Just when you thought I'd forgotten my littlest love, I have, at long last, finished his baby quilt!  The saddest part of that little story is that I had the complete top done before he was born.  (Except for his name.)  I think it would be fair to say that the ol' bouncing back after baby took me just a tad longer than it did with my others.  :) 

So, three years ago, I started this little project. 

We decided to go with the theme of aliens, and I had the big kids draw me some sketches.

Which I did my best to replicate.  (You know, you really can't redo an original better than the artist, but I gave it a shot.)

And once the top was put together...I put it away.  For three years.  Until last month.

Now, my sweet Emmett was kind enough to demand he help.

It might have taken a bit longer, but the kid knows what he wants.

And then, before you knew it, voila!

He was pleased.

He said all the right things.

He tried it out.

And declared it worthy of such a great kid.

Then he got tired of the pictures.

But not tired of being a sweetie.

The end.

Guess whose quilt is finally done? Wait for it...
Baby....

(whew!)

This little gem was started this summer and turned out to be quite the process to put together. Alaina wanted to be very involved (imagine!) and took over the job of picking out the fabrics and designing the pattern. Here is our first draft of what she wanted. (At that point, Owen was her favorite name choice.)
Alaina then sewed together all of the main blocks. Once they were in place, I had all three of the kids draw out cars that they wanted me to put on the quilt. They were all very inventive and I had to simplify them the best I could knowing that I'd have to applique them on later. Here are some of their drawings with my scaled down versions. (However, I found it very difficult to scale down flames shooting out of the back of race-cars.)


Once I had them drawn out, the kids placed them where they wanted them to be on the quilt. They loved 'their' squares and in the end they all wanted one of their drawings to win the race. I told them it would be funnier if we had a turtle crossing the finish line first. The twins thought this was funny but Ethan is still a little sore about it, even though his race car is second.

The applique took FOREVER! I was really only ever able to accomplish one or two at a time. Every time the kids got home they were excited to see whose block was finished. Ethan became my biggest fan when I showed off my latest accomplishment each day. (It is funny, the things that make these kids tick.) Finally, after a couple of months of sewing, I finished all the applique. It was my first time doing real applique and I fell in love with the 'wonder under' iron-on adhesive that kept everything in place while I sewed them on. I didn't love all the teeny details that managed to slip by my 'simplifying' stage in the beginning.


In the end, the blanket ended up being at least three times the size I was imagining in the very beginning (more of a toddler's blanket than a baby's quilt, I'd say.) But the kids loved helping me out and still like to point out their designs.

On the back I wanted to do something very simple. (If I realized just how much applique we were going to do, I would have advised Alaina to pick out less busy prints on the front!) So, with all that craziness, I decided that when we needed a break from the chaotic front, we should be able to flip it over and have a nice calm quilt to look at. I found this green flannel which was perfect, but they only had a limited amount. The dye on the second print of the same pattern that came in was more olive green instead of the pretty lime green, so I decided to keep what I had and add rainbow down the middle. I loved how it came out.It is nice and bright without being too overwhelming. I then quilted the top in a simple zig-zag between the applique roads. I figured, it didn't need anything else too crazy to draw the eye to. Here is a little close up of the rainbow. The coloring is a little more yellow than it is in sunlight, but we haven't had sunlight for a few days and I wanted a picture. :)
I thought that this quilt wasn't quite finished until I matched one of my favorite blocks (austin's) with a stuffed softy. After I finished it, Alaina and Ethan really wanted on of their blocks done the same way, but I decided it was time to close shop on the project.
I really did love how all of the blocks came out, but here are some of my favorites. Alaina's racing fish.

And her racing buggy.
Austin's (I think...) fire-truck.

And Ethan's second-place race car with Speedy the turtle.
I even designed a few blocks myself. I dedicated the buggy with the surf-board to Robert.


And I loved my little groovy car until I sewed him up and realized he didn't really fit. Oops. (also those hearts were a nightmare to sew on!)


But now...now, we are ready for our little guy to join us. We'd prefer he waited just a little longer but as it looks right now, he might be coming in time for Christmas. I'd have to say, that would be the best Christmas present. Ever.

