Mar 23, 2015

Quilty Fun Birthday Cake Banner and Tablerunner


Lori Holt designed this cake block to celebrate the year anniversary of her Quilty Fun quilt book.
pssst....The book is available at JoAnn's.
You can go here to Lori's blog to get the recipe.


The first cake I baked, was Strawberry Cheesecake.


I had so much fun, that I decided to bake a Chocolate Mousse cake.


Red Velvet cake is one of our family favorites.


I baked another Red Velvet in a different color combo :)


Then I baked a strawberry cake, they are pretty addicting!


I baked another strawberry cake with one of my granddaughters in mind, and came up with an idea...


I will bake the cake into a banner, one for each of my grandchildren.
Each year, when it's their birthday, their cake banner can be displayed on their special day.
Charlotte's birthday is April 9th, she'll be five!


It's hard to tell in the photo, but the border looks like sprinkles :)


I appliqued Charlotte's name with wonder under and a machine blanket stitch.


 I made a tablerunner for Charlotte's mom, because she goes all out for birthdays :)
I thought she might like having a table runner for her festivities.


 I used a dotted fabric for the border on the table runner, and they still look like sprinkles!
It may be a while before I get around to quilting it.


I wanted to show you a photo from last week's post.
Here are some of my grandchildren with their dolls and baskets that I made for them.


Here are two granddaughters who weren't in the previous photo.
I didn't get one of their baby sister, because she was sleeping :)

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Mar 16, 2015

Rag dolls and Quilted Storage Boxes


Amazingly, my husband and I have 11 grandchildren now!!!
We have 2 grandsons and 9 granddaughters.
I was thinking about what I could get them for a little Easter gift.
I was looking through my magazines and found an adorable little doll pattern in this magazine, it's Issue Eleven.


Look how cute she is!!!


I made my first one for a granddaughter who loves purple.
She took a while to make, I'd say about 3 hours.
I decided to make them all at once instead of one at a time.
I thought that would make me feel like I was getting more done, and it did!


This is what the hair looks like before the head's sewn together.
I just sewed the felt hair onto the flesh colored broadcloth, and sewed lines down each one to look like strands of hair.


These are all the dress pieces, I chose each color and print according to each girl's likes and personality.





I was thinking about making each little doll a quilt...but then I remembered the quilted storage baskets in this book.
I thought the fabric basket would be better, because I could make 11 of them, including one each for the grandsons.
The baskets could be like a bed for the little dolls, and the boys could use theirs for storage.
I wrote a tutorial on the baskets here.


I made the baskets with my 3 l/2" wide scraps.
This saved me a lot of time, because the strips were already cut.


I worked really hard every spare moment I had, and finally completed my little dolls in about 10 days.
They look like their watching a movie or something, lol!!!


This little doll is for Reagan Clara, she's 4 years old.
 Her favorite color is purple and she has blonde hair.
I made her basket out of prints, and there are all sorts of peek-a-boo  designs.
There's a dog, a bird, Little Red Riding Hood, an elephant, and so on...


This is Kylie Violet, she's 2 years old.
Kylie loves pink and anything pretty and feminine.
I made her basket in pink and mint green, to match her dress.
Every doll has some of the fabric from her dress, in the basket.


This is Kennedy Grace, she's 7 years old.
Kennedy's favorite color is green, so I made her a green basket.


This is Maisie Louise, she's 4 years old.
Maisie loves pink and purple.
 I used a Mary Engelbreit print for her dress and her basket is pink.
Maisie has a cat named Abby, so I used a Japanese print with cats and birds for the lining.


This is Neo (nay-oh) Kimberley, she's 4 years old.
Neo's favorite color is purple, so the doll and the basket are purple.
I don't have very much purple fabric, so this was a challenge!


This is Lucy Jane, she's 1 l/2 years old.
She's a cute little blonde toddler, so I made her doll and basket in soft  pinks.


This is Isabel Louise, she's 1 month old :)
She has no idea what she likes, so I made her doll and basket in Heather Ross fabrics to match her baby blanket and burp pads.
You can see her baby quilt here.


This is Paisley Louise, she's 10 months old :)
Paisley also doesn't know what she likes yet, so I gave her doll an orange dress and basket.
I really love orange, it's a happy, bright color.
The lining of Paisley's basket is a cute little Japanese print that I hope she will enjoy looking at.


This is Charlotte Leigh, she's 4 years old.
A lot of people have said that this is their favorite doll :)
Charlotte loves strawberries, so there are strawberries on her doll's dress and her basket is pink.


This basket is for Benjamin, he's 2 years old.
His bedroom is decorated in red and aqua, so those are the colors that I sewed his basket. 
The lining is a Japanese print with lots of cars.
I'm putting some Matchbox cars in his basket.


Last but definitely not least, is Bridger, who is 9 years old.
He is our first grandchild.
Bridger is getting a selection of Artemis Foul books in his basket.
He's also getting a copy of the book Wonder.


I hope you've enjoyed seeing all of my projects, they are a labor of love.
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Mar 9, 2015

Snapshots QAL, sewing machine


I'm sewing the Snapshots Quilt Along, it's sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop.


The pattern for the sewing machine was available on February 15.
I used my Alpha Bitties to sort out all the little pieces.
If you are interested in getting some for yourself, you can find them here.


Here's my sewing machine.  I'm using mostly Bonnie and Camille fabric for this quilt, from various lines.
The red fabric in the sewing machine isn't Bonnie and Camille, but the rest is.


Here's my cake block from last month.
I think they look pretty good together :)


I pinned all of the Snapshot QAL information on Pinterest.
There is also a Facebook page devoted to the Snapshots QAL.
It almost feels like a virtual quilting bee, there is lots of excitement about this quilt :)





post signatureI'm looking forward to March 15 when the "kettle" block is available!

Mar 2, 2015

AYOS and a little bit more - February



I loved February's parttern, it was Fig Tree's Mini Jumping Jacks.


I chose Pam Kitty fabrics because they're bright and happy.
The orange fabric with the flowers by the blue dot is Flower Sugar.
I used a text fabric for the sashing just because I love text fabric!


I love this color combo, it's the traditional Union Jack colors.
I'm Canadian and this used to be our flag until 1967 when Canada was 100 years old.
I used to draw this flag all the time in Elementary school and it was really hard to get the right dimensions because the lines are different widths.
This block should have had a yellow dot, so I'll be turning this one into a real little mini mini :)


Here are my little blocks :)
Each one measures 8 l/2" X 9 l/4".



I used an older Flower Sugar pattern for the back, and a black and white houndstooth to match the text sashing.


I machine quilted in the ditch, around the sashing and each jumping jack block.



The finished quilt is 21 l/2" X 29 l/2".
I really love it!
You can see the parade of other quilts like mine at A Quilting Life and Pink Pincushion.

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