Some commissions through the holidays

I found more photos, yay!  My mother-in-law asked me months ago about helping help make a quilt for a Sunday school teacher at her church.  I cut some blocks and gave them to her with a pack of fabric markers.  The kids and various church members drew pictures or messages on them.  It took a few months, but she brought back a stack of little works of art with a big bag of markers.  I guess one of the other teachers added to my supplies and wanted me to have them all, I thought that was sweet.  I met MIL at the fabric store and she picked a backing, which of course I neglected to photograph.  It was a pale blue fleece with foot prints in various ginghams.  She liked it because it reminded her of the story of Jesus and his foot prints in the sand.  She picked one print with words of inspiration and bits of scripture.  I also had some some ginghams cut that matched the backing fleece.

After playing around with a few different arrangements, I came up with a design that used all the blocks the church members had colored and had to add just one.  My daughter drew the winged sacred heart in the top left corner.

An aunt of mine has had me make quite a few different things for her over the past year.  She contacted me in the fall to see if I could make some collegiate themed quilts as Christmas gifts.  At the time I wasn't sure, but it turned out that I had a decent fall break that I would be able to dedicate some time to quilting.  She wanted 2 with Clemson and one with UK.

I found fleece backings and a few different collegiate print cottons at Hancock Fabrics online.  I took them to a local fabric store to match up solids and coordinates once they arrived.

They had an array of chevrons in the perfect colors that I couldn't resist working into the design.  I had a zig zag rail fence pattern planned for the UK version, so I used the chevron for binding.

The Clemson quilts were for a brother and sister, so I added a polka dot print on one that I referred to as the feminine version.  I cut a few blocks from the fleece backing fabric to start these over-sized impromptu log cabins.

I'd been wanting to try a quilt as you go method using Jelly roll strips where you wouldn't have blocks to connect in the end.  I cut all the strips and connected them end to end, then just layered the backing and lining fabric (I didn't need a true batting, just something so the bold backing print didn't show through quilt top fabrics) and starting sewing them on one row at a time.  I liked the overall product, it probably saved quite a bit of time in the long run, but it was a little monotonous sewing a strip, moving from the machine to the ironing board to press is down, then back to the machine to sew the next strip, over and over.  I like having various different steps to break up the process so I don't get bored with it.

Overall they came out nicely.  My husband has requested a WVU version.  I think I could probably sell a lot of these if I had the time and initial investment.  I probably will make some more on commission since one or two at a time is not an overwhelming project and they are guaranteed to be sold.

I had some interference with this project.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned our cats on this blog.  We had a gray long hair named Smokey that disappeared late last summer.  We were all pretty devastated and within a few weeks were bringing home a new orange kitten from a free listing I ran across on Facebook.  This is Jax.  I had forgotten how mischievous kittens are.  And difficult to quilt or sew or manage any kind of craft that might involve a string or anything that has small parts or things that dangle.  I have to lock him in a bedroom when I'm basting quilts so he won't steal the pins.  In the photo above, I was doing the hand stitching on the binding and had got up to refill my coffee cup.  He thought he was will hidden here, but his tail gave him away sticking out the other side.  I'm sure you'll be seeing more of him as he's into everything and I try to get lots of photos when the animals are small since they grow at lightening speed.  He can be irritating and destructive, but he is so loveable and I think its safe to say this one has stolen my heart.

Where I've been...

I've not been intentionally neglecting my blog, just busy with school, cheerleading stuff and life in general.  I have still been at my sewing machine quite a bit over the past 4 months, I just haven't been very good about getting photos or making it to the blog with them.  Here's a few things I did before the holidays.

I finished the Minnie quilt my mother-in-law commissioned me to make for a member of their church.

The ruffler foot came in handy for this sort of project, but it's finicky and tedious to work with.  I may use it for larger projects, but for smaller things like ruffles for my aprons I've been sticking to my old method of cranking up tension and using the largest stitch length with a regular foot.  This has a minky back and the Minnie fabric was pretty good quality, so I didn't use any batting.  I just did some straight line quilting horizontally and traced around the Minnie head.

I finished the 2nd orange and blue chevron quilt, it looked just like the Sawyer quilt but had minky backing in Robin's egg blue instead of printed quilting cotton.  In my rush to ship it out, I neglected to get a finished product shot.

I made another baby quilt for some friends that just had a little girl.  I had an array of animal prints in pink and black and some other black, white and pink prints like texts and polka dots in my stash that came together nicely.

Red Pepper Quilts had done a similar bow tie quilt in paler pinks and B/W prints that I'd had on my mind for some time.  When I found out this friend, that LOVES animal prints, was having a girl I knew I'd be able to use a lot of things from my stash.  The photo above was just the top as I was trying to decide how to bind it.  I missed the baby shower and had a lot going on as I was trying to finish it, so I completely forgot to get a shot of the finished quilt, again.  The mom was nice enough to take an iPad photo of it displayed on the crib.

It's backed with the pink and white zebra print.  When I saw the photo I smiled at the wall color.  I knew she planned to use pink, but not almost the exact shade as some of the solids in the quilt.  It all worked so nicely that I ended up making a matching crib skirt in case she wanted to use it as a set.

I've made a lot of other projects, but am having a difficult time locating photos.  A whole slew I took of my niece modeling some little girl aprons that I wanted to list on Etsy have gone missing from my memory card as well as a few I know I took where I had my husband hold up a quilt I made for another member of his mom's church.  I need to buy extra SD cards, I probably inadvertently deleted them.  Blogger/photographer fail.

My aunt took some photos of some other things I made for Christmas and my daughter may have a few photos on her iPad.  If I can gather some more I'll try to share again soon.  Winter break is slipping by quickly.  I spent the first week and a half sick, went out of town for a few days and all of last week we did some painting and handy work for family members moving into a new place.  But my classes don't start until the 21st, so hopefully I can show up on here a time or 2 before I'm swamped again.  Thanks for looking!