Life, House, Home, Family, Thriftiness, and other stuff...

Thursday, February 25, 2016

A Pillow for Everything

After making the quilt for Larry, I had this other project in mind for Colter.
They have a beautiful cat named Everything. (Evy for short.)
They really love this cat. 
And I wanted to do a Punch Needle project for Colter, 
thinking he'd probably like the different embroidery technique. 
Punch Needle is sort of like miniature rug hooking. 
When asking my sister, Ally, for ideas of gifts for Colter and Larry, she reminded me that they just LOVE Everything (their cat).
So this little picture popped into my head of their cat sitting on the back of an armchair looking out a window. It's just how imagine him to be. 

And of course there's a quilt on the back of the armchair.
(and it happens to look like the quilt I made for them. haha. I know. I'm clever that way.)
I made it into a pillow. I used a pieced square that I had already made a long time ago. (I have a bunch of them, but not quite enough for a quilt...)

It's a hand cramper, that's for sure. 

And this is the picture Colter sent to me. 



Awww.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

The many faces of the Log Cabin Quilt

Hmmmm. Someone's been quilting all day!

I thought I'd show a few of the MANY faces that can come from just this ONE square. 
(or a lot of them I guess.)
The LOG CABIN SQUARE:
So...Just scroll through for a sampling of some of the designs you can make using that Log Cabin Square.

Here's the same idea  only the REVERSE. 

That one up there is really close to the one I chose to do. 
(Just turn each corner square around so the color is in the corner, not the white.) 

Same as above only reverse:

Chevron look:




(This is the one I chose for Larry's quilt.)
I'm pretty sure there are a lot more designs than these. It's such a diverse square.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Bold Colors Log Cabin for Larry (and Colter)

This is Colter and Larry.
Colter is an Artist. Larry is a director for the Berkeley Art Museum
So you can imagine that I was feeling a bit intimidated at the prospect of making a quilt worthy of two ULTRA artistic individuals. 
Then I was reminded that they appreciate individuals and effort and pretty much all forms of art and all different levels ...
And, well..they'd love whatever I made for them! 
So I chose the classic, traditional LOG CABIN design. 
It carries so much history and legend. It really has some meaning, ya know? I knew they'd appreciate that aspect. Though a classic design, it has a modern twist with the bold, bright colors. 
I made this quilt for Larry since I already did a quilt for Colter back in 2008. My goal is to make at least one for each family member. (not sure about all the nieces and nephews, though I am doing good with the younger ones by making them baby quilts when they are born.)




I quilted each line, which looked really nice and wrinkly -the way I like it- after I washed it.



I had a hard time sending it away because it just looked so good in my house!


 The back was some weird flannel-ish fabric I found at a thrift shop a while ago.
I hope it holds up...
About to be sent to Berkeley, CA. 
Wave goodbye! sniff...




Fox Quilt for William

I was invited to a baby shower for Sara and soon to be born William.
This fabric was cute enough on it's own. I didn't want to detract from it. 
I wanted it fully featured. 
I love the sweater vest!

I didn't do a lot of quilting.

I just randomly quilted shapes among and around the foxes, sort of like "tying" a quilt. 

I used black ric rac around the edge which really made a cute outline to the middle square.
And then didn't have quite enough polka-dot fabric for the back....
I'm always running out because I am not very precise in my math and measurements for how much fabric I'll need. 
So I added this little strip of the foxes in the off-center of the back.

The hounds-tooth binding pulled together that hipster look. 
Turned out cute! And so easy! (Sometimes it's all about the fabric you found.)

And my favorite thing:
She uses it.

Look at William's bow tie! Dressed to match?
(I hope she doesn't mind that I posted her picture. It's just too cute!)

Friday, February 19, 2016

Ollie's baby quilt!

One of my favorite things:
Seeing a baby quilt I made for someone being used!

 This one I made for my nephew Ollie (Ally's boy). He's now...7 years old?
Here he is with his sister, Pike. (Oh and look! They are wearing the aprons I made them for Christmas!)

We went to the beach while we were visiting California last summer (2015)-the whole family (except Jensens who visited the week after we left.  boo..) 


Emily and baby cousin, Hugh!
 Me and my little brother, Colter.
 My mom, Gram, in her normal position.


 My favorite people in the world (minus Justin).
 Aunt Amy with Em and O-bot (or Chicken Nugget as she calls him)
 And with Garrett.
 Me and pretty niece, Adri!

It was fun to see this ol' quilt show up!
It looks so at home in the sand!

Amanda's Quilt

A quilt I made for my good friend and her new baby girl. 
That baby girl is probably about 9 now.
This one I created with another friend, so the fabric and the pattern were products of a joint effort. 

I think I picked out the main pink/gold fabric and then we found others to go with it. 
I normally go for the more random look, but my partner in crime...not so much. 
She needed some sort of pattern.
With the random amounts we'd bought, this is the pattern we came up with.

As you can see, Owen was just a baby. He's nine now.



Very pretty fabrics.