Julie's Quilts

Brynn's Quilt

2010-08-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

Brynn's quilt is finally finished!! Hooray! I made this quilt for my niece Brynn. The design is based on her nursery (and the crib set here, and below), which she inherited from her big sister Rylee. I used many of the same fabrics from Rylee's quilt, including the green gingham Pooh and friends fabric from the crib set. The fabrics are dots and stripes in strips of various sizes, set into 12 inch blocks divided by sashing. The quilting is in 1/4" borders throughout the center.

This is my mom's awesome new sewing machine that we used to finish the quilt. We tried out a fun new stitch for the border quilting. I think it turned out really cute!

The border with heart stitch quilting.

The back is a cute green polka dot.

I like all the soft colors and the playful style of it - maybe because I love polka dots. =)

Emma's Quilt

2009-10-16T18:36:00.000-07:00

I made this quilt for Emma Grace, daughter of my friend Erin. I finished it in October 2009, the day after Emma's first birthday. Emma's nursery is lavender with butterflies and flowers. The quilt is made up of 10" blocks with a pieced border. The quilting is in a diamond pattern through the middle of the quilt. I really enjoyed picking out the fabrics for this quilt, and I think the border is fun.

The back is gingham with a polka-dot border and binding.

Tallie's Quilt

2009-09-05T17:00:00.001-07:00

Update (August 2010): Here are a couple of pictures of Tallie (age 2) loving her quilt. Sorry that they're fuzzy - they're so cute I had to post them anyway!

My mom and I made this quilt for my neice, Natalie (Tallie) Beth, who is four weeks older than my Molly. We started this quilt while my family was moving across the country, so I designed it, Mom and I put it together, and then Mom did all the finishing - quilting and binding. The quilt was finished in April, 2008. I designed it to match Tallie's nursery (including this bumper). Since they were sharing a room, I also used some of the fabrics from Piper's quilt. The quilt is made up of horizontal stripes in various sizes. The fabric is in various shades of pinks and greens in polka dots, stripes and florals. The quilting is in the ditch.

The backing is floral and polka dots

I really like the effect of the stripes!

Tallie, Piper, and Daddy snuggling with Tallie's quilt

Piper in Tallie's quilt

Fabric shopping

2008-11-21T13:21:00.000-08:00

I got to spend an evening recently at craft night with some of the ladies from church - so I was able to work on my current quilt project and hang out with other grown ups! Wow! It was a fun evening. I was asked where I get my fabric and if I have a favorite store. When we lived in Colorado I had a whole bevy of fabric shops that I liked and I enjoyed making the rounds to find just the right fabric for each quilt. Well, I'm sorry to say that I haven't found many fabric stores here yet. We've already lived here for, um, eight months (?) and I think the very first thing I did when I found out where we were moving was to Google fabric shops in the area. (Yeah, and then I looked for the grocery store - priorities!) You would expect me to have all the shops in the area checked out by now, right? Me, too. And um, I found a Jo-Ann's that's 45 minutes and a toll bridge from here. Instead, I have found a whole world of fabric on the internet. (I can go when I want, and I don't have to drag my kids with me. It's what works right now.) So I thought I would share!

Some of my new online finds:

Fat Quarter Shop
The Calico Cottage Quilt Shop
A Counterpane
Sweet Peas & Angels
Desperate Quilters

And here are a few of my old favorite fabric and quilt shops from around the Denver area (I am glad that some have online ordering so I can still shop there!):

Denver Fabrics (They don't carry much quilters' cotton any more, but I find all sorts of great solids, plaids and stripes there that the quilt stores never have.)
The Great American Quilt Factory
Calico Corners
Quilting Hands
Tomorrow's Heirlooms

Of course, I do find things at the big chain stores - Jo-Ann Fabric, Hobby Lobby, and even Wal-mart sometimes. I have been (pleasantly) surprised this year to find a lot more variety and more things I like in the "nursery" fabrics at Jo-Ann's. One of the big problems that I run into when fabric shopping is the lack of nice, appropriate fabric in the colors that people are using for their nurseries. (Not that people are picking odd things, but that the fabric world and the baby decorating world apparently don't talk to each other.) The other thing is that I am always (OK, not always, but usually) looking for nice plaids, stripes, ginghams and tiny floral calicos and they're a lot harder to find than you would think.

