Cara's Quilt

I just finished a lap quilt for my friend Cara. A few months ago, we had a service auction at church. She won a quilt from me, and I won babysitting from her. A good deal if you ask me!

For this quilt, I followed the same pattern that I did for Beckham's quilt last summer, and for Madi's quilt this past fall. It's fairly simple to create, but is still cute. I love the polka dots!

Melissa's Wedding Quilt

I have a tradition to make a quilt for each of my siblings and Ryan's siblings when they get married.

Yesterday I finished the wedding quilt for my sister. Congratulations to Melissa -- she got married 4 1/2 YEARS ago! So, yes, I was really slow with this one :)



I love this pattern and so many of the fabrics in this quilt! I copied the beautiful quilt found here. The last few weeks were fun as I enjoyed working on it regularly.

B is for . . .

On Wednesday I had the honor of throwing Betsy a baby shower for her new little boy, Beckham. There were two main things I focused on:

1. The Baby Quilt: As soon as I found out they were getting a little boy in their family, I knew I was going to make a baby quilt! I was inspired by a quilt I'd seen online here, and decided to adapt it to boy colors.

I bought the fabric the day Beckham was born (July 1). Luckily, baby quilts come together fairly quickly! I finished it on the 12th -- the night before the shower. It took me forever to pick out the fabrics, but I am happy with how it all came together!



2. The Food: Betsy's friend, Kylie, and I worked together to host the shower. She brought cookies, drinks, and the most delicious peanut butter chocolate rice krispy treats! If you've read any of the blog in the last year, you know that I am totally inspired by the recipes from Our Best Bites. I knew I wanted to use their whipped frosting to make some fun cupcakes. I also found a recipe for fruit salsa and homemade cinnamon chips. The leftovers may or may not have been my entire lunch the next day!



We had a good turnout, and Betsy was able to get a lot of adorable outfits for Beckham! I hope she could feel how much love we all have for her, and how happy we are for her new little boy!



Izzy was able to be here for the shower, and she had a lot of fun:


My boys loved the "after-party" . . . they used all of the tissue paper and bows to play dress-up. Ryan, it was not my idea -- I promise!

Americana Pinwheel

Back in September our Relief Society had a service auction. Everyone was to come with something that they could auction off, either already made or a service to be performed after. The "money" was determined by filling out a survey -- the more points, the more money to spend.

We got the chance to look over the items before the auction part started, and I knew exactly what I was going for: 3 different people were offering an evening of babysitting. With young women in short supply around here, a date night was very needed! I ended up spending $400, almost all of my money, and it was SOOO worth it! In October Ryan and I enjoyed a nice evening out, had a great babysitter, and didn't have to pay for it!

I decided to auction off a quilt. Since I didn't have any pre-made (I am still behind on a few projects!), I offered to make the winner a quilt. She could pick the design and fabrics and I'd make a baby, wall, or lap quilt. If she wanted bigger than that, I would do it but she would need to help pay for it.

Since I didn't have any examples there, and since our monthly Quilting Group is poorly-attended, I had no idea how many people would be interested in my service. As the items were auctioned off, mine still hadn't been auctioned, and I knew people were running out of money. I knew not to take it personally since we were nearing the end, but I braced myself for the quilt to sell for very low. The low end was $100 and things selling on the high end were going for $400-500, so I prepared mentally for the quilt to sell for $150-200.

When my item came up, I was shocked at what happened. Two women had apparently been waiting just for my item. After a handful of people bid through the first few hundred dollars, these two women had an all-out bidding war! When the price went over $500, one of them even acquired more money from people at her table so that she could win! I don't remember exactly now, but the winning bid was just over $600 -- it was the highest item of the night. Wow.

It turns out that the winner, Sherilyn, has a daughter getting married December 4. (They are fairly new to the neighborhood, so I didn't know about it before.) She really wanted a quilt for her, but had no one on either side of the family that could make it. I'm sure my eyes got really big when she said the wedding date -- that was basically 2 months to make a queen-sized quilt! What did I get myself into?!

I met with Sherilyn and her daughter Brittany. I'm glad that she got to pick the design she wanted (we looked at ones that wouldn't be TOO time-consuming to pull off in 2 months) and that we went to the store and she picked all the fabrics. That way she is sure to love it, right?

Sherilyn made sure to send her 11-year-old daughter over a few times to play with Joshua and Elizabeth so that I could work on the quilt. I finished this morning -- I met my personal deadline of getting it done before Thanksgiving! And when she came to pick up the quilt, Sherilyn brought over homemade jam and homemade pumpkin pie -- yum!

The whole quilt

detail of the stitching

Hard Rock Jungle Style

Ryan's sister, Amy, had some Hard Rock t-shirts that she wanted turned into a quilt. So a few months ago we worked out the design and she found this amazingly-cute fabric. (You can't see the back, which is brown with green and tan polka dots.)

I was able to get it done in time for our trip to Arizona so that she could open it on her birthday. I think she did a great job picking out the fabric. Amy, anytime you want to go into business together -- you pick the fabric, I sew -- let me know!

Better late than never

. . . at least that's what I hope they say about it! More than three years after the wedding, I finally made Kaley and Chase their wedding present!

Kaley helped me pick out the fabrics, and I think she did a great job! It's hard to tell in the picture, but the main fabric is a beautiful paisley, which is also the back of the quilt.
I was too anxious to get it in the mail to wait for Ryan to come home and hold it up for the photo. So this is Benjamin and Joshua on stools :)

Jacks for Jack

Here is the latest quilt I've completed.

It is for my brother's newest son, Jack. Jack was born 2 days ago . . . look at his cute dark hair!
This is one of my favorite quilts I've done in a long time. It took FOREVER to pick out the fabric, but I'm happy how it turned out.
Nathan looked at it before I packed it up for mailing and said, "It's jacks for Jack!" I hadn't thought of it that way, but he was right.
Welcome to the family, Jack!

It's Done!

One tradition that I have is to make a quilt for each of my babies. For each of the boys, I had theirs done before they were born. Well, for Elizabeth I had 2 quilts made for her before she was born. I knew I would keep one and give the other away, I just couldn't decide at the beginning which would be for her. After I finished those 2, they sat on a chair in the nursery for a good month as I tried to decide which I liked best for Elizabeth, and which one I would give to my good friend who was having a girl a few months later.
Then we got exciting news -- another good friend across the street was adopting a baby! The baby was born 12 weeks early (her name happens to be Elizabeth, too!) and the ward quickly threw together a shower for the happy new mom. I really wanted to make her a quilt, but with my own new baby and the short notice, I did not really have time to make a new one. So I ended up giving them the second of the 2 quilts I made for Elizabeth.
Before the neighbor's shower, I had sketched up a pattern and was actually contemplating making it in a week (baby quilts are SO much faster than bigger ones, and I do thrive on deadlines). But as I looked at the patterns, I realized the one that was already done was more of their fun, outgoing style, while my new sketch was more of our family's traditional style.
I started the quilt that really is for Elizabeth this time on Conference weekend.. I got a ton done then, and have slowly worked on it. I finished it this Sunday -- just in time to use it to cover her carseat from the snow we got on Monday :)
I wasn't able to get a great picture of it -- I couldn't get the lighting right. But this should give you a decent idea of it.Now we are doing a quilting club in our ward (which I am heading up at least for this first project). I am excited to share my hobby with others and help them make fun quilts, too!