online quilt festival 2009

california-dreamin

I had a bit of difficulty selecting the quilt to share for the quilt festival (because I love them all!). In the end though, I decided it was only appropriate to share these two quilts, since they’re actually at Quilt Market right now!

blue-striped-quiltpink-striped-quilt

These quilts were made for Jenean Morrison, using her new fabric line, California Dreamin’, which she designed for Free Spirit. (Isn’t it gorgeous?! It’ll be out soon, I think!) Each of the two colorways have beautiful colors and prints, and she asked for a stripe design to show off the various patterns. I really loved working with these fabrics and putting them together to create these lovely quilts. Thanks Jenean!

blue-striped-back2pink-striped-back

You can read more about these quilts in my original post.

I was so happy to have this opportunity, and I’m excited that even though I couldn’t go to Houston, at least my quilts got to!

cal-dreamin

Be sure to click the image below to visit all the other blogs participating in this online quilt festival. Thanks to Amy for organizing such a fun event!

bqf

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a break from quilts…

…in order to make baby dresses! (and no, this is not an announcement — sorry Mom!)

ittybittydress2

The aqua Calypso dress is actually for my sister (and no, she doesn’t have an announcement to make either!) We’re both just enamored by anything teeny tiny and cute. Actually, my sister Whitney doesn’t sew, but she is a Heather Ross fan (and a fan of a mystery giveaway!) so when Heather announced her studio sale, Whit signed herself up for a small package, hoping for some clothing. She did get a cute skirt, but it wasn’t her size, so I suggested using the fabric to make up a little dress.

ittybittydress

I used the Itty Bitty Baby Dress pattern, by Rae, of MadebyRae. I had seen so many of these cute little dresses (there’s even a Flickr group for them!) and I knew I had to try making one. I made a test version out of the red hippo Ikea fabric. It went together so perfectly — I guess I didn’t need to test it first (but now I have a cute little dress too!)

ittybittydress4

Honestly, what more can I say? They’re adorable. Morgan’s been putting up with my craziness, but only just barely. He reluctantly answers ‘yes’ each time I say “aren’t they cuuuute?” And as you can see, he was really enjoying the photo shoot…

FFA-dress4

So if you’re in the market for a baby dress – either just to admire (like me!), or to put on an actual baby, or maybe as a great gift – I highly recommend the Itty Bitty Baby Dress pattern. Cute cute!

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modern munki munki martian quilt

(that’s a lot of m’s!)

modern-martian-quilt

I love this martian fabric – it’s Munki Munki fabric, designed by Heather Ross, and actually cut from a pair of pajamas. (you fabric lovers out there will understand cutting up clothing to use the fabric for something else!). If you’re looking for some, you can purchase it here from Kerri at sewdeerlyloved (she also has a great selection of other munki prints if you’re so inclined!)

The martians in the fabric have a bit of a yellow/lime green hue, so I added in an Amy Butler Lime solid as well as a couple other darker green solids.

modern-martian-block

(cute little martian family!)

I decided to go with blocks inspired by Denyse Schmidt’s What a Bunch of Squares. I made up all the blocks, and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t loving them. There was a definite overabundance of green… and suddenly I wasn’t sure I even liked green! I thought that perhaps it would be ok if I sashed it all in white, but then it started looking too Christmas-y…

So instead I grabbed one of the cream colored solids I had recently purchased (I bought a stack of them, but then couldn’t figure out which was which… and hence the need for the color chart!) — turns out it was ‘natural’. And then in the pile next to it was this nice tan (Kona Stone, in case you’re wondering). I decided to outline each of the green blocks with the natural, and then sash it in the stone.

modern-martian-quilt2

Now here’s the funny part – this wasn’t the original quilt idea, and it actually only came about this way because I had bought a few extra solids and then failed to put them away. I realized after the fact though that it bears a definite resemblance to a quilt block I had seen about a month ago made by Jessie of yarntini. She’s making a munki munki quilt out of a few different munki prints (can’t wait to see it finished!) and you’ll see that the martian block uses very similar colors (I should ask her which Kona solids she used!). So even though it was unconscious, I think I can say that the color scheme for my quilt was inspired by her block!

modern-martian-quilt-back

For the back, I kept it fairly simple, just using the same fabrics from the front in a simple stripe design. I stippled the whole quilt and bound it in the medium green.

Anyway, I’m glad this one is finished. I had many more problems with it than I should have – bad measuring and cutting, a dye lot problem with the Kona Stone… and the list goes on… Now that it’s finished though, I’m quite in love. It was going to be one for the shop, but now I’m not so sure. Morgan seems to be taken with it as well and keeps encouraging me to keep it (now that’s a change!) I think I’ll hang on to it for a little while, but you might find it in the shop at some point! And it’s now listed in the shop!

Posted in [search] Square-in-Square Quilts, [search] Wonky/Improv Quilts, 2009 Finished Quilts, Finished Quilts, Posts about Quilts, Quilts | 52 Comments