I have to say that I am a lot more picky about getting exactly the color/pattern/style that I want than the stores that I shop in. I like to get higher quality fabric when I can, but I am also shopping on a tight budget. So I get the best color, fabric, and price I can, whatever that may look like today.

My kids with their quilts

2008-11-13T13:23:00.001-08:00

I took a couple of pictures this week of Elijah and Molly with their quilts:

I had to wash Elijah's again this week, and I am pleased at how well it has done so far. He's been sleeping with it consistently for a year and a half now and I've washed it several times, and it still looks like new (and as far as I can tell, all the seams are still rock solid). It is really important to me to make quilts that are washable and durable as well as beautiful, so I am thrilled that my own personal tests are turning out well so far!

Here we go again!

2008-09-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

I am starting a new quilt. Yes, it's a crazy thing to do - Molly is just 2 months old and just keeping up with the house is more than I can do sometimes and my mom isn't here to help me, and maybe I won't be able to finish it anytime this year, but I want to try. My friend Erin is having a baby girl soon, and since big brother Caleb got a quilt, I can't let his little sister go without. So we will see if I can do it. We are also excited that we are going to have a new niece or nephew in February, so I'll have one more quilt to work on soon!

Molly's Quilt

2008-07-15T09:30:00.001-07:00

Molly's quilt is finished! My mom did the rest of the sewing while she was here. This quilt is pretty random, but I really like it. I wanted to make a pretty baby girl quilt that would go with the colors in Elijah's room (which Molly will soon be sharing). I started with red gingham and chambray blue and added pink, lavender, yellow and green in ginghams, florals and dots. The border is chambray blue stripe with eyelet. The back is a light pink dot print. The quilting is in the ditch.

And two more on the way

2008-04-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

Well, my mom has done a lot of sewing lately, even if I have been too busy and tired to do very much myself. There is no way that the two baby girls coming this summer would have gotten quilts at all if it weren't for Nana sewing like a maniac!

While Patrick was moving us to RI and Elijah and I were staying at my parents' house, we designed and did all the fabric shopping for both quilts, then cut out and pieced the top and back for my niece's quilt. I left that one in Colorado in my mother's capable hands, now that my part is done. And I hear that it is already quilted and ready to be bound! WOW! I will post pictures when I get them.

Mom and I brought all the fabric for my daughter's quilt to RI with us, and spent the week accomplishing more sewing than unpacking. I laid out the patchwork and Mom got it all put together. Now I just have to add the border, cut the back, quilt and bind it. I'm excited about it, but it'll just have to wait until we get all unpacked and settled in here. Soon!

Rylee's Quilt

2008-04-11T09:23:00.001-07:00

Here is Rylee's quilt - my mom helped me finish it a couple of weeks ago (while we were moving into the new place) and last weekend I was able to give it to Rylee when we went to PA to visit. I am glad that the sewing went quickly and fairly smoothly and I'm very glad Rylee (and her mom) like it!
Rylee's quilt is a patchwork of 5" squares in yellow, blue, cream, sage green and pale pink, with a Winnie the Pooh theme. I designed it to go with her nursery (you can see pictures of it here and here), and the fabric on the back is from her set, with a green border. Both front and back borders and the binding are flannel. I think it is soft and pretty. =)

Sewing up a storm - hopefully

2008-02-29T09:35:00.000-08:00

Now that Caleb's quilt is finally finished, I have started working on three little girl quilts. I've got a pretty tight time line, but my mom is helping a lot and I think we can do it! We started on my niece Rylee's quilt this week, for which I had already had done the fabric shopping, and the patchwork top is already done! Hooray! Now I just have to design and shop for the next two - our little bean who is coming in June, and our next niece who is due in May. It will be fun to be working on pretty, girly quilts for a change!

Caleb's Quilt

2008-02-29T09:23:00.001-08:00

Caleb's quilt is finally finished! Here is the final product. The quilt is a random patchwork of 2 1/2 inch squares in blue, green, yellow and white. There is a combination of gingham, plaids, stripes, and star prints, with a border, binding and back of solid blue flannel. I designed it to go with his nursery theme. I think it turned out really well, and I'm so glad it's done!

