himalayan pink quilt - mom's christmas gift

now it is time to reveal the truth behind the pattern for one of this year's music camp quilts!
when i surprised lisa in colorado last year for her birthday, we of course went to holly's quilt cabin while i was there.  i was in the midst of making the giraffe abstraction quilt for sarah but needing to plan ahead.  i had bought a very specific flannel for this project, but had no pattern in mind which also meant no fabric for the front yet either.  while there, i found this great triangle quilt pattern, and because i LOVE triangle quilts, i bought it AND all the fat quarters for the front while there.  originally, i had planned making this for my mom for her birthday, but then time just zoomed by and there wasn't any time to sew it in secret.  well, i took the fat quarters with me to colorado again over spring break, and once i finished my twin sweater dogs quilt top, i cut and pieced all my rows together.
it wasn't until she was at the donner mine camp for the year that i cut the triangles and pieced the top together.  i think i even quilted it at that point as well.  i ran out to thistle dew and bought a bit more of fabric for the binding, and once that was all done, it sat.  since july/august it sat, since i couldn't do much with it besides hide it!  just a week ago, i sewed the tag on to the back, photographed it and wrapped it up to be put under the tree for christmas.  success!
the fabrics used were a mix of any of the colors i found on the back in fat quarter form.  seriously, holly's quilt cabin has the best organization of fat quarters next to bolts of fabric... and SO MUCH OF IT.  since i also love scrappy quilts, it was super fun wandering the store back and forth to select which colors blended best with the backing as well as each other without being TOO intense.  and of course, i'm looking at these fabrics again now wishing i had more of a lot of them!
the binding is a shade of grunge, because obviously ever quilt i make right now could use a bit of grunge-ness to it!  i felt like the blue tied in just perfectly.
now here's your first look at the backing fabric.
isn't it super cute?  i thought it was the perfect flannel and just had to be made in to a quilt instead of pajama pants!  those boogley eyed black and white cats remind me of my elroy cat.
this quilt turned out just like i had hoped and more!
the colors were bold and fun, with an addition of kitty cats just like every quilt should secretly have.
quilt number: 103
pattern: himalayan pink by madison cottage design

goodnight, quilt - winnie the pooh baby quilt

originally, i had a completely different direction planned for this quilt.  i had bought the fabric, made the blocks, bought MORE fabric, made the rest of the blocks and then when i went to piece it all together, i lost inspiration.  totally gone.  i had about a week until the baby shower, and no clue what i was going to make for my best friend's little man, until i started flipping through some magazines my grandma loaned me once again and landed on this quilt pattern.  "goodnight, quilt" by nikki maroon was just the inspiration i needed, and a quick trip to beverley's was the solution.
when i saw this line of fabric originally announced, i remember showing it to erika and we both agreed it was PERFECT for her future baby.  when she found out she was pregnant, and then that it was a boy, i knew it had to happen.  this pattern calls for light triangles and dark triangles, but i decided that each triangle would have a character print matched with a color that wasn't the same backing - i.e. the blue hexi poohs would be paired with yellow, gray and white.  it gave the quilt the scattered look i was hoping for without being too overwhelming in characters.
sure, some yellow prints touched other yellows, and blues touched blues, but it still worked in the end. it would be interesting to see what would happen doing this quilt again and how different it would turn out. that was one of my favorite things about the other triangle quilts i did.
i used a solid gray for the binding, which really helped tie all the prints in on the front without being too busy when it showed on the back.  with the original quilt, i had 3+ yards of this hexagon pooh & piglets, so i had more than enough to use on the front as well as the backing PLUS still have some that could be used as the backing when i return to finishing the original quilt plan :)  for the quilting, i followed the lines of the triangles to keep it simple and not too crazy.
when this quilt was all finished up, i had a huge sigh of relief. THIS was the quilt that i had envisioned for my best friend, i just didn't know it until attempting the first round.
i am so happy with how it turned out, and lisa might be right...
i think triangle quilts are kind of my thing...
just over three weeks until baby's due date!

mickey mouse inspired triangle quilt along

i originally bought this piece of fleece around 2008/2009, because i had the idea to make a denim rag style quilt with it, paired with some coordinating flannel.  why mickey though?  i had ripped a pair of jeans that december while getting on to the matterhorn, and felt it would be an entertaining way to memorialize the occasion.  needless to say, the jeans were tossed many room cleanings ago and the mickey fabric has just sat around for years.  at the beginning of this year, i was inspired to put it to good use and make a quilt that was subtly mickey inspired on the front without feeling too childish, and this is the result!
i made this lap quilt for andrew's mom patty, because without her, i would have no buddy andrew to hang out with!  she's very much a disney enthusiast as well, and i felt would be the perfect individual for such a quilt to go to.  i had done the triangle quilt along quilt twice before (both times with music fabric) so it was very interesting to see how it would turn out with different fabrics.
when i picked out the fabric, i wanted to focus on the main colors of the back, sticking to primarily one or two colors on each print with a repeating pattern but not too busy.  i did find a few that were three of the colors in there, and they blended in quite nicely.  i still wanted mickey to be slightly involved on the front, and i found some great red on red mickey heads and black and white ones as well.  as i was laying the fabric out, i was afraid it was going to look too much like a circus and not very organized and i started to panic.  but there was really no turning back at this point.
once it was sewn together, i felt a MILLION times better about it.  i feel like the metallic silver on a few triangles here and there combined with the black on blacks also toned down the crazy of colors.  haha.
also, the red quilting wasn't too awful either.  especially since it really didn't show too much on the back.
i decided to put another layer of fleece in between the front and the back to make it cozier.  it added a little poof to the quilt as well. turns out, two layers of fleece is pretty tricky for my machine to cooperate with, but it made it through the challenge!  i kept the binding a solid black to frame it all off.
the tag was sewn on minutes before the clock hit midnight on christmas morning, and it made its way to its new home the following day.  doing this quilt right before leaving for disneyland totally put me in the disney mood, and kicked things off to a good start!