I've finally decided to get my Christmas presents, that I made, up on the blog. I had read on some one's blog that making pillowcases was a fast, easy, stress-free present to make, and I thought...that sounds just about perfect for me. Too bad for me, they were lying through their teeth. I'd like to state, for the record, that pillow-cases are frustrating, slow-going and stressful to make. Granted, I made a few changes that probably caused the majority of my headaches. I added applique and a french seam. The applique was a must...headache or no headache. The French seam was just more work than I needed to give myself. (for all those of you who are wondering what a French seam is--I just found out a few weeks before I made these pillowcases--they are seams that hide all of the raw edges. It looks really cool, but how cool do you need to look for a seam that nobody can see?) Still, I loved how they turned out. If enough time passes for me to forget the fact I wanted to tear them apart with my bare hands before I was finished with them...then I may decide to make some for my own clan next year. That's optimistic. Maybe the year after...

Craig & Robbyn's pillowcases


Jack & Tommy's pillowcases.


Lucy & Penny's pillowcases


And finally, Maggie's pillowcase. I really loved how this one turned out.


Here they are all stacked and ready to send...


Mom & Dad Jones got one too. Looking back, I should have done their letters in more noticeable colors. Sometimes you just don't wanna blend in.


And last, but not least, here is the quilt I made for Tonnette. I really loved the way the colors came together here. I was worried that my idea of a classy modern, contemporary quilt was going to end up too harsh but in the end, I loved the colors and materials of the bright oranges, aquas and yellows together. This was the first one that Robert told me to keep instead of sending off. He argued that Tonnette had no idea I had been making it for her, so she'd never know. Although he made a valid point, you just can't hold on to something when you have someone else in mind with each stitch. Silly Rob.


I used up a tone of my little scraps from the front to make the stripe on the back. I liked how it looked against the black background. The only disappointing part I felt about this quilt is the material I picked for the back. My options at the store were limited and in the end I trade the perfect pattern for the perfect texture. It is a trade I'm not going to make in the future. It's not worth giving up that soft silky feel for just the pattern. I wanted to rip it up and replace it with a flannel but I ran out of time and energy. I need to start planning my Christmas sooner next year...

Boys and girls in blue.


What have I been up to lately? Quilting of course. It is baby season again and I've had some fun doing a couple of projects I've been thinking about forever. (Well, at least for 9 months.) Lora's little one, Naomi made her appearance last week and Noelle's little Connor came earlier than expected a couple weeks early. And now that both have been sent in the mail...I am free to post pictures.

I had been holding on to this cute blue silhouette material for a long time. It had cute little boys and girls on it and I've been waiting to for the right baby to come along to use it. Noelle had already decorated her room in blues, beige, white, dark brown and orange. This was a challenge for me to create something with those colors without it become too 'old' for him. My first try at material too drab for a baby so I went back and finally got a combination that I think worked out.

I loved the result and wanted to do some heavy quilting one it with three different colors...blue, brown and orange. I started in the middle, moving out and didn't realize that the drag on each line of stitching was making my blocks wobbly. About 1/3 of the way through I noticed and tried harder to keep it all straight. It worked better, but I was bummed out with the jello blocks. Lesson learned, I guess. Unless...of course, I just tell people that I was going for zig zags.

Here is the back. Isn't that material so cute?
Lolo's blanket was a combination of the same blue silhouette material (only the girls) and I wanted to use a lot of the same colors. However, the challenge was to make it look very girly instead so boyish. I added some pinks in and used a tube/quilting technique I saw on line. The first couple of tries with this style of making blocks frustrated me because the corners of the diamonds got cut off. So I messed around with the pattern until I found a way to keep the corners crisp. I liked the way it turned out.
I used a very soft furry material on the back which looks cool, feels cool but is not super cool to quilt on. It moves around too much. Because of that, I decided to keep the quilting down to a minimum. It is actually the least amount of quilting I've ever done on a top so I'm really hoping it will hold fast.

Alaina helped me a lot on the name on the back. She worked a little bit on each letter (some of the letters she did by herself.) It was fun to watch her go...although I don't think I should have started her first project ever on something that required such attention to detail. She is determined, though.
Look at that sweetie-pie. Naomi, just a few days old. Don't you just want to take her home? I can't wait to see that child.

Mom's quilt. This one was a major headache. The front went together quickly and easily. It was the quilting that made me want to pull my hair out. The quilt is a large queen sized one and it was a nightmare to squeeze all that material into the arm of my very average sized machine. And of course, I decided to free hand millions of tiny squares into it...because I hate myself. :) So, you can imagine why it took me about a year to accomplish.


As horrible as it was to make this crazy quilt, I really loved the way it turned out. I still love all the pretty, bright colors and they way they look surrounded by white. And I love the fact that I never have to work on it again.