Final Countdown Quilts

I normally sew sitting on the floor  With a growing pregnant belly it has been getting really difficult! I've since had to migrate to the living room coffee table to sew. Here are a few of the latest custom orders that I've finished, and the last ones I have been able to do in my usual floor position-- and probably among the last ones I'll do before baby comes!

Get a Clue, Nancy Drew!

The gal who ordered this quilt had already purchased some of the Nancy Drew fabric by Moda.  She sent me a picture of a quilt she saw and liked, and from there I put together my own pattern for this one.

Image via Moda

What a fun fabric collection!  Here is the original picture I was sent that inspired the finished design:

And here's my very technical drawing of the proposed design:

It was fun using this fabric with a custom pattern, and the girl was thrilled with the result!

Scrappy Patchwork

This is one of the simplest quilts for me to make.  There is little cutting and no piecing!  You can really just zip it together in a few hours.  It also has a unique scrappy look to it since the squares have raw edges.

I wish that I had gotten a better closeup of this one! The fabrics the customer picked out were from several different lines, but worked super well together.  One of them was flannel instead of quilting cotton, so there was an extra texture in it.  I ended up ordering extra fabric so I have another quilt top in the works with it.  I'll take better pictures of that one :)

Timber Leaf Arrow

I've noticed this fabric line before, and I love it!  I was pretty stoked to get to make a quilt with it!

Here's the entire line:

Via Stash Fabrics

The customer had just picked out a few that she wanted.  It was super hard to find them, since the line has been out for a while.  After seeing them in person, I wish that I had used them sooner! I'd probably make more quilts with it for myself!

Folding Chair Upgrade

Sam has been using this plain, worn out folding chair as a computer chair for three years.  Besides it being ugly, I haven't had a good excuse to replace it since it works just fine.  But I finally got around to fixing it up a bit! I can't believe that I didn't do it sooner! It was easy and cheap, and made a big difference.

First I just unscrewed the fabric pieces/plastic and cleaned the metal base.  I did a few coats of super strong black spray paint that is made to adhere well to metal.  I then wrapped/glued a cute canvas weight fabric around the old fabric pieces and reattached.  Easy!

Much better, don't you think?

Ombre Chevron Baby Quilt

I loved making this crib size quilt!  For one thing, it was a really nice break from the monster king quilts I've had a ton of orders for.  It's such an easy pattern to do-- especially when you use rectangles instead of triangles.  The lady I made it for loved it, and sent me a picture of it in her nursery:

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but there are actually four shades of pink (the two darkest ones are a bit different).  But either way, I think that it's pretty cute!  My next "just for fun" quilt might just have to be another one of these, but with blue or grey!

Herringbone Quilts in Two Ways

I love a good herringbone.  To me, it's like a more timeless chevron.  Here are two herringbone quilts that I've made that put a little bit of a twist on the classic herringbone.

Scrappy Herringbone

I started making this quilt to use on our bed, and as much as I loved the fabric line, I just changed my mind on keeping it.  I made it into a short twin instead, and kept some of the extra pieces to use for a second baby quilt.  Rather than being uniform thicknesses, the pieces are random.  I've since sold this quilt in my etsy shop.

Broken Herringbone

I love all of the white space on this quilt.  For one thing, I love how it looks-- but it also really cuts down on time (you don't have to worry about specific piecing placement) and money (single cut discount coupons)!

Three King Size Quilts: NEVER AGAIN.

I just finished my last king size quilt order that came through before I set my etsy shop to "vacation".    They make pretty good money-- but holy cow, I don't know that it's worth it.  They are a pain in the BUTT to topstitch.  I don't think I'll be doing a king (or queen!) custom quilt order unless I have one of the long arm monsters!

Skipping Herringbone

 This one is probably my favourite of the three.  The lady had picked out SUPER random fabrics for the front, so I wasn't sure how it would all look together, but she proved to be much more wise and daring than I!

Arrow 

 I think that the arrow one took the longest to make.  SO grateful that my mom was there that week to help me finish it!  I never would have gotten it done on time without her!

Minimalist

This one was the quickest to piece- but it was actually the hardest to topstitch.  With so much loose fabric, it's so easy for things to get bunched and pulled.

The locker beast is done!

My office had recently relocated, and they were ready to give up the old Ikea furniture and do something fun!  I took the task upon myself to do some projects to help out!  

There was a lack of storage space- particularly hidden storage- so I found these ugly lockers on KSL for a steal of a deal.  They were all rusty and dented, and there were some serious skeptics who weren't so sure that they could be turned around...

Challenged accepted!

Poppa White loaned me his wire brush drill head (is that the official name?), which really helped get all the junk off of them.

I painted the handles gold...

And the frame black! I then did an ombre yellow-blue spectrum.  I think that it turned out awesome!

Ta-da! What a difference!

These things were kind of a pain in the butt, and took for-freaking-ever, but I think I proved the skeptics wrong :)  This sucker will provide a ton of storage, and in my opinion, look pretty cool, too!

Quilt Evolution

When I was a baby, I was given several handmade quilts.  If I remember correctly, I wore out one of them within the first few years so my mom put that one away in storage. I moved onto the next quilt, and by the time I wore it out I was old enough to refuse having that one put away too.  I kept using it for a long time.  And by "a long time", I mean that I used it up until when I got married.  At that point I put it away in storage, because I didn't want Sam knowing that crazy bit of me yet.

A few months ago I rediscovered my shabby little blanket, and pulled it out.  Sam was quite shocked and unimpressed by how lovely it looks.  He humoured me for a few weeks, then started subtly suggesting that I make myself a new quilt to snuggle with.

I don't really see what's wrong with this lovely item:

Pretty nice, eh?

So I got to work.  I used the Pow-wow pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew, who has some of my favourite patterns and tutorials.  I just added a few more blocks to make it bigger.  The fabric is by Lotta Jansdotter, who does some really amazing lines.  I had to search and search to find all the fabric I wanted, since it was an older line and the big stores had mostly run out.  I'm really happy about how it turned out!

I guess it's a step up from my old baby quilt.  This new one hasn't lost half the batting and turned transparent.  It will take a lot of washings and use to feel as nice, though :)