My recent project has been to create this really sweet memory quilt for a family out in Germany out of all of their daughter’s first year clothes. The mother wants all of the baby’s things preserved in a quilt in a throw size done up in crazy quilt blocks.
The finished quilt will be about 48″x60″ with 20 12″ blocks. She didn’t want any sashings or borders – just her baby’s things over the entire quilt.
Here are the first four blocks. You can see some of the sweet details like some ruffles from around shirts and lace from dresses and appliques from onesies worked into the blocks. I love the whimsy and fun that is in this quilt and believe it will be treasured when completed. Do you see the pocket in the center of the last block? It is completely intact and is so fun!!
I managed to finish up the turtle quilt and mail it off to my client in time for Christmas. The outer border and the backing are the same lovely batik from Robert Kaufman and you can see it here. Here are some final shots of the quilt with just the binding left to be completed. Due to its size, it was really hard to photograph. I had my 6′2″ tall neighbor stand on a chair so I could take a photo – and it still doesn’t all fit in the frame! 
For anyone who has been wondering, we have not fallen off the face of the Earth – we’ve just been busy! As you can see, the boys were having tons of fun last week-end with the 25″ of snow we got in 3 days. Let’s just say that when you are only a little over three feet tall, you are very glad that Mom dresses you in bright colors – those drifts are deep!
With the approach of Christmas, it seems to be our tradition to have some sort of illness descend upon the household. Last year it was the stomach flu striking 4 of the 6 people in our home and this year it is hives. For some bizarre and unknown reason, I have developed a case of them and they are not fun! Itchy until I thought I would loose my mind and then the headache just capped it off. Fortunately, the hives seem to be limited to just me and the DH and kiddos are just fine. My doctor seems to think that getting only 4-5 hours of sleep a night combined with stress of the 8.9 variety on my personal stress-o-meter is not healthy. Go figure!
When Christmas finally dawned, it was an absolute postcard perfect day. Brilliant blue skies and mild temp only in the 20s. Positively balmy! Our friends invited us over for massive snowball fights and awesome sledding. Part of the VAST trail system runs through their property and makes the world’s best sledding! I even had to get in on the action despite lack of snow pants. A wet backside was a small price to pay for so much fun!
I hope that your holiday was great!
Aaah.. The sweet smell of Transformers on Christmas morning!
Happy Holidays!
The turtles now have eyes and the inner border is finished. I really like how the green has swirls of the same blue as the “water” in the batiking. You can also see that all of the applique is finished. My customer did not want the spots on the flippers, but really wanted the eyes. Tomorrow, I will wash off the marking pen and give them a second coat.
I wish I could take better pics since the quilt looks totally off square – but I promise it is just me and the quilt is square!
Over the last three days, my husband and I have been deconstructing some baby clothes for a memory quilt for a little girl. Her mommy asked me to take all of the baby things she has outgrown from her first year and make them into a crazy quilt! How cute is that! ?
I will have to admit that cutting up clothes is a bit bizarre and really upset my 6 year old son. He eventually understood what we were doing, but he thought we were cutting up someone’s clothes!
I want to use some of these great appliques from her clothes and feature them in the quilt. Maybe use them as the centers for some of the blocks and such. I am also saving the ruffles from some of the butt covers and lace off of dresses to accent the blocks, too.
I just zipped off a mock up to my client to see if she wants any borders or sashings with the quilt, but I think I definitely have enough here to make a sweet quilt.
I finished up the smaller turtle this morning and am thrilled with how the turtles are coming out. I really like how the colors are coming together and the threads look fantastic with them.
The next problem I have to face is what to do with the detailing on the turtles. The pattern calls for eyes and spots on the heads and flippers. But the problem is that I am dealing with pieces that are, at the largest, about the size of my thumbnail. The smallest are about the size of my pinkie’s fingernail. Pretty darn tiny. So when you have little smidgie pieces, and you try to satin stitch around them, you don’t see any fabric and you get a “lump” of thread that is not too attractive making this not a good option.
Personally, I like them without the detailing in the original pattern. The swirls in the batiks make up for the lack of spots and I tend to find eyes looking at me a little creepy – must be why I never liked playing with dolls when I was little! But I need to talk with my customer to find out what she wants. The only way I can think of to add the spots and eyes is to use fabric paint and paint them on. What do you think? Any suggestions would be most welcome!
Yesterday I was able to fuse the first turtle onto the quilt background and start the satin stitching around the edges. Tonight I finished the main turtle and hope to finish cutting out the pieces for turtles 2 and 3.
On a slightly different note, we are getting a rather nasty mix of rain, freezing rain, ice and 8″-12″ of snow so I am hoping for a snow day tomorrow. I have been substituting at the local elementary school to make ends meet, but I could really use the day off to seriously crank out some work. Here’s to hoping!
The seaweed is finally done and I can now move on to making the turtles! I cannot believe how long it took me to put together these pieces of seaweed, but I am glad they are finally done. Tonight after I finished the seaweed, I have worked on applying the wonder under to the fabric for the turtles and have started to cut them out. Hopefully I can fuse the main turtle tomorrow and begin sewing.
This past week-end saw me having fun with my family putting up our Christmas tree. The boys were so very excited that I told my husband we could have saved ourselves some money and just put up a stick we found in the woods – they wouldn’t have cared! But we all froze, and had a really great time. I think the guy at the tree farm thought I was nuts. I am one of those people who sees the perfect tree and goes “Well… what about that one over there?” Repeat as necessary only to come back to the original perfect tree!
I did take a little time for myself and went to the spa and had a facial and a pedicure. I have been fighting off a cold and it was soooo incredibly nice to be turned into this puddle of goo. Is it just me or do spa products smell like some sort of dessert? Really, really yummy!
Turned out that it was a good thing I had that time as I was up most of the night. Our house got hit (again) with the stomach flu with DH being sick this time. He has had to miss the last two days of work and really got wiped out. I was pretty wiped, too, with only four hours sleep Sunday night. With DH and one of the boys having had this, you all know what this means – I’m next! Yipee!
Here is
the latest shot of the finished seaweed:
Today I worked some more on outlining the seaweed. I finished the mottled one on the right and the green in the middle. The orange fan shape in the center is partially complete. In some of the shots, you can see where I had to stop partway through sewing. This is because I have to layer the stitching. If a piece is on top of another, I have to sew the bottom color first. But if the piece goes from being on top to being on the bottom, I have to stop partway through and go back to it once the bottom piece is finished.
Here are some shots of what I did tonight.
