Overexcited Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry #2

From my previous post: "Oops! I got so excited about submitting some quilts for the online Blogger's Quilt Festival that I submitted them without reading the directions! My apologies to the organizers. Hopefully you're feeling generous enough to give me a chance to redeem myself." ;)

My second entry is my "365" Wedding Quilt for my OTHER sister who got married this past December. When I started thinking of what kind of pattern to use for her wedding quilt, I asked her how long she and her then-fiance will have been together on their wedding day. She told me they were getting married on their one year dating anniversary. After that, I couldn't get the number 365 out of my head and I knew I had to find some way to incorporate it into a quilt. Luckily, I stumbled across the Bartow pattern on the Robert Kaufman website, designed by none other than Carolyn Friedlander. I just tweaked the dimensions a little bit to end up with the right number of strips and left a little space at the end where I could add a heart with their initials and the date. I love how this quilt turned out and I hope it inspires someone else to think of a unique way to add that perfect personal touch to a gift for someone special in their lives. :) 

Overexcited Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry #1

Oops! I got so excited about submitting some quilts for the online Blogger's Quilt Festival that I submitted them without reading the directions! My apologies to the organizers. Hopefully you're feeling generous enough to give me a chance to redeem myself. ;)

My first entry is my Black and Gray X-Plus Quilt. I made this quilt for my youngest sister after she asked for a white, gray, and black quilt. I had to put a call out to my Instagram quilting friends to get all of the scraps I needed, but in the end, I love how this turned out. I feel like it has an iridescent, three-dimensional quality to it. Usually with scrappy quilts, you think of lots of different confetti-like colors, but I think this quilt uniquely fits into the Scrappy category because of its muted palette.

Flight Suit Diaper Bag: Round Two!

I'm back with another flight suit diaper bag! This one is for one of the wives in our squadron who is going to give birth any day now to a baby girl. This project is so fun and special because I get to use the dad's flight suit to make the bag. I hope she enjoys using it as much as I enjoyed making it! (If you'd like to read about the first flight suit diaper bag I made, click here.)

All of the zippered pockets are still totally functional. There is no shortage of storage with this bag! This former leg pocket is now the back of the bag.

Here is a view of the flap. I found this adorable fabric at a great quilt shop in Watkins Glen when we went on vacation in August.

This is the view of the inside front of the bag with the flap open.

Here is a view of the inside pockets. If you look closely, you can see that I used an iron-on vinyl for the inside surface so it could easily be wiped down in case anything leaked inside.

These side pockets are great for water bottles or baby bottles.

Overall I didn't have any major problems putting this bag together. I realized after it was done that I had forgotten to add on one extra piece of velcro on the side so you could add an extra patch, but it was purely a cosmetic feature and the bag looks fine without it.

Let me know if you've ever made anything out of a uniform or if you've seen a similar flight suit diaper bag out there! I'd love to see pictures. :)

Trying To Be Cool

I finished this quilt in mid-August, so I don't know why I haven't posted about it until now! My husband's birthday was August 19th and we took four days off of work to go on a road trip up to Niagara Falls. On our way out, we stopped in Philadelphia and had our pictures taken by Autumn Kern. I found Autumn on Instagram and loved her style of photography. I thought it would be fun to commemorate his birthday and our almost-two-year anniversary with some pictures. 

As I started to brainstorm the setting for our photos, I knew I wanted to include a quilt somehow. This quilt began to formulate in my mind after I bought a fat quarter bundle of Kim Andersson’s Tidal Lace collection for Windham Fabrics. 

How's that for some inspiration??

I pulled some other complimentary fabrics out of my stash and started searching for a pattern. I wanted something with big blocks, both to accentuate the fabric and to speed up the assembly process (I was working with a deadline after all). I finally settled on the Stacked Squares pattern from Moda and used My Quilt Infatuation's cutting calculations so I could use fat quarters instead of a layer cake and jelly rolls.

I call this quilt "Trying To Be Cool" because I felt like this color pallette was really mellow and bohemian and as I was picking out fabrics, I was sort of thinking, "Would a really cool and hip person like this?" If the answer was yes, it went into the quilt. Don't ask me to explain the logic behind that one. Haha. :)

Here is the final product!

I pieced together some gray and blue-green fabrics for the backing. 

Overall, I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out! It has become a regular "couch quilt" in our house already and when it gets really cold this winter, the colors will remind me of summer. :)

Here are some pictures from our trip:

Watkins Glen State Park in New York state was BEAUTIFUL!! I liked it even better than Niagara Falls because you could walk around and through the waterfalls. They even had a great quilt shop in town called O'Susannah's Quilts and Gifts. I can't wait to go back!

Wonky Rectangles Baby Quilt

Back with another finished quilt (and I have ANOTHER quilt that I'll be posting about in the next few days)!

My cousin's wife recently had a baby and they waited until the baby was born to find out the gender (I love that idea!). Luckily the baby was a girl, because these colors definitely read more "girly" than I originally thought when I picked them out. Haha. :) But I had a lot of fun making this quilt and I can't wait to send it to the newest member of our extended family, Selah Grace Saville!

I love the way the big, random rectangles accent the patterns in the fabric so well.

The proportions turned out a little bit different than I was expecting, but it looks great even if you turn it vertically, so there's no right or wrong way to do it. :)

 I visited a new (amazing) quilt store called Rock, Paper, Scissors in Montclair, NJ and that's where I found this perfect backing fabric. It's a cream color with peach/salmon accent lines. SO great!

I machine-stitched the binding instead of hand sewing it so it would be extra durable and hold up to lots of repeat washings.

Welcome to the world, Selah! Can't wait to meet you!