Matt's Quilt

2008-01-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to our friends Mike & Tori who are adopting son Matt this week. I made this quilt for him on rather short notice - until recently everyone thought he was going to be a girl! Matt is a month older than Elijah, so we are excited to have a new friend.

Matt's quilt is a crib-size patchwork of 5" squares. It is a starry night theme in light and dark blue with yellow. The quilting is in the ditch. I really like all the blue fabrics. I used several fabrics from Noah's, Evan's and Caleb's quilts, along with a few darker blues. The pattern is fairly random with alternating dark and light. I decided not to use a border this time and just used a narrow binding that matches the backing fabric. Simple, but fun!

Evolution (3)

2008-01-14T18:16:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a long time, but I have been sewing. Well, lately I have been. I took the summer off - since my sewing space is in our loft, which averaged about 100 degrees this summer. But once it cooled off and after we had some guests staying up there, I got started again. Of course, most of the time I don't have a lot of time for sewing, but I try to get an hour here and there. Caleb's quilt is coming along - the body is quilted and I am working on the borders. I was hoping to have it done this week, but some other things came along and it's not going to happen. But I'm sure it will be finished soon! I'll post some pictures as I do the final steps.

Snuggling

2007-05-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

Here is another picture from our trip to PA: Lorrie, Zoie, Barb (Bobbi) and Maiah snuggling on the couch with Zoie's quilt and Evan's quilt. I'm so glad that the kids are enjoying their quilts!

Zoie's Quilt

2007-05-22T09:42:00.001-07:00

When we were visiting Patrick's family last week, we took some pictures of Zoie's quilt. I made this quilt for my niece Zoie, based on colors in her nursery and a ladybug theme. It was finished in 2004.

Zoie's quilt is a patchwork of various-sized blocks in lavender, green and yellow with ladybugs and butterflies and an eyelet ruffle edge. I tied this quilt since the bugs would have interrupted the quilting too much.

Zoie and I with her quilt.

Evolution (2)

2007-04-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

After three weeks of working on Caleb's quilt, the patchwork top is in two large peices, and I am ready to start assembling and quilting.
I spray-baste each top piece to the batting and backing fabric. (I love the spray stuff! I've never felt good about doing all the work of sewing it once just so you can sew it again and rip all the first stuff out. Yuk!)
Now that I have all three pieces of the quilt sandwich together, I can start quilting.

Evolution of a quilt ...

2007-04-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

As I start a new quilt (for my Erin's newborn son, Caleb), I'm attempting to document the story of how that quilt was created. I started thinking about this quilt in October when we found out that Erin was having a boy (scrap the purple quilt I was thinking about and start over!). Erin picked out a theme for Caleb's room, and I started looking for fabric and thinking about a design. (This part took a while because I was also working on Evan's and Piper's quilts.)

After the thinking, and the fabric shopping (which really can go on forever, even if I'm not in the middle of three other things ...) and washing all the fabric, I decide on a pattern and do the math to figure the number and size of the blocks. In this case, I decided to do a patchwork of 2 1/2" squares, with a single, wide border. (For a crib-size quilt, that's 300+ squares.)

After checking the math, I start measuring and cutting.

Then I lay it all out and rearrange until I'm happy enough ...
and then the sewing starts. All these steps in reality are mixed up - going back and forth as necessary. Sewing is actually a process of pinning, sewing, ironing and then doing it all again. My iron is downstairs and my sewing machine is upstairs, so it's a good workout! There is a lot of sewing - smaller seams to start, and then longer seams as the block groups get bigger.

Evan's Quilt

2007-04-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

Evan's quilt is all done and off in the mail! I made this quilt for my nephew Evan. It is a crib-sized patchwork of 3" blocks in green, yellow and blue. I mixed ginghams, plaids and stripes with a star print and solid white. The quilting is a diamond design in the center and rows of diamonds around the borders. The back is the blue star print. This quilt did not have a specific theme - just fun for a special little boy.

Finishing

2007-04-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

Finally! I'm adding the binding to Evan's quilt - the last step, and then I'll be done. I'm so excited to be finished, and to give baby Evan his quilt (while he's still a baby). This project has been a really interesting learning experience because I learned a new way to assemble the quilt. Since it was a new thing, and since the guidelines I followed were designed for larger quilts, it took a little longer to put this quilt together. I was hoping it was going to make it faster! But I'm glad that I did it - in the future I'll just have to modify the technique a little to better fit my quilts. Hooray for finishing!

