind of girl) but that I certainly save money by KNOWING how to sew and mend.  Here is a great example.  Grace has a bunch of 'new' skirts for the summer that cost me nothing more than a couple of hours and the cost of fresh elastic.  Considering they are all hand-me-downs or thrifted to being with, have now been worn by two girls at their proper sizes and their getting a third season as skirts, I'd say thats pretty great!  

Sewing the binding on the big quilt.  So. Close. To. Being. Done.   

Superhero Capes... round two

I am steadily working, working, working away at that big hand-quilted quilt, but once in a while during a loooooooong project like that I need to take a break and quick make something.  Something that can be started and completed all in a day's time.  Or maybe two days, tops.

I made some superhero capes this past December for a gift exchange.  I liked them and therefore promised to make my girls some capes for their dress up box.  (They have some really old ones made out of ugly fabric that I made as an experiment - definitely time for an upgrade.)  The capes have been on my to-do list since December and this week they seemed like the perfect quickie-instant-gratification project to jump on.

So, here they are.  Leah picked blue and Grace chose pink.  The 'outside' is a stretchy crushed velour and the 'inside' is flannel.  Leah specifically asked for comfy fabric (vs sparkly or shiny) 'so that we can curl up in our capes and they'll be like blankets'.  As if we are short on blankets/quilts in this house.  :)

The shoulder parts/closures are drafted from the shoulder part of their slopers so they fit nicely.  They close with big velcro patches.  

In contrast to the ones I made at Christmas, I widened the pattern a little and used 60'' wide fabric so they could be really swishy/twirly.  It makes them a tad heavier though, so that should be taken into account with whatever fabric you use to make sure they don't pull down in the back and choke their little necks.  

The girls are very happy with them and have been whooshing around the house in them since the moment they were finished.  This was a nice project in that I made the Christmas ones first and got to tweak and improve the pattern for my girls.  Usually its the other way around - they get the prototypes and the other people get the improved versions.  So, thats a nice treat.  

The big quilt is almost finished and looks as though it might even be on time for the mid-April birthday deadline so that'll be posted in the coming weeks.