Charming Lucy: free quilt pattern

This quick little quilt needs just one charm pack and some background fabric.  It finishes at 35” x 35” (before quilting and washing.)  I love this size of quilt for babies and it also happens to be the perfect table-topper-size for my current dining room table. 

For the binding I chose the blue dots…



..and for the backing I went with the blue/green plaid from the same Lucy’s Crab Shack line.

 
 If you make one too, I’d love to see it! 


The Charming Lucy quilt pattern is available as a free download for my newsletter subscribers. You can get access to the free pattern here!

On A Roll

This has been a great week for finishing things.  Feels good!

This was one of the things I completed.  The quilt top was finished back at the beginning of December.  I’m calling this one Stars Abound 2.  (The original Stars Abound can be seen here.)





The fabrics are from the Tidbits and Treasures line by Piece O’ Cake Designs (Robert Kaufman) and I used Kona White for the background.  I love the bright and happy colors!

It took me a little bit to decide what to do for the backing.  In the end I decided on a lovely yellow print that reads more as a solid.  It’s warm and buttery and just makes me long for the warm sunshine. 





The binding is done in (what else?) a cheerful red dot.  For my bindings, I use this tutorial.  I always machine stitch the binding to the front of the quilt, and about 90% of the time I hand stitch the back.  I love how the invisible stitching looks.  Such a clean look. 






Stars Abound 2 is currently looking for a new home.  She’s listed in the shop!  (sold)

Edited to add:  The pattern for Stars Abound is now available in my shop!




I'm linking up to Finish It Up Friday

and

The Treasure in a Ziplock Bag

A couple of years ago I was the recipient of my mother-in-law’s fabric stash.  Some of it I used immediately and some of it sat patiently in my closet. 

Last week I pulled out a ziplock bag full of fabric and sorted through it.  It turned out to be the leftover bits from a project my MIL finished years ago.  I wasn’t sure it would be enough to make an entire quilt but once I got started I was pleasantly surprised-  There were enough blocks and strips to make a twin sized quilt!  Quite a treasure.

 


I had to visit the quilt shop to find a matching binding and backing – and even that went well.  You know how sometimes you have an idea of what you’re looking for and it’s just not there?  This binding that I found was just what I imagined for this quilt.  And I found it within minutes.  And it was on the clearance rack. 





This was a nice, quick, weekend project.  It is on it’s way to the LDS Humanitarian Center.  (They are still in need of full and twin sized quilts.)

I'm linking up to Sew and Tell Friday:

A Whole Lotta Pink

 

I don’t sew with pink often.  We’re more of a blue/green/brown house (it’s inevitable - with two sons and 21 nephews…go figure!)  So when I do get to sew with pink, it’s a delight!



When I began this quilt, I called it “baby brellas”  because it uses that cute umbrella fabric by Riley Blake.  However, I quickly realized that because of the size of the stripes, you couldn’t actually SEE the umbrellas.  So I changed it to “baby stripes” and I’m saving “baby brellas” for my next project.  I have enough of the umbrella fabric (from the Rainy Days and Mondays line) leftover to do another baby sized quilt – this time I’ll fussy cut some umbrellas and feature them inside some wonky blocks.

  

The finished quilt measures 44” x 44” and is machine quilted in a meandering pattern.  I added a few loopies here and there throughout the quilting – to make it just a bit more girly.  (Like the pink doesn’t already add enough, right?)



I love just the touch of gray with all of the cute pinks.  For the back I used a kona solid (I think it’s Petal) and I had three little blocks leftover from the front – they found a home on the back.



The binding I went back and forth on.   I originally had another print chosen – one with some gray in it.  But it just didn’t have the pop of this stripe fabric.  This cute stripe is another Riley Blake fabric (can you tell what section of the quilt shop I am drawn to?) and it frames the quilt up so nicely!



“Baby Stripes” is now listed in my shop!

I’m linking up:

Jeans and T Shirt

My oldest son has never showed much of an interest in the quilts I’m making while they’re in the piecing stage. Once I lay them out for basting though, he comes right over to see. After making a few comments or maybe asking a question or two about it, he inevitably asks when I’m going to make HIM a quilt. I put it off thinking he was just being nice, but then I got a great idea for a quilt that would fit my boy to a T.

I called it “Jeans and Tshirt.” In my stash I had a big stack of blue scraps that were given to me from my MIL and when paired with white, they reminded me of jeans and a nice clean white tshirt. (my boy’s favorite school-day outfit.)
I added just a touch of red to add a little bit of unexpectedness…

…my son chose a nice soft fleece for the backing….

…and I added a scrappy binding (using up the last bits of blues from that same stack from my MIL.)

