Bringing Home Dolly Sewing Pattern

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I did it!  I finally filled in all the info and published my dolly carrier pattern on Craftsy!  I had this huge mental block about re-typing all the fabric requirements and such.  Took me two months to suck it up and get it done :) But here it is, the project that I dreamed up to go along with my Jasmine Tea fabric-

Because I had all things baby on my mind when I was designing Jasmine Tea-I designed it during that little “honeymoon” period with a newborn when they are so sweet and squishy and cuddly and all you want to do is hold them and carry them around all day- so it only seemed fitting to design a doll carrier so big sister could carry her baby around too!

The pattern has two sizes, to fit dolls up to 14″ or 18″.  The dolly quilt features sweet little butterflies which you can make from tiny scraps.  And I even included instructions to make a matching child’s quilt!

I’m so happy to finally make this pattern available – my 4 year old uses the samples I made every single day to put her babies to bed, and I’m sure the children in your life will love it as well!

If you use the pattern please send me pics, I would love to see them!

In other news…

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I started quilting this orange-peel thing.  I’m calling it a coral reef, or maybe seaweed, and so I thought some seaweed-like tangled curves would look cool.  I wasn’t sure after I drew it up, I’m still not really sure- but  I’m just gonna go with it.   What’s the worst that could happen, right? 

In other news, it’s finally green outside-

My knees are dirty every day from the garden

My kids are dirty every day from who-knows-what- and I love it all

I’m working on pretty duvets for the girls beds, delving into my thrift-store treasures as well as the stash

Gus has his final homeschool review of the year (he made me so proud!) and now I’m dreaming big for 5th grade- and Kindergarten!  Yup, this fall Violet will officially start homeschooling and I’m so excited to be planning kindergarten projects for her!

If you ask Evelyn if she wants to put her flowers in a vase, this is what you’ll get.  Makes sense when you are Almost-Two.

My newest work in progress

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A week or two ago I found myself craving, literally craving, an applique project.  Like the way your hand can’t help but reach out to that bowl of mini Kit-Kats on your co-worker’s desk, my hands just needed to feel that comforting rhythm of hand applique.  So I started something new.

It’s going to be a pillow.  For a quilter/artist, my house is woefully under decorated, and I’m aiming to work on that this year!  We’ve been renters for a while, and moving around practically every year it seems, and for like the past five houses all we’ve done is plop down our furniture and open up the book and toy boxes, and call it done.  No curtains, no throw pillows, no art on the walls.  No settling in.  That needs to change.  Our home should be a reflection of who we are.  I’m working on it.

This little project has been living on my kitchen island so I can work on it a few stitches at a time, all day long.

Oh, and this stack of shot cottons and solids wants to be something.  It’s not even a work in progress at this point, it ‘s a work-in-pondering.  As in, what could I make from this.  I think it’ll just hang out on the island for a few weeks until I figure it out.

Palette Parade- Aquamarine Glass

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This pale blue glass bottle came from an antique mall nearby.  A few weeks ago when Garrett took the kids for a weekend at his parents’, that was the first place I headed.  I was actually looking for cobalt blue glass, but the first rule of antique malls is that if you go in looking for something specific, you are sure not to find it!  I was bummed at the time, but since bringing this (and a few friends) home, I realized that this color goes with just about anything!  Today I’m pairing it with pale green for a nice soothing palette.  I have plans, though, to pop in some orange flowers and lots of white linen in the background.  I think that will be just smashing.  Have to order the flowers though.

Fabric Images courtesy of Pink Chalk Fabrics
1.Denyse Schmidt Shelburne Falls Deco Fans Willow 2.Free Spirit Designer Solids Arctic White 3.Moda Bella Solids Feather 4.Robert Kaufman Quilter’s Linen Platinum 5.Moda Bella Solids Ruby Ice 6.Lucie Summers Summersville Spring Tread Lime Juice 7.Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton Honey Dew 8.Monaluna Modern Home Mod Boxes Blue ORGANIC 9.Robert Kaufman Spot On Mini Dot Pond 10.Trenna Travis Bekko Tatami Aqua – Home Decor 11.Trenna Travis Bekko Swirl Aqua – Home Decor 12.Valori Wells Cocoon Shine Aqua – VOILE

For now let me say though that if anyone wants to make this quilt for me, I pay in fabric.

