Friday, May 18, 2018

Busy Baby Quilting

My best friend Ruth is going to be a great grandmother (again) and the little guy is due to be here in June.  Better get busy!

While the weather was still cold, or at least cool, I made a couple of baby afghans.  These are so simple to do, just a granny square pattern, and it keeps my fingers busy while watching television with the hubby.  (I'm sure you all know what that means:  watching hours on end of car shows, tool shows, and storage lockers.  That's okay, though.  I'm not one much for Hallmark romances.  I prefer Dexter to Dynasty.  But I digress.)  I'm not overly fond of the yellow-blue afghan, but it will work well as a floor blankie for Baby.  The blue-green afghan is so soft and cuddly and washes like a dream.  Ruth's kids live in cold-weather country, so I'm sure they will get a lot of use out of them.





















I don't know the theme of the baby's room, or if there is one, so I chose to do a hodgepodge of everything.  I found scarf bibs, a soft giraffe blanket, and a tag toy along the way and added them to the stash.



The current trend in baby gear seems to be woodland creatures.  Easy enough.  I adapted a pattern from one of my favorite quilt books and made a slumber party for a crew of woodland creatures.  The animals' quilts are all-boy plaids, stripes, arrows and leafs with a gray, black and red color scheme against a white background.

I believe a quilt should be used and worn out with love, but that isn't the case with many of the quilts I make for people.  They instead choose them to be wall hangings.  If that is the case with this quilt, the parents have white space on the top and bottom middle of the quilt to have someone embroider the baby's statistics. 












In addition to the woodland quilt, I tossed in this little quilt that I made several years ago but never found a home.  It's just a simple little patchwork quilt with 3 raw-edge appliqued ponies. 














And the last quilt I made was not for Baby but for Big Brother Liam, who thinks they should name the baby Liam Jr.  Big brothers and sisters can sometimes feel left out when Baby is getting all the goodies and attention.  This was just a quick little quilt of tool borders I picked up on my Shop Hop with Rhea.  Perfect for a 4-year-old boy's tv blanket.  The panel with his name appliqued on top makes this little quilt just that more special for Big Brother.



Tuesday, May 8, 2018

A Little Quilt Shop Hop

Rhea and I are once again on the road to the Valley Quilt Shop Hop.  It's great to see the shops and their current projects, but I think the best part is just getting away for a few hours with my best friend. 











We always have a great time, laughing, joking, snacking, and of course spending.  What's a hop without a little cash damage, right?







This particular Quilt Hop starts in Oakhurst in Central California and works its way down through Fresno, Visalia, Reedley, and Bakersfield.  It's always fun to see the staff in these locations and we even run into some quilting buddies along the way.  Quilters really are the nicest people!