And They're Off . . .

From left to right - Rident (53" x 67"), Ohana (48" x 60"), and Spots and Dots (35" x 42").

Before these were packed for their journey to  Florida, I just HAD to get photos of them together.

Left to right:  Big Brother's quilt, Baby's toddler quilt, and Baby's newborn quilt.

(the baby was born safely on the 30th - he's in NICU for now to help keep his O2 and temperature up)

You can read more about any one of these three quilts by using the labels below today's quote.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Children want the same things we want.  To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained, and delighted."

Dr. Seuss

Ohana - the Quilt

Ohana finally spent some quality time with Max (my APQS George long arm).

The binding was already made so it didn't take long to fully finish this gift quilt.

Ohana is the larger of the two quilts for the baby boy due in early April to our youngest nephew and wife (their second child).

The design was inspired by a vintage quilt shared on Deb Rowden's blog 

The finished quilt measures 48" wide x 60" long - perfect for floor/tummy time and later in his crib.

Quilted in wide open Baptist Fans using Glide thread in Kiwi.

And this is the backing - super fun and colorful.  

(Tropical Flair by Hello Angel for Wilmington Prints)

You can read more about Ohana's back story by clicking on the link below today's quote.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Spread love wherever you go.  Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier."

Mother Teresa

Spots and Dots - the Quilt

Back in mid-2021 I put together a fabric pull with all of the polka dots in my stash.  And it sat.

In February 2022 I finally die cut a LOT of HSTs along with a bunch of 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles.

I ended up making four (!) quilt tops from those pieces and parts - 

Spots and Dots (this quilt), 

Gone Dotty (the quilt top's border has been changed since this post), 

Dot to Dot (gift quilt for a different nephew's family), 

Penelope Rose (gift quilt for that same family as above),

and the leftovers pieces and parts were used in both Ohana and the scrappy back of Rident.

Since Max's side table has been repurposed for my journaling work station, a new table is on order to go beside Max.  In the meantime I decided I could still quilt Spots and Dots (the baby's due date is getting closer).

I don't think this design has a "proper" name but I am calling it liberated waves (or fins, depending on your point of view).  

Quilted using Glide thread in Aquamarine (top and bobbin).

Here is the info on the backing's edge.  I used this eQuilter remnant which ended up being exactly the right size.

The binding was made with another well-aged stripe from the stash.

We had blue skies this weekend for first time in many days and, since there are bits of green beginning to appear (despite the fact that we'll have more freezing temps next weekend), I just HAD to take the quilt outdoors for photos.

35" wide x 42" long 

* * *

Spots and Dots will be the baby's newborn quilt.  

Ohana (WIP link above) will be his larger play quilt.

Big Brother's quilt will be Rident (WIP link above).

Time to get the next one of these pin basted . . . 

Quiltdivajulie

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"The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure."

Dale Carnegie

Dot to Dot - Big Brother's Quilt

As I was stitching the binding in place on Big Brother's quilt Saturday morning, a text chimed in from my sister.

Mommy's water had broken (four weeks early) so the parents were on their way to the hospital . . . and Miss Penelope was born early Sunday morning.

Dot to Dot, the quilt for her big brother, measures 48" x 64" 

Quilted with Glide thread in Nickel using rows of my liberated Baptist Fans.

I love these colorful iguanas on the cheddar backing.

The black and white binding is Michael Miller Clown Stripe, one of my favorites for multi-color rainbow quilts.

I hope Big Brother loves this scrappy polka dot quilt as much as I do!

* * *

Later today I will be shipping all three freshly-laundered quilts (Dot to Dot, Penelope Rose, and Winsome) to their new forever homes in Michigan.  

    

* * *

Reminder:  You can read all previous posts for Dot to Dot using its label below (or from the sidebar).  There are also labels in the sidebar for most of my quilts.

Quiltdivajulie

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"Everything starts from a dot."

Wassily Kandinsky

Penelope Rose and Winsome

Penelope Rose is finished.  

40" wide x 54" long

Quilted with my liberated fans/spirals using Glide thread in Pink.  

This will initially be Baby Girl's floor/tummy time quilt and later it can be used in her crib (she's due in October - daughter of our middle nephew and his wife).

Backing by Carrie Bloomston - Starry Elephants from her Wish line.

The toucan quilt clips are Alycia's fault - she uses flamingo clips to hold her quilts and shared the source in the linked post.    

I love having a fun new alternative to my giant clothespins.

Winsome (2021) is also going to Baby Girl.

It measures 51" x 62" and will be ready once she's bigger.

Here's a detail photo of Winsome, again with the fun toucan clips.

