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

Monday, June 12, 2017

Quilts for the Scout Fundraiser

Every year, the scouts need to figure out how to pay for all their scout camps. More often than not, they create some kind of fundraiser where the parents end up paying for scouts anyway.
Granted, we DO get yard work, spaghetti or something else for our troubles!

This particular time, we had a silent auction. 
We were to donate items (that we made or paid for), then buy those items back. 
Genius.

I decided a baby quilt was easy enough. I had all the fabric, batting, thread I needed. So I quickly whipped out 2 simple random square baby quilts. 

This one was super easy because I already had the squares sewn together. Just needed batting and a back. These fabrics I used for a quilt for Ian when he was little. Then had larger squares all sewn together to make a twin size that I never finished. In fact I'd already chopped it once to make a quilt a few years ago for a friend's grandbaby.

 That red fabric is a washable satin, so it's shiny. :)

The back is a sheet I found somewhere and already had. It matched fairly well, so ...

I just rolled the back around to the front to make the edge.





Those are cute little pirate ships. This fabric was the inspiration for the whole color scheme.
 It went for 20 bucks.

This second quilt, is obviously more of an IVY quilt. I had lots of bright fabrics in my stash. 

Can't believe it but I happen to have a big enough piece of the polka dots for the back. Guess I bought a lot when I made this fox quilt.
I stippled the whole quilt. (Free motion quilting)
It went together really fast. 
You can tell how much I liked this one by how many pictures I took of it.
These aren't all of them.

 Hi, Ian! Wanna see what I bought at the auction?

This cute quilt.
hee hee
Well.
 It was only going for 20 bucks. 
I knew I'd be paying for scout camp one way or another, so I bid $40. 
And now I can say that my quilts earned those boys $60! 

This is where it resides in my house. :)

Saturday, June 10, 2017

A Quilt for Hugh


We didn't know Hugh was a boy until he was born.
 And I wanted to get started on a quilt for him (or her...)

So I actually went out and bought some cute retro fabrics for this quilt. 
And then when I sewed them together, I wasn't super happy with the colors I'd chosen. 

So I tried this blue border, but it still just felt muddy.
And so I broke out the White. Duh. 
I know myself. I know my quilts. I have to have that white to make it pop the colors.
It's still sort of pastel, but Sofie and Ethan assured me they like the colors.
The vintage fabrics are super cute! Look closely and you'll see ducks, and farm animals, birds and bees. 
          Still, it needed the blue square in the white lattice to add a dark outline to draw you eyes, and also to help the blue stand out more.

Though this quilt sort of gave me fits in the beginning, I love how it turned out.
And I got to use a cute blue polka dot flannel I'd had sitting around forever for the back.


And Hugh ended up liking it.
I've mentioned this before, but Hugh is the cutest baby on the planet. 
Just in case you didn't know.


Sofie and Hugh
Very talented sleepers.
Side Note: Our family has had a lot of fun making Pun jokes with Hugh's name. Here are the onesies made by the Jensen family (my sister Erin's family) for Christmas.
We are all so Punny. ;)


Friday, June 9, 2017

Neutral Colors for Sofie

Sofie is the Beauty who married my baby brother Ethan. 
She is a birth coach, a doula, studying midwifery.
You can find her here:
and here:

She's an exotic beauty with Colombian blood and that gorgeous olive skin tone that tans like I've never tanned and always wished I could.
She has great style, loves natural colors, and lovely textures. 
And so much more.

Sofie, Ethan and the cutest baby on the planet, Hugh.

 When they were preparing to get married, I wanted to make a quilt to say congrats. I found many different fabrics of neutral colors and mixed textures. Also wanted to give it a feminine touch with a rustic ruffle.
(Yeah...that white thread is bugging me too.)

 She graciously received it at her Bridal shower.
 As I write this, today is her Birthday! Happy Birthday, Sofie!
(June 10)



Scrappy Quilt for LuLu

This is Leah. Or Lu or Lulu. She's my littlest sister -10 years younger than me!
I drew her name for Christmas of 2016 and it was her turn for a quilt just for her. Key words: Just for her. She probably has the most quilts from me out of anyone since she keeps having babies (and those babies being born after my quilt learning.) In fact, she's got another one on the way, so she'll be getting yet another quilt soon. Again. :)


I think most of my siblings have been known to refer to Leah as the "best one."
She is the happy, easy-going, loving, patient sister -we all adore her!
Leah and Matt 
You'll rarely see Lu without a kid hugging her neck!
4 boys and another boy on the way.
Without any real idea for what kind of quilt I wanted to make for her, I just dove into my very colorful stash of scraps!
I poured through these for a while. 
Without really deciding on the quilt design...

I just started sewing, without really measuring too much, making large... strips of stripes? 
I have sort of stopped making quilts with any pattern. I am lazy in my old age. (42 is old when your baby sister is having her 5th kid!) I like 'em scrappy, and colorful and for the color to really stand out I use a lot of white. So ...This quilt is a very typical IVY quilt. 
1. Colorful
2. Simple to put together
3. Easy




The quilting is done on my normal machine, just close-together straight-ISH lines. 
I didn't bother trying super hard (or at all) to make them straight.

The strips (or stripes) aren't even necessarily the same width.

This quilt is a throw size.