fandom filled amy butler's daisy chain quilt

another major project that was a long time planned was this beast!
melissa & jared got engaged on october 1st of 2015 and then after much debate set their wedding date for a year later.  i instantly knew i wanted to make them something that would blend a variety of their fandoms together and give them the perfect quilt to kick off their marriage.  much like andrew's disney i-spy quilt, the fabrics for this one were hunted far and wide to get the perfect combo without being too in your face and chaotic.
the fabrics used combine their enthusiasm for star wars, star trek, dr. who, marvel (avengers), zelda (particularly jared on that one), disney, music and harry potter.  i picked a color scheme that was subtle, mostly black & white with blue and red touches in there to keep it all together.  each fandom has anywhere from 2-6 prints (star wars had a lot with the force awakens coming out recently) which made for a nice variety on the blocks.  i chose the amy butler pattern again, since i was familiar with it and knew it would be the perfect way to blend all these fabrics together without them looking too uniformed. one of my perfect little mishaps, where thor fit perfectly inside the triangle point. there is one of harry potter playing quidditch as well, but i couldn't find him when i was photographing the details. it's seriously like an unintentional i-spy game!
when i was putting this quilt together, i texted my cousin often, feeling like this quilt could either turn out cool, or a big hot mess.  thankfully, it turned out pretty cool in my opinion.
i chose the blue sparkle to keep one color consistent, and since this looked rather spacey it tied right in to all the fandom-ness. i think if i had gone to the red side, it would have looked WAY different and potentially even an eyesore. ha!
the solid backing worked perfectly, and allowed the quilting to pop out just enough.
i actually got to deliver this to them a few weeks ago and see them open it (and then immediately spread it out on their bed) which was so much fun to see their reaction.  seriously, that's the best part... see?
pardon the crummy cell phone photo, but clearly all worth it.
happy one month and 9 day anniversary, melissa & jared!

musical amy butler daisy chain 2.0

as mentioned last week, this quilt has "graduated" to week 2 of donner mine music camp this year after being last year's week 1 quilt(see it here).  lisa found this quilt initially years ago, and this will be the 4th time that i've made some variety of this quilt using this style of block.  once as a queen size wedding quilt, once as a baby quilt, and now twice as the size the pattern actually describes.  i hadn't actually looked back at last year's quilt before putting this post together, and wow, what a difference between the two!  just the differences in the border alone make all the difference to show while they are the same quilt, they look totally unique in their own.
i really love doing this quilt pattern, despite how LONG it takes to put the blocks together. pin 48 blocks, sew, iron, repeat a bajillion times. then trimming the blocks all before they can be sewn together. bah!  the fact that the strips are sewn to a foundation piece of fabric is awesome, since it really helps keep things in place.
the last few times i have done this quilt i left out the 5" strips, but for some reason this time i felt obligated to leave a few of them in.  kind of shook things up a little bit, that's for sure.  i also noticed i had a lot of one direction fabrics this time (in particular one with words all over it) so i had to keep more of an eye on which way the fabrics were going when i put the blocks together as a whole.
see? there are those treble clefs again!  i used them a bit within the blocks, but when i forgot to keep one of the fabrics in a big 2 yard chunk for the borders, i had to find whatever joann's had to offer.  and of course, there they were waiting for me at the store :)  i did use one of the music prints for the binding, which really popped.  i had originally planned that the treble clefs would be there, but hey, plans change it seems!
 i am also quite fond of the backing fabric i used.  you can hardly tell the seam runs straight down the middle to make the pieces large enough!  i was pretty proud of myself for getting this done within a week as well, as i spent the sunday of week 1 doing some of the binding in the car on the way to take the camp photo.  multitasking for the win!  (not multitasking by hand sewing and driving though... that sounds all bad)
this one was a little larger than week one's quilt this year, but definitely still a good size.
it seems this idea of doing a quilt raffle each week has been a successful fundraiser for the camp, and i'm excited that i get to keep being part of it.  now maybe next year i'll FINALLY get ahead of the game and not spend the last week of june and beginning of july in crunch time to get these done!  and as fun as it always is to do these, i am excited to take a break from staring at music fabrics for days on end :)

music themed amy butler daisy chain

hello readers!
it's officially that time of year again :)
last friday wrapped up week 2 for donner mine music camp, and yet again we were at it with a donation quilt to raffle off for each week.  i say we, because the purchasing of the fabric is 75% my mom, 25% me depending on who is where and when.  we're still stashing fabric throughout the year (and have already begun on next year's stash.  ha!)  anyways, just as i did in previous years, i rolled week 1's quilt pattern to week 2 for this year, and then pulled a new pattern in for week one.  this year, i went with the amy butler daisy chain, which i have done twice before and LOVED, and think it turned out fantastic.  here's your first full look at it.
we had this fabric on the back laying around, probably purchased to do the back of the quilt in it's entirety.  alas, it was too short for one, and not wide enough for two, so i had to get a little creative with the backing and border it off to make the entire huge piece work for both quilts.  so this year, both quilts have a cozy flannel backing.
the front was crazy to piece, using scraps from last year, new pieces found throughout the year, and deciding which other pieces just didn't work.  i threw in a few black on black/white on whites from my pudge cat quilt, and that seemed to help break up the chaos of it all a little bit.  usually when i make a quilt with this pattern, i skip the 5" strips because it just seems too huge to take up that much space with one fabric.  as you can see in the above photo, that strip with the music instruments in a row would have TOTALLY not worked had it been chopped any smaller.  it totally made the quilt that much better (and helped use up more fabric.  ha!)
the actual pattern for this quilt calls for 3 borders of varying widths.  since this was intended to just be a lap quilt, i used scraps that were actually removed from a tshirt quilt my mom made for aileen last christmas.  the strips were the perfect width for a slight border to frame off all of this quilt.  i was looking for a different black print for the binding, but when i couldn't find it, this one worked perfectly.  it also reminded me a little bit of whole notes, adding in to the music theme.
tagged!
these quilts seem to have a great reaction once they go up to camp to be raffled off.
this year, the woman who won this quilt sent the camp director's wife a photo of it on their bed already, thanking them, my dad (he sells the raffle tickets at the concert) and i for the great quilt and camp experience.  always love to hear a happy winner :)