Emerging

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For the first time in what feels like months, no one in my household is sick.  We had one final checkup this morning for miss Evelyn Bea, who got the all clear from our now-beloved pediatrician.  No one has been seriously ill, and for that I am always thankful, but it’s been a series of small sicknesses, robbing us of productivity, robbing us of sleep, seemingly since Christmas.

Hard as it has been, isn’t there something about a sweet little bundle of baby who needs you?  One morning a few weeks ago, Garrett came down to find that I had spent the entire night sitting up on the couch with poor Bea nursing an ear infection, and all I could say to him was “more!”  I do hope that more kids are in the cards for us.  I love mothering and I always hoped for a big, boisterous family.  We’ll see :)

I feel like this whole winter has been a fog, from which we are only now emerging.  People are sleeping through the night again, so if I need to I can stay up and get things done at night.  The day light is coming back, we’re making plans for fun outdoor projects.  We are looking forward to spring!

Back in the morning with a pale and pretty palette.

Jessie

Palette Parade- Flowering Cabbage

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One thing that really charmed us on our visit to Seattle last month was these adorable flowering cabbages.  They were everywhere, planted in medians and parking lots and flower pots.  We have these back east too once in a while, but by February they are looking pretty haggard.  These were so fresh and lovely.  And my favorite shade of orchid-pink-lavender.

Fabric Images courtesy of eQuilter.com  1.Lush – Tossed Leaves – Candy Pink 2. Fun Filaments – Candy Pink 3.Japanese Import – Whitewash – Sampler Style – Eggshell 4.Cool Weave – Charcoal 5.Kona -Snow 6.Salt Water – Tortoise Shell – Ivory 7.Dakota – Ikat Yarn Dye Square & Linear Patterns – Natural/Black 8.Kaffe Fassett “Shot” Cotton – Bamboo 9.Fun Filaments – Hunter Green 10.Sateen Solids – Opulent Cotton – Jungle Green 11.Urban Cosmos – Flower Filigree – Pear Green 12.Japanese Scallops – Dk Green

I have been wanting to make a spiderweb quilt for a long time.  After one disastrous attempt at using true scraps, I realized that I would need to actually plan my color scheme in order to like my final project.  This would be so fun to make!  I would use really thin strings and not try to keep them rigidly straight, but not make them intentionally wonky, either.  Just enough variation to show the human hand.  Of course I would make it scrappier than this mock-up.  This pattern just begs to be made scrappy.

I would also love to just make a pile of cushions, each one a variation of this block, in all different sizes.

My fabric images this time are courtesy of eQuilter.com.  I divide my fabric money pretty evenly between eQuilter and Pink Chalk, so I am thrilled that they have both given me permission to use their images for this feature!  Going forward I’ll be switching between the two.

Palette Parade- Witch Hazel

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So, I went to Seattle a couple of weeks ago. My first time anywhere on the west coast.  I am in love.  I simply adored the weather when we were there.  40s and misty/foggy most of the day, but somehow still bright and pleasant.  It was just beautiful. So many shades of grey.  The filtered light made all the flowers simply glow.  Yup, flowers in February.  But mild in the summer.  What a lovely climate…

We went for a walk at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens one morning.  We were still on east coast time, so we were up and ready hours before anything was open, which left us hours to leisurely stroll the gardens and snap photos.  It was so serene.  One of the first things to greet us was this spectacular witch hazel.  Remember now, this was early February- so, it’s winter!

The crisp yellow against the foggy trees was almost too much- we could have gone back to the car at that point and I would have been satisfied.

What are those scraggly pine trees in the background?  Larch?  I think it’s the same one that is on the Oregon License plate.  I love their irregular shape so much.  Our boring old spruces with their perfectly triangular forms just can’t compare.

Anyway, the witch hazel.  As if it wasn’t enough to find a sunny yellow flower against a foggy grey sky, each flower emerges from a base of deep rusty red.  That little bit of rust does a lot of things here-  it warms up what can be a very stark color combination, It adds a third color which can be useful when planning the design of a quilt, and I think it gives the composition a more organic feel.