The blocks were made using some fairly simple paper piecing and then sashed in white with just a bit of wonkiness. I have more photos of how I made the blocks and I’ll post a pseudo-tutorial on that tomorrow.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the fleece back. I really thought it would pucker as I quilted it, but it worked beautifully! I did use my usual batting as well as the fleece. I basted it as normal and quilted it as I usually do. Really the only difference was just in how much more bulk there was to work around as I quilted.
The finished quilt is only 55x72 (my son has a loft bed with a railing so his quilts can’t “hang” too much.) and he absolutely loves it. The biggest complement to me was not so much the words he said, but the fact that he carries it downstairs to watch cartoons in the morning!

Sew & Tell Friday

For one day this week I had to take a break from all of the red, black and green that I've been working with! I made myself one more shopping bag using the pattern found here:

Morsbags

It's a quick pattern and you can use just about anything - an old sheet, pillowcase, or in my case - fabric scraps!



The bottom of the bag is double layered just to add a bit more strength. I love that the pattern has you use french seams. It makes the inside nice and tidy - and of course stronger too!


Then, just on a whim, I used the leftover scraps, along with some netting to make a produce bag. It does the job, but it's not a perfect pattern yet. I'm still tweaking it.

So, what have you finished this week? Visit Amylouwho and join in!

All Done!

I added my last week’s Sew & Tell post late, but I’m on time this week – wahoo! Now I can cross one thing off my huge to-do list. This week’s Sew & Tell is my finished quilt from the Scrappy Christmas Block Swap I participated in with Wendy, Rebecca, and Jodi. (hosted by Modern Jax)

I received two blocks from each talented quilter, added 14 of my own and sashed them with some Kona Snow to get this: (my little helper is so happy to be a part of the photo. He asked me not to edit him out.)

The binding is a green dot – I originally wanted to bind it in the same green stripe that I used on the Elf Hats quilt, but these dots did a better job of adding to the scrappyness of the quilt without being so distracting.

Back in October I wrote a post about my debate over how to do the backing. I received a lot of helpful advice and ended up deciding to do this:

I love how it turned out, and this lovely new addition to my quilt stack has found a home on my sofa until January. Or maybe February.

Elf Hats

I'm just a couple of days late to post this - I hope no one minds! These photos had to wait until after my sister's birthday - I didn't want to spoil her suprise.

My Friday finish for the week (well, last week actually) is a quilt I called Elf Hats. When I started it, I had this in mind:

But when I asked my 8-year-old son if he would lay the blocks out for me, he did this:

…and everyone that I showed it to liked it so much better. Here is the finished quilt, complete with green stripey binding.

My inspiration for the quilt came when I was playing blocks with my youngest son. He had stacked these two together and I immediately thought of a little elf with his hat on wonky.

I created my own template for the hat blocks, made one block and then decided to change the template to a paper piecing pattern – I hated dealing with all of the bias edges. The paper piecing goes quickly, and it gave me freedom to add a few variations. Here are some of my favorites:

A tiny elf hat for the smallest elf in the group:

A wrinkly elf hat for the little elf who doesn’t like to iron:

A tipsy hat for the elf who is always in a rush:

And two fancy hats for the elves that like to stand out in a crowd:

The finished quilt measures 68 x 80, and in this photo you can see the great green striped binding and the cute snowmen backing. (It’s from the Be Merry collection by Riley Blake.)

This project was one of my Joy in the New Year Challenge projects, so I get to cross it off my list! Two down, six to go!

Sew & Tell Friday

I've been up to my armpits lately in paper piecing!







I've been working on a new quilt for my 8-year old's bed, (don't tell him, he doesn't know) using some scraps and FQs that I received from my MIL. A large stack of navy fabrics have been sitting ever so patiently in my closet, just waiting to be used. Now they're all pieced together into blocks, waiting to be sashed in white and sewn into a quilt top. Hopefully by next Friday I'll have a Friday-Finish-photo of these same blocks bordered in crisp white Kona Snow. (Man do I love that stuff. I should ask Santa for a bolt of it.)




The second paper piecing project (say that 3 times fast!) that I've been working on this week is a Christmas quilt top. I can't say anything else about it though, because it's a gift for my sister on her birthday. I'm counting it as a Friday-finish though, because I completed piecing all 80 blocks just last night. Whew!



What have you finished this week? Head over to Amylouwho and participate in Sew & Tell Fridays!

Sew & Tell

This week I finished up the Christmas log cabins quilt top. This was made from the blocks that I received through the Scrappy Christmas Block Swap, plus several that I made from my own stash.

I'm having a bit of a dilemma with the back though. Yesterday I thought I wanted to back it with the same Kona snow I used for the sashing. I had some scraps left over from the top, so I made some stacked coin type strips to add into the back as well.



But then I spotted this gorgeous green Kona - and I have just enough for the back. Now I can't decide. White..... or green???



What have you finished this week? Visit amylouwho for Sew & Tell Fridays