Baby’s Breath Quilts Blog

Seven months after the bag was supposed to be done, I finally get it finished!  I guess this makes it Christmas in July…

To see the start of the project, see my earlier post, Bobbin Along. 

Here is a shot of the body fabric with the start of the bobbin work:

Here I have added bobbin work flowers and filled in the leaves, petals and added tendril-y thingeys:

Here is the first row of piping and the border added:

And finally the finished bag:

Today I finished 4 new quilt tops that I hope to quilt in the next few days.  They are all the same  – a Trip Around the World pattern done with batiks and a really splashy rainbow dino batik as the focal fabric.  I love the fabrics, but an ambivalent about how the finished quilt looks.  While it is not my favorite, I suspect once I get it quilted it will grow on me more.  With the right thread, I think it could be a lot of fun!  Maybe King Tut’s – Coat of Many Colors by Superior Threads?  I quilt all of my quilts with their threads and cannot say enough about them.  Absolutely a pleasure to work with and great customer service.  Check them out at http://www.superiorthreads.com.

Ever have those days where you start off with tons of energy and then you just deflate by lunch time?  Well, that has been me for  the last couple of weeks.  I came down with a lovely summer cold and finally went to the Dr’s today.  Turns out that I’ve got an ear infection as well as a sinus infection.  Oh, lucky day. 

Tomorrow, I have to go to the dentist ’cause my Dr thinks I have a cyst in my jaw.  Yippee.

And I am on zinc and lysine tabs for the sores in my sinuses from this cold.  Oh joy.

And, finally, my personal favorite, I have caught some sort of stomach bug today.  Super duper.

Today is not my day.  Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.

It’s called the Green Mountains for a reason – it rains a lot.  So what better way to spend this gray, gloomy day than playing with bright, bold COLOR!  And I have just the fabric…

I got this batik a year ago and it think it is time to do something with it.  It will just be a simple trip around the world, but I wanted a pattern that would not cut the batik up too small.  You still want to be able to see the dinosaurs and not have unknown cut up body parts on the quilt!  Eeeew! 

Phew!  The Safari Baby Quilt is now done and up on my site.  I hope that you will take a moment to check it out as I will be offering this quilt as a free downloadable pattern at the end of the month.  When I go on vacation, I plan on taking my laptop and working on the pattern after the kids go to bed.  My grandmother really loves her baseball (go Red Sox!) but it usually induces a coma for me.  So I think this will be a great antidote!

I am having a problem coming up with a name for the pattern, though.  Any thoughts?

Here is the first of the Safari Baby Quilts (I made a total of 5) that will be available for sale on my site either tonight or tomorrow.  I just finished quilting it this afternoon and I think it looks really cute.  It was suggested to me that I have a large amount of bright quilts that don’t necessarily go with a nursery’s decor, and that I should try to offer more things for people who want “themes”.  With all the little elephants, monkeys, and giraffes, I hope that this quilt will appeal to a lot of people and fit in nicely with a nursery’s decor!

My Aunt loves pigs – especially pink pigs.  And I found just the fabric for her!  I was shopping this spring and picked up a yard of this silly fabric with her in mind, and I think I finally know what I am going to do with it.  A Pink Pig Purse.  With pink and black & white accents, it should be fun!  Her birthday is next month and this should put a smile on her face.

Today I got a letter in the mail saying that I am accepted into the Frog Hollow Craft Gallery!  This is a wonderful honor and a real testament to the quality of my quilts and the time that goes into each of them.  And after you read how the jurying went, you’ll understand my shock at getting in.   

I was so nervous when I got there – I was running late (kids!) and had about 5 minutes to set up when I arrived.  Still vibrating from spending 2 hours in the car traveling there, I walk in the gallery only to find out that the jury was in another building down the road!  I hoof it there as fast as I can to arrive breathless and looking even more disheveled than usual.  After I lay out the quilts and get ready to go, the manager says to wait – I have to present my work to the panel!  How had I totally forgotten this?!

No kidding, there I was, in ratty old shorts, sweating, with ketchup stains from the fast food burger I had grabbed on the road, hair frizzing out from the humidity, and I’m trying to pitch my quilts to get them to show them in the gallery!  Eeek!  Luckily, I had popped a tic-tac to take care of the onions from the burger, and I start my spiel.  Tell them all about how I learned to sew, the materials, where I get my supplies, and how I make the quilts, and 15 minutes later I’m walking out the door thinking I had totally bombed the jury.

Well, ratty clothes and ketchup stains apparently didn’t bother them too much ’cause I’m in.  Woohoo!!

The largest custom order quilt to date has been mailed and since delivered to my client out in upstate New York.  She saw my ladybug baby quilt at the Artisans Hand gallery in Montpelier, Vermont and wanted it for her bed.  And since a baby quilt doesn’t exactly fit a queen mattress, she wanted it scaled up to 100″x100″.  In other words, she wanted it really, really big.

Here is a shot of the quilt laid out on my bed along with the two shams that she wanted.  Since her pillows are queen pillows and mine are standard, the shams look a little big and floppy.  I hope that they look good on her bed.

And here a a closer shot.

And the ladybugs in progress.  Here they are getting their spots Wonder-Under-ed to the wings.