classic winnie the pooh "daisy chain" quilt - baby jason

as you saw on friday, this baby gift was a double feature.  and i wasn't just going to give it away to you all in one post.  where is the fun in that?
so basic rundown, incase you missed friday's post (which you should go back and view anyways)
meagan.  she's awesome.  i've known her since i was but a wee freshman in high school.
she's got a super cute baby boy & a winnie the pooh themed nursery (allegedly)
i like to make things for the awesomest of friends.
so now you're caught up.  mostly.
originally this quilt started out as a different pattern, but it just wasn't doing anything for me.
no matter what, it always came back to thinking about the wedding quilt i made for meagan when she got married in 2011, and that a mini version for little jay would be super cute.
the quilt was off the amy butler "daisy chain" pattern, and i used fat quarters (since that's what i bought for the original pattern idea) instead of yardage.  i used 2 FQs of each color except for brown i think... one of them i couldn't find a second FQ for since i originally only bought one.  the classic pooh fabric was purchased off ebay, as is much of my disney fabric finds.  instead of having it be 6 whole blocks down, i decided to chop a set of them in half for the top and the bottom pieces to keep that center diamond where it's at.
i really like how this is hints of winnie the pooh, without being in your face super cheesy about things.  to me, it feels like it has the perfect balance of pooh bear and boyish colors.
meagan's original wedding quilt had a scrappy binding to it, but i feel like that would have been TOO much on this quilt. the green binding is different than the one used in the quilt, but still holds the color that blends with them. it is the same fabric that was used on the backing though.  i decided for green so that the blue variegated thread would show up a bit more on the back than it would if the back was blue.
each color used in the blocks has it own individual print to it that does not repeat in any of the other colors.  it was quite tricky to find the perfect colors to coordinate with the pooh bear fabric (and lots of pacing in the FQ section of joann's) but i have to say... not too shabby, right?  the trickiest part of this quilt is laying all the blocks out and making sure all the points are different in each section.  easier said than done for sure.  in the larger quilt, i think it was easier to fudge with since there are SO many blocks to work with that a lot of them can be swapped out.  but i was quite limited due to fabric supply and block numbers.
tagged!  these are my favorite photos to post on instagram because it means a project is DONE and i can move on to the next.  this, along with the cross stitch, were hard to keep subtle without showing off the dead giveaways in the project.  clearly the feature of winnie the pooh were the give aways in both of these projects, but seeing when i got a <3 from meagan on something related to a project that was going to her made me want to give myself a high five.
so many photos... i just couldn't decide what to leave out... so you get LOTS.
and there you have it!
a cross stitch & a baby quilt.
a match made in heaven.
okay, maybe i'm biased... but this is one of my all time favorites right now.
thanks for stopping on by!

meagan's wedding gift

like i mentioned on the weekend wips post, this past friday was meagan's wedding. which means i can now do the big reveal of the her wedding gift, which was also the biggest quilt i have ever made! lisa had used the amy butler daisy chain pattern for her brother in law's wedding, and i liked it so much, i decided to use it for meagan's (see lisa's rendition here). meagan's colors were a peacock scheme, so i based them off some fabric i found at joann's that had peacocks on the print (without using the actual print itself) and also enlarged it from a queen size pattern in to a california king. and then i had to find somewhere to hang the finished product to photograph it. rain gutter + binder clips = win.
the cool part is that the pieces are generally left up to your free will as to arrangement and placement of different sized strips to create the scrappy looking design. i used different shades of teal, green & purple, with hints of paisley and a blue/purple print. the orange was thrown in there based off the original fabric, and helps break up the other colors with a little something extra.
my grandma came to my rescue again and helped me out by quilting it. she used a variegated purple thread, which looks SUPER great against all the colors of the quilt. apparently it was nearly too huge to fit in to her normal quilting area. at least my next projects that will request her to help me out again are smaller... kinda ;)
SUPER happy with how the binding turned out... and i have LOADS of it leftover. i could make some mean ruffles with it. maybe that will be everyone's christmas present this year. some form of varigated peacock colored ruffle creations. aprons, lampshades. i see it all now! now, here are a few pictures from friday night so you can see just how fabulous the newlyweds looked :)
of course, had to show off her fabulous dress and flowers! she definetly made one gorgeous bride on a very wet and rainy friday evening. nothing could get her down, and i know the two of them will have an excellent life together :)