Fabric images courtesy of Pink Chalk Fabrics

1. Carolyn Friedlander Architextures Hatch Grey 2. Robert Kaufman Quilter’s Linen Platinum 3. Sarah Watts Timber & Leaf Pine Stickers Yellow 4. Robert Kaufman Essex Linen Linen 5. Sweetwater Noteworthy Sing Out Loud 6.Tomotake Muddy Works Currants Yellow – Double Gauze Cotton 7. Michael Miller Fabrics Cotton Couture Khaki 8. Amy Butler Alchemy Memoir Zest 9. Carolyn Friedlander Architextures Map Grey 10.Robert Kaufman Essex Linen Putty 11.Moda Grunge Basics Maraschino Cherry 12.Robert Kaufman Quilter’s Linen Rust

My quilt mock-up is obviously a pretty literal interpretation of the blooms.  I think it would be fun to sew these free-form.  Because machine paper piecing is just not my thing.  It really wouldn’t take too long, right?  Sew, press, trim, then add the little rust triangle, repeat.  I have a quilty weekend coming up, so maybe…  I think for this one, I would hand quilt some irregular wavy lines, sort of mimicking the branch structure, from the bottom right up to the top left.

I went back and recolored my Candy Hearts Quilt with these fabrics as well.  Because that quilt was really bright :)   Love this.

Witch Hazel- Jelena by Ruth B McDowell

I also want to share a quilt I have admired for years, Witch Hazel by Ruth B McDowell.  This photo is from her book Fabric Journey.  It’s one that I have probably stared at for hours, trying to absorb all the fabric information that is incorporated into the work.  I adore all the pale greys she used for the background of this quilt, especially the one at the top with the branches.

I Intend to Finish…

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I noticed that some of my friends are linking up to A Lovely Year of Finishes, to encourage finishing what we start. I love the magic of setting goals, speaking goals out loud, writing goals down… It really makes it happen.  So here are my sewing goals for this month:

I’d like to have this in and out of the hand quilting frame.  I have it taped to the floor tonight so I can mark the quilting lines, and I’ll load it this weekend.  No Prob, right?

Back photo_1LR

Also, I need to hit Publish on my first pattern- The pattern is all done but I’ve been balking at filling out all the info on Craftsy.  So here, a public declaration, the pattern for my doll carrier and quilt will be available THIS MONTH!  :)

Work in Progress Wednesday

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I’m so excited about my two newest works in progress- because new projects are so much more fun than already-in-progress projects :)

I cut both of these out over the past week.

This one is all my own fabric in the green and blue colorways that I haven’t really used yet- plus lots of light solid triangles.  It’s going up on the design wall this week.

This one isn’t getting design wall-ed.  I like having something I can sew together without thinking right now.   The Heather Ross piggies were my jumping-off point when choosing my fabrics.  It combines a few of my fabrics with a bunch that I “had” to buy because they matched my fabric, but it still needs something… maybe a warmer reddish-pink?  I’ll look around next time I get down into the fabric dungeon.

Linking up to WiP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Palette Parade: Red and White

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This is cheating.  Does one color plus white really equal a palette?  I don’t know, but I have always loved the classic red and white quilts, so I’m giving myself a pass.

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image source: decorpad.com

What I love is that, a red and white quilt made 100 years ago looks just as fresh as one made this year- and it’s often hard to tell from photos if a red and white quilt is old or new.

Did you hear about the fabulous exhibit of red and white quilts that the American Folk Art Museum put on in NYC back in 2011?  These 650 quilts are all from the collection of Joanna Rose and, if I remember correctly, the exhibition was a gift from her husband to celebrate a milestone birthday, and was made free to the public.

I wish I could have seen that.  I’m sure it was a once in a lifetime chance.

At the PA National Quilt Extravaganza (held outside of Philadelphia) last year, there was an exhibit of small quilts inspired by the exhibit in New York.  I photographed a lot of them.  I don’t have info on the makers of all these, but they are all from members of the Olde Kent Quilters Repro Bee of Chestertown, MD.

(Many more red and white minis on my Flickr Page)

I have always wanted to own a solid red and white quilt, but I wasn’t sure I would have the patience to make it. I tend to get bored making the same block over and over.  Now as I am getting older I think maybe I would be able to do it.

Like the process might actually be soothing instead of mind-numbing.  I could keep it around for a while and work on it any time I wanted to sew, but not wanted to think.  That’s most nights these days, after the wild things are all tucked away :)

Lately I have been seeking out blocks like this one:

It seems so simple, but you can build up complex patterns by spinning them different ways as you assemble the quilt.  I think it would help to keep the construction process interesting, because as you complete more and more blocks, there is the fun of putting them together in different directions to see what patterns you can get.

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2

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Which layout do you like?  I’m partial to 2 and 3, myself.  2 especially, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.