musical triangles version 2.0

i, for one, find it very interesting when two quilt patterns are done multiple times in varying colors, and how extremely different they turn out.  i personally have done it with the amy butler daisy chain, oh frasson's catvent, and now the triangle quilt along pattern.  this one i find especially interesting, because the theme is SO similar, and the quilts look exactly the same.  case and point, this music themed triangle quilt.
i like this pattern because of the simplicity of it, and of the two from last year, it was totally my favorite.  something about the repeating pieces, lack of border, and all around simplicity just worked for me.  so much, it has really made me not like block quilts right now... ha!  compared to last year's version of this quilt it looks so much different, and yet has the exact same theme to it.
last year's quilt was definitely more dark fabric with hints of light ones mixed in, and this one ended up being the opposite.  i cut out the triangle quilt first before the other just to ensure i would have enough fabric pieces.  when i was pulling in a few other fabrics here and there during the assembling process, i thought it was going to be more black/gray pieces all over, but i was totally wrong!  not in a bad way wrong, though!
because of the backing fabric, the quilting isn't as obvious as it was last year, but i think that's a good thing. had there been this crazy busy back with crazy noticeable quilting, i think my eyes would have gone crazy! basically, i followed the edges of the triangles with my walking foot top to bottom creating a diamond shape. and no chalking was needed. hip hip, hoorah!
the same binding was used for this quilt as the amy butler one from the week before, just without a border.  i just really like this quilt... a lot.  someday, i might actually get around to making the one i have planned for me :)
i like to save the best for last in this post.
i actually had someone there at camp with us that week (my sister) that i could make climb up on a giant rock and hold this quilt up there in all it's glory.  i just had this vision to include some DMMC ambiance in with this quilt, and it just worked perfectly!
happy friday, y'all :)

donner mine music camp week 1's quilt raffle prize - triangle quilt along

this is another quilt that i'm super excited to share!  after last year's two quilts raised a decent amount for the donner mine music camp, i was asked again to do another two quilts this year.  we still had pieces and parts left over from one of the quilts that could be repeated, but the second quilt still had to be decided.  i stumbled across a cute little quilt using just triangles called "alphabet blues" by waggonswest on craftster, and i had to run with the idea.  initially, i had a different color scheme in mind, but after a trip to beverley's in rocklin and mom cruising through their fat quarter collection combined with other fabric chunks we had in the great stash pile that is our house, we formed about 10 or so different prints.
the pattern used was from the "triangle quilt along" put on by the sassy quilter.  granted, i didn't do this with them in true quilt along style, but it was still a great set of directions that was super simple to follow.  6" wide strips, then cut down to 60 degree angles with a 1/2" trimmed off one tip to help with lining up the pieces.  204 triangles later, it was game time.
17 triangles across, 12 rows down.  the trickiest part was laying them all out in various ways to keep certain prints away from repeating to give more of the "scattered" look i was hoping for.  and then keeping them in that same order as i sewed them together row by row.  i ended up taking a picture from my phone and printing it out full page to have as a visual, then crossing each row off as i finished things.  i only had to redo a few pairings, so that was pretty exciting.
i tried something a smidge different for the quilting versus what i have usually done.  it was the same way waggonswest quilted her "alphabet blues" and i just loved it.  i aligned my foot with the diagonal seam and just sewed down the row.  then, i aligned it with the opposite side of the foot, and did the second side.  i love how it looks versus stitching in the ditch for this one.
to keep with the overall look of the quilt, i did a scrappy binding of the fabrics used.  which was a good choice, since it really helped me get the fullest out of each of the fat quarters purchased.  as you heard in one of my weekend wips posts, i spent the time in reno really busting out a good portion of the binding on this quilt while kicking back and relaxing.  win, win, win situation.  i finished this quilt in it's entirety late tuesday night with minutes to spare before midnight... you can't really tell in these pictures, but i swear i de-furred quite a bit of it.  between our house of cats and amy's house of dogs & cats, this black backed quilt was doomed.
pretty sure velcro is partially to blame...
he's pretty much failing as an assistant.
i just love detail photos... it makes me swoon. the cat fur is just the bonus gift for the recipient.
and there's that official tag meaning it's done!  it's become my officially unofficial tradition to post "tag" photos the moment i finish sewing them to the quilt on my instagram feed.  which is always entertaining since it acts as a sort of time stamp for people to see that i'm crafting at all sorts of obscure hours of the night.
this quilt was for week one of camp, which ended last friday night and got raffled off.  not sure how well it did, but apparently someone from the camp wants to pay me in cookies in order to have me make a quilt like this for her.  i might just make that happen... i do love chocolate chip cookies!