Corbin's Quilt

2007-03-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

Here is Corbin (6 weeks?) with his quilt, which was completed in February, 2005. It is a random patchwork of 6" blocks, designed to go with his nursery theme (All-Star/sports).

Lily's Quilt

2007-03-10T17:18:00.000-08:00

Lily's quilt is my version of the traditional Trip Around the World pattern. It was designed to complement the nursery decor that Lily inherited from big brother Noah (see Noah's Quilt, below), but emphasizing the more feminine colors in the set. I even used a couple of the same fabrics from Noah's quilt. I had so much fun picking fabrics for this quilt that I couldn't bear to repeat any of them - I had to have room for as many as possible! I finished Lily's quilt in the spring of 2005.

I got to visit Noah and Lily in December, and see their quilts again. The quilts are now 5 and 2 years old, and I think they look even better now that they've been loved for a while.

Noah's Quilt

2007-03-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

Noah's quilt was the first baby quilt that I finished (early spring 2002). It was quite an adventure! I've never used a pattern for my quilts (not that I'm opposed to patterns), and on Noah's I didn't have much expierence either. I designed it based on the colors and theme (Noah's Ark) of Noah's nursery. This quilt was so much fun to make, and it is extra special to me because I made it for a very special boy!

Patrick's Quilt

2007-03-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

This is Patrick's quilt, finished spring of 2002. (One of the first quilts I finished.) It is an extra-long full size and it is pieced on both sides (learned my lesson on that one!). The top is denim and the back is flannel. Both the jeans and the flannel are mostly pieces that used to belong to me or people we love, which makes for fun stories.

Coming soon ...

2007-03-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

I am currently finishing another baby quilt; this one for my nephew Evan. He is now four months old, and he'll probably have his driver's licence before I finish! I'm sorry Evan. I wasn't sure if I would be able to continue to make quilts after Elijah was born - taking care of a baby is a full time job! But I am glad that I convinced myself that I could do this one, even if it has taken a long, long time. PT and I are going to work really hard on my sewing space this weekend to make it useable. Since Elijah is mobile now, using the living room floor for my quilting projects just isn't working - leaving pins lying around is bad news! So I am hoping that next week I'll be sewing up a storm (safely, upstairs) and Evan's quilt will finally get to him. Of course, then I'll be starting on the next two ...

Piper's Quilt

2007-03-08T09:20:00.000-08:00

Piper's quilt was finished in December, 2006, for my beautiful niece, Piper Louise. Piper's mom picked colors and other bedding for her nursery and I designed the quilt to match. Aren't the colors great? (I wish they showed up better in these pictures!) I love them - Lin, you did a wonderful job on Piper's room. It is beautiful.

My mom often helps a lot, but this one was truly a team project. Mom did all the hand sewing and embellishment in addition to helping with all the construction and quilting. Thanks Mom! I think it is wonderful that Elijah and Piper have special blankets that Nana made.

Piper's quilt is made of 8" blocks, embellished with hand stiching and ribbon, with a 2" binding. If you'd like to see a cute pic of Piper with her quilt, check out her blog.

Elijah's Quilt

2007-03-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

Here is Elijah (almost 3 months old) with his cowboy quilt. Thanks to my mom, who did the patchwork with me, and Fran H. who did the quilting and binding as a baby shower gift. I love how the colors turned out, and the small inner border of red bandana print. Fun!

Elijah's quilt is a random patchwork of 5" blocks. The back is a cowboy print with complementary borders. This quilt was finished in June, 2006.

Check out more picture of Elijah with his quilt on his blog: with Erin's sweater, and finally sleeping with the quilt.

Welcome!

2007-03-07T19:58:00.000-08:00

Hi! I've started this page to post pictures of my quilts and maybe even some thoughts as I make them, for those of you who are interested. I'll be updating this page less frequently - the quilts just aren't as cute and fun as Elijah! I will try to find and scan pictures of the quilts that came before the digital camera, but it may take a while. Enjoy, and I'd love to see your comments!