100 acre woods quilt - for baby w

oh hey there, blog-o-sphere.
we're back with a finished project post, and january isn't even over yet!
my unposted projects of 2019 list is much longer than it should be... and given that i already have one finish for 2020 under my belt now, i've got to get things underway!
so why not kick it off with this little paper pieced cutie?
remember this guy? the lion king quilt?
well, lion king quilt had a brother!
my dear friend amy had baby number 2 in the summer of 2018, and i had high intentions to get them another coordinated quilt before he made his debut.  that didn't happen. but it's all good!
big brother got the lion king quilt when he was born, and when baby 2 was on the way, i had to figure out what my next option was.  well, the other disney character i associated amy with was tigger!
this collection of winnie the pooh characters was perfect, and i magically had just enough of the same blue and green to create the background and sashing the same way.
i decided to align the main four down the center row, and then offset the other based on the browns.  the tigger block is easily my favorite, but gopher is pretty dang adorable too.

when doing the finishings on the quilt, i kept the quilting the same as i did on the original lion king one.  i stitched only in the green, framing the characters.  for the backing, i didn't find a fitted sheet, but i found this PERFECT yardage and had to make it work.  to make it the right width and add some coordinating colors to it, i searched the scrap bin and created some blocking to the side of it.  the binding is ALSO the same as the lion king one, but this time i machine bound it.
it was fun to get this set of patterns out for amy's littlest, even though i know she STILL doesn't allow the lion king quilt to get used.
ha!  i was also able to gift this quilt in person this summer when amy came to visit, which was an added benefit (as well as the cause to create a deadline)
pattern: fandom in stitches winnie the pooh blocks
quilt count: 125

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!

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!

classic winnie the pooh cross stitch wall art

i'm so super excited that i can finally share this project... and it's not even a quilt!
my dear friend meagan got married back in 2011, and this past spring welcomed a new little baby bundle in to their family.  when she first announced she was pregnant, she tried to keep the gender a secret, but i was able to finagle a theme of their nursery to go with to make her a little something.  they were going with classic winnie the pooh, and considering meagan is a disney addict, nothing could be more perfect.  i decided to super go for it, and found this adorable cross stitch pattern on e-bay.  it was from a magazine in europe, so the floss brand & colors were different than what we carry here in the US.  thanks to google, i found a conversion chart and went on my merry little way converting the colors to what we have here.
now you should know, i am quite notorious for leaving cross stitch patterns unfinished, so the fact that i got this one done WITHOUT any oopsies was quite a feat.  and SO HARD to not post a photo on instagram proclaiming that to the world...  it's quite difficult when you make things for people who follow you... let me tell you what.  i know there is a photo of the balloons on there, but that's about as subtle of a post as i could pull off.  this was also my first time using french knots in a pattern, and i'm quite pleased!  well, i'm sure they would have been in other patterns that i have done. they just remain unfinished in the drawer... someday...
so there you have it.
one finished cross stitch, signed (not really), sealed (eh), delivered (yes!) and off to be loved.
other than hand cramping, i enjoy cross stitching quite a bit, and hope that i can convince myself to do more of them sooner.  or at least finish one of the ones i've had started for quite some time now.  it's even on my scrolling frame and everything (i loathe embroidery hoop marks...)  seeing a real end result (besides the ones i made aileen) is quite a feat.
wait... you think you see something in that last picture?
something... something that could be quilty?
consider it a hint at what is coming next week ;)

winnie the pooh "holiday ribbon block" quilts

and now, back to regularly scheduled blog programming.  or at least the best we can get right now :)
so back in april, because it's now may 7th and april was SOOO long ago, i spent a whole day cutting out about 6-7 different quilt tops to power through sewing.  i picked different designs based on what fabrics i had as well as patterns i had never used before.  getting pretty risky over here!  anyways, this first design i may have actually seen on craftster, but i can't remember... it's on my pinterest (pattern link at bottom of post) so we'll stick with that for now.
lately, i've found myself in a very zig-zag/chevron pattern enjoyment.  since erika's wedding quilt last year, i keep finding and pinning those types of patterns.  no shame in that, right?  well when i stumbled aross this ryan walsh pattern, i instantly pinned it and knew it would go to good use quickly.  everything started out as basic squares, and from there were gradually stitched, slashed and re-stacked to create these intertwined ribbon patterns.
the plan, yet again, was to create one bigger quilt, but i basically ended up pushing the number of blocks to the limit due to running out of green & blue fabrics. in the end, i finished up with just 18 blocks total.  well, 19, but i didn't assemble the last green one.  i just couldn't see a 3x6 block quilt being a reasonable size, so i just "chopped" things in half, creating two 3x3 quilt tops (similar in size to my senior project quilts.  oh right.  those were pre-blogging days. hm.  maybe a flashback post series is in store for all those long lost unblogged projects)
it was nice to finally get some more "boy" quilt tops in my mix.  i find that i have a lot of girly fabric in my fabric supply box, so being able to piece together another two that would be able to go to a baby boy or two was fantastic.  i would totally do this pattern again, maybe mix up each ribbon row like in the original pattern.  i still have a bit of this winnie the pooh fabric held on to, so maybe it will make another appearance someday!
and now, for the first time ever in tp&oc history, i was able to locate the "original projects" these fabrics came from!  well, i could have done that with a few in the past, but i just forgot.  oops.  so on the right comes the winnie the pooh fabric & i'm 99% sure the green fabric.  i made this quilt for erika for her high school graduation in 2007.  the photos are all printed on jetprint ink fabric squares purchased from joanns.  i created the layout myself, using photos from 4 years of our friendship at that time (now going on 10 years... sheesh!)  the quilt on the right is where the yellow fabric came from.  i threw lisa a dino themed baby shower for when she was pregnant with kent, and made her this quilt.  i used a plastic template thing, also purchased from joanns, to create this pinwheel-ish pattern.  hm.  maybe i'll do another quilt in that pattern during this stashbust-o-rama.
original pattern:  ryan walsh holiday ribbon block
stash busting quilt total: 7