I promised another finished quilt, didn't I?

The Snuggle Buddy Quilt

I mentioned a while back that I had not one, but two new finished quilts to show you guys! This will sound terrible, but I've actually had this finished for a couple weeks now....I'm bad, I know. I didn't mean to hold out on you, it's just that we've had terrible weather and it's been overcast almost every day since I got home from Christmas vacation. I meant to have Karen and Angela help me take photos on our sunny Saturday afternoon outing, but I forgot my camera at home because I'm a scatterbrain :(

I couldn't take the suspense any longer though, so I scurried home from work yesterday so I could take photos in the dying light. I know I've said this before...but I can't wait for the longer days of summer. It gets dark too stinkin' early in the winter. Boo!

I'll give you the basic info and then let the photos do the talkin'. It may seem odd that I've named it the "Snuggle Buddy" quilt, but I made it for my best friend from college. When we roomed together, we referred to each other as "snuggle buddies" because we used to snuggle up in our respective beds and watch movies all the time. She loves to sleep in a freezing cold room while snuggled up under a quilt (seriously...she used to open up the window behind her bed in the middle of winter when we were going to sleep every night...crazy woman), so I thought the title "Snuggly Buddy Quilt" was more than appropriate.

The pattern is Amy Butler's Brick Path pattern, which you can download for free here. The front is made entirely out of Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow line, and the binding is the Honeycomb in Sunglow print from the same line. The back is done in Little Folks Voiles (Froth, River Rock and Water) and I can't say enough about how awesome that fabric feels. It's sooooo stinkin' soft. I told my friend that her quilt may or may not arrive used....because I couldn't resist napping under it's snuggly softness once or twice. Whiskers couldn't either. It's been decided. I'm gonna have to buy enough yardage of the voiles to back a quilt for us.

If you'd like to view previous posts or work-in-progress photos of this quilt, click on the Modern Meadow label on the left-hand side of the screen and it will pull up all my old posts on this quilt :)

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MQG Retreat: Project #5 - Basted Modern Meadow Quilt

The last time you saw this quilt in early September, I'd just finished the top. And I know I said I was gonna get the finished quilt to my friend before cold weather arrived (which is pretty early in NYC)....but life got in the way. I'm really bad about taking too many things on at once, ya know? My new goal is to have it to her by Thanksgiving. Maybe it's just me, but I kinda crack up whenever I'm working on this quilt, because I can't help but think about how I'll be mailing her the most Springtimey quilt in the universe in the middle of winter. It's almost a little smug, like "hey...here's a Spring quilt to constantly remind you just how long it'll be til you see sunshine again...in your face!"

And I apologize for being too lazy to trim the excess batting before I took photos. This was toward the end of the retreat and my tank was running on fumes. Seriously. I usually only allow myself one Coke a week, but I probably drank enough to fuel a rocket to the moon last weekend. I tip my hat to you Cherry Coke. I don't think I would've been able to function without you...because coffee is nasty...well done, sir.

I'm pretty excited about the back. I find some of my best ideas are born from the ashes of my stupidity. I don't know what I was thinking, but I was going to do the back in a solid piece of AMH's River Rock Voile. But instead of ordering enough yardage to sew two pieces together to cover the width of the quilt, I ordered just enough to cover the length. So naturally, I go to lay my fabric on the quilt top so I can cut enough length, and I realize the fabric is a foot too narrow. Yeah...I really screwed the pooch on that one. I think my mind got confused because I was like "oh, the voiles are wider so it's all good" (because they're 54" instead of 44"), but even 54" was nowhere near the width I needed. I have no explanation. Sometimes I just have to accept that I have moments of complete and utter madness.

So here was my thought process: 1) I'm too cheap to order more $15/yard fabric for the back, 2) I have yardage of all the Little Folk voiles, 3) Why don't I piece some of those coordinating voiles in a strip down the back?

And you know what? I LOVE it. I wish I'd thought of it from the beginning and saved myself the mental pants-kicking from the "not enough fabric" fiasco. I love how it's a "solids" interpretation of the front...I almost feel like it's not the back but another side of the quilt....like it's reversible or something....or variations of the same theme - one solid, one printed.

I hope you guys like it too! I wish you could pet the voiles through the screen, because they're almost like silk. So soft and cool to the touch! Ahhhh....

I don't relish the thought of quilting this because I'm afraid the voile will bunch and pucker easily, but it was too perfect not to use for this project. My friend is a snuggle bunny and loves quilts, but she gets hot very easily. I thought the voile would be cooler and more breathable for the back than regular quilting cotton. I'll let you know what she reports back in a few months ;) 

Happy almost Friday!

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Another Modern Meadow Quilt :)

My friend Meghan visited a few months back while I was working on this quilt for Roxanne. She fell in love with the simple pattern and asked if I'd make one for her, so we dug through my fabric and settled on a Modern Meadow bundle from Fabricworm. She likes the muted and cozy look of the Shabby Chic style, so the sweet colors and florals were perfect for her.