Both quilts will be laundered before they're sent so they're soft and crinkly - and so the parents won't have to worry about washing a brand new quilt before it can be used.

* * *

Next up will be Dot to Dot for Baby Girl's big brother.  

Thread has been chosen and the backing pieced.  Time to get the layers pin basted and start quilting.  

Quiltdivajulie

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"Art is important.  We tend to think of it as a luxury, but it gives people deep pleasure because beauty is the personification of hope that something grander is at work."

Gil Dellinger

Pieces of Progress

This small wall quilt made with three leftover pieces out of Lynne's stash is now quilted and finished.

I've hung it in my design studio near the doorway, where I can enjoy the bright colors every time I enter the room.

RAZZLE-DAZZLE has moved forward in that I've chosen potential border and binding fabrics from the leftovers stash, added the backing fabric to the design wall group (far right - Tula Pink's Lemur Me Alone) and added the last few pieces cut from Tula Pink's Between the Lines zebras. 

(for this quilt, I'm going to use one fabric for the side triangles around the exterior edges as shown above and I'll use the same fabric to add a narrow floater border)

The remaining side triangles are cut and waiting for me to get them laid out on the design wall.  

The 17" wide insert column for the back of Rident is sewn together.  I won't add the side sections using the green until the top is complete and I know how wide the backing needs to be.

To clarify an earlier comment about needing to make a big brother quilt - RIDENT will be for one of my sister's grands who will (if all goes well) have a new baby brother or sister next April.

The borders have been added to the baby girl quilt  intended for my sister's fifth grandchild (second girl) who is expected to arrive in early October.

I've also pieced the backing, gotten the layers for Penelope Rose (aka Ferhoodle) pin basted, and chosen the thread.

* * *

Progress on several fronts - now I can settle in and get to quilting.

Quiltdivajulie

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"In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art.  It is the color of love."

Mark Chagall

Decisions

For a long time I've been planning to use the leftover 2.5" strips and bindings to make a very scrappy utility/comfort quilt.

Earlier this week I decided that the color mash-mash was just TOO scrappy since I love controlled chaos but despise the "pull it out of the brown paper bag and sew it no matter what" approach.

SO . . . I am going to use this group of strips, bindings, and short bits from the resource boxes to make a set of six "beachy" placemats.

I'll use the pieces of Marcia Derse blues (left) for their reverse sides and I'll use a narrow turquoise stripe from the stash for binding.

Ideally these would become a Christmas gift come December but realistically they may not be ready by then.  Time will tell.

These strips and more short pieces from the brown and gold resource boxes will become a second set of six placemats to be used here during the autumn season - beginning in 2023.

The group in the foreground will be used for backing / binding while the upper group will be used to piece the tops.

There are still plenty of strips still in the drawers, but I am relieved to remove the worry about finding a way to have so many different and unrelated colors play together nicely.

I mentioned a while back needing to make another "new big brother" quilt for next Spring so . . . I pulled out the leftover Seuss fabrics from Little Man's Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz quilt plus the remaining pieced bits from Ohana to assess what I had to work with.  

The photo above shows a mock up for the pieced insert I'll add to the backing (under the name tag).

(Rident means "laughing, smiling, cheerful")

These are the two newly-pieced side columns (they're each twice as long as what shows here).  I added the 2.5" strips of black and white stripe to the mock up above as a nod to the planned clown stripe binding.  

The other leftover pieces of Seuss yardage have been cut into 2.5" strips for Rident's top so I could see what was available to lengthen the backing's scrappy coin-style column (more than enough).  

Yet another situation where I can stop wondering how to make the pile of scraps into a coherent quilt.

I'd like to get that coin column pieced and the three columns attached to each other before Rident is set aside so I can work (without so many wandering worries) on things with a more pressing deadline.  

We shall see how that goes.

Another major decision was to set aside Spots and Dots and use Ferhoodle for October's baby girl newborn quilt.  I plan to add a 2.5" outer border from the pink/black polka dot before this one gets pin basted for quilting.

I really do need to get on this one soon.

And Ferhoodle's name is also changing to Penelope Rose, which seems much more fitting than a word that means "to confuse or mix up."

Quiltdivajulie

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"A good artist has less time than ideas."

Martin Kippenberger

More Shopping of the Stash

Planning ahead, I have spent some time generating two more fabric pulls for comfort quilts to be donated in 2023.  

This is one grouping of paired fabrics (one darker, one brighter) that will become 6" finished HSTs.  

As time and energy permit, I'll get these die cut and into their project box.  It helps so much to have some pre-cut projects that allow me to just start stitching.

I have also set aside and labeled backing fabric for this project I've named SHAGGY (the backing fabric's name) so it will be ready to go when the time comes.