By the way...I wish I could do this with everyone I make a quilt for! It's so fun digging through fabrics with someone, having them admire your carefully curated stash, and getting both your creative juices flowing! My floor and cabinet were a mess afterward, but it was too much fun making the mess for me to regret it! ;) Laughing, yanking out fabric in a flash of inspiration, unfolding, comparing, wadding, "what about this"ing, tossing aside.

You can read more about the backstory and see the fabrics I'll be using for the backing and binding here.

And everyone say thanks to my beloved hubby and model, Ray. He quit playing an intense game of Plants vs. Zombies to help me out with my "photo shoot" ;)

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Tackling My Next Project

I've had the flu for almost a week now and can't seem to shake it. I decided to bow my head and try to plow through it, but it seems my body finally caught up with me. I woke up like a zombie this morning, called work, and then slept until 11 am. So here I am...lying on my sofa, watching old episodes of the X-Files, and blogging. And even though I'm sick and he's not, my dog has been even more worthless than me today...he's been asleep on the sofa next to me for the past few hours. As you can see, everyone in our family loves quilts.


This latest project is for my former college roomie (and bridesmaid) who's one of my best friends. Normally I wouldn't recommend that friends room together because I saw many friendships implode that way, but Meghan and I were awesome roomies. Possibly because we're the only two people on Earth that love all of the following: 1980's Care Bears Movies, Fran Drescher, and Broadway Showtunes :)

Anywho, when she visited a few months back, she fell in love with the brick path quilt I was making. She loved the simple pattern, and since she lives in frigid NYC, I offered to make her a quilt to bundle up in on those cold winter nights. I told her to consider it a thank you for putting up with me for so many years ;)

I let her rummage through my giant cabinet o' fabric, and she came out with a set of Modern Meadow fabrics I got from Fabricworm awhile back. I thought the Anna Maria Horner voile would be perfect for the back because it's ridiculously soft and perfect for snuggling under while watching a movie. For the binding I'll be using Honeycomb in Sunglow because the I think the pattern will work well for bias binding.

Here's hoping I feel better in the next few days so I can get to work on this. She'll be moving into a new place soon and I'd like to send it to her as an "apartmentwarming" gift.

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Quilting Against Time and a Visitor

I got my sewing machine back from the shop last Thursday and since the repairs took forever, I missed the Wedding Shower and Wedding Day deadlines for Roxanne's Brick Path quilt. I wanted to have it ready for her when we went back to work on Tuesday, but one of my best friends from college (she was a bridesmaid in my wedding) was flying in from NYC for the long Memorial Day weekend. Since I haven't seen her in four years, I thought it would be a tad rude if I whipped out my sewing machine while she was here, so my deadline for finishing the machine quilting was Friday night. I thought if I could get that part of the sewing out of the way, hand quilting the other side of the backing during her visit wouldn't be out of the question because a) it doesn't require a loud machine and b) I could sit on the sofa with her and watch movies while I did it.

After many hours of frantic sewing, I finished the machine part, cleared all my sewing junk off the dining table before the next morning, and spent several nights having quilting parties on the sofa with her while we reminisced and watched some of our favorite shows & movies from college (Sex & the City series, The Chipmunk Adventure, Duck Tales: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, and we even threw in Zombieland as a "new classic"). We also squeezed in some shopping/meandering on Magazine St. and lunch in the French Quarter at one of my favorite restaurants.

But back to quilting...here are some shots of the final product.













More tomorrow on my progress with the Double Wedding Ring quilt!

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A Brick Path and a Garden Party

I told you it was wedding season. In addition to the wedding ring quilt I've just started, I'm also making a lap quilt for another upcoming wedding. When I think of my friend Roxanne, I think of bright colors. Both her personality and her wardrobe are colorful and happy. But there's one dress in particular she wears that inspired her future quilt...it's a solid royal blue A-line with a big black belt at the waist. When I was running patterns and color combinations though my head, that dress popped in there and I let out a mental "Eureka!". Out came the Anna Maria Horner Garden Party stash (as if I need any excuses to use her fabric) and I was off to the races.

I decided to use Amy Butler's Brick Path pattern (you can download it for free on her website) because it uses fairly big blocks and I really wanted to showcase my beloved AMH fabrics. And that part was very important to me because I'm a hoarder. I stash my best fabrics away and can only bear to part with them if the project is for a really special person. And on those rare occasions when I break out the special stash, I obsess over how to best use them because once you start cutting, there's no going back. I can't tell you how much fabric I have that belongs in the "hoard for future children and home" category. I'm like a magpie with a nest of shiny objects. I have cabinets full of fabric, but more often than not I find myself ordering fabric for new projects because I don't want to use what I have. It's terrible, I know. So now that you know how important certain fabric is to me, you can see why I want to make sure it's displayed in all it's peacocky splendor. Anna Maria's fabrics are like paintings. I love her big, bold prints and unabashed use of color...and I thought this pattern would show that really well.

So without further ado...



Four of the six prints I used are from Anna Maria Horner's Garden Party line, but I snuck in Filigree in Meadow from Good Folks and mr. green lotus blossom from an Amy Butler line.



I'll be using 1/2 inch solid teal bias tape for the binding once I finish.



I used the same prints in the same order for this strip on the back, but I changed the block size from 4x7 to 8x7.

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