This is another color palette that has been cut into paired sets of 2.5" strips for a zig zag rail fence.  

They are already in a labeled project box with their chosen backing fabric labeled and waiting.

I've named this one TAKMEEL (which means "completion")

I like these combinations so much that a second quilt of a different design will be cut out before any remaining yardage returns to the stash. I chose several smaller pieces of complementary yardage to create a pieced backing (again, set aside and labeled).

I've heard a rumor that there may well be another baby in 2023 within my sister's family.  So Ferhoodle (shown here prior to the blocks being assembled) will have a destination, if indeed the rumor proves to be valid.

Again, if that rumor is true, the scrappy leftovers from Little Man's Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz (Dr. Seuss) quilt will be combined with the leftover pieced strips from Ohana to become a quilt for the baby's big brother.  I've named this quilt project RIDENT (which means "laughing, cheerful, smiling")

Quiltdivajulie

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"There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."

Vincent Van Gogh

Ohana - Moving It Forward

Much of Ohana is now sewn together and on the design wall.  

Made with 2.5" strip sets cut from rectangle strip sets put together with leftovers from Dot to Dot and Ferhoodle, the layout was mostly inspired by a vintage utility quilt.

This is the vintage inspiration quilt.  You can read about it HERE.

The original plan was for another crib quilt but when all was said and done, there were enough strip sets to make this 60" long.  In order to widen the top to 48" I used some of the leftover 1.5" strips cut from those same rectangles and inserted them into the vertical sashing columns.

Just six more long seams and the top will be complete - I'm liking the way it has come together.

This tropical parrots/flowers yardage will become the backing.

I'll bind it with the same black print used in the verticals.  

All in good time.

Quiltdivajulie

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“It’s not sometimes realistic to think that something magical can happen, but I like to look for the magic.”

Sherilyn Fenn

Friday Updates

The new flexible-use design wall has been covered and attached to the wall at long last.  Next week I'll paint the screw heads and washers so they don't show quite so much against the white flannel.

The earlier 18" test block is on the left and a new 12" version is on the right. 

I think I want to go forward with this project, but if I do I won't be using KF fabrics for the baskets and flowers.  I haven't decided if there will be a controlled palette or whether it will be entirely scrappy yet.  

And then, it might not happen at all.  Time will tell.

All of the four-rectangle strip sets (pieced using leftovers from Dot to Dot and Ferhoodle) have been trimmed into 1.5" and 2.5" cross cuts.  

The 2.5" units will be used for Ohana (see previous posts using the label below).

For now I am planning to incorporate the 1.5" strips into a future scrappy Dr. Seuss crib/toddler quilt.  

Unless another idea for the polka dot strips that has been rolling around in my head becomes reality . . . 

Finally, with the scrappy back fabrics for La Colcha off the design wall and put away, I was able to lay out the nearly 200 HSTs left after making Gone Dotty.

They are now becoming a baby quilt named Spots and Dots (shown here with the horizontal rows sewn, ready to finish webbing the top together).

Here is the 36" x 45" flimsy with its intended backing and binding.

And here's a close up of the binding.  There are rows of little dots in between the binding fabric's rainbow stripes; and the giraffe and others on the backing have colorful spots, all in keeping with the ongoing polka dot theme.

 

Quiltdivajulie

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“There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.”

Norman Vincent Peale

Ferhoodle and Dot to Dot - Two Flimsies

Dot to Dot has achieved flimsy (quilt top) stage.  

It measures 48" x 64" and is destined to become an oversize crib or toddler quilt.

My sister recently shared that she is happily waiting for her sixth grand to be born this fall. 

After several texts, she and I have chosen the quilt (Winsome) for the parents, so I am thinking about gifting Dot to Dot to my sister for her house.

Ferhoodle has also achieved flimsy status.  It was made with many of the excess rectangles cut for Dot to Dot.

This top measures 36" wide x 50" long and is destined to become a crib quilt.  

Since Winsome measures 51" x 62" I may send Ferhoodle along with Winsome so they have a choice of sizes for different situations.  I need to look and see if I have a quilt to send along for the baby's new big brother.

* * *

This leaves Spots and Dots to use the excess HSTs from Gone Dotty and Ohana to use the rest of the excess rectangles from Dot to Dot and Ferhoodle.  When I cut the WOF strips from that long ago polka dot fabric pull, I had NO idea that they would yield five quilts!

* * *

P.S. You can use the labels at the end of this post to see earlier posts for each of these projects.

Quiltdivajulie

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“. . . you can find magic wherever you look.  Sit back and relax, all you need is a book!”

Dr. Seuss