Monday, July 11, 2016

SuperHero Baby Quilt

Are you ready for this?
I've received more compliments on this quilt than any other.  It's loved by men and mothers and little boys around the country.  

So my sister was having a baby, her first one.  I've been waiting for this moment for years so I could make her a baby quilt.  She found out she was having a boy and she sent me a picture of a quilt she found on pinterest and asked me to use than as inspiration for a quilt for her baby.  

Here's what I did: 

I know. I know.  You comic book people have a problem. I mixed the Marvel and DC characters together.  It's okay.  I did it on purpose. My sister and her husband picked their 6 favorite superheros.

I appliqued each logo.  We have 

Captain America

Spider-man


 Batman (my personal favorite...)


 The Green Lantern


Iron-man




And last but not least, Superman.



One of my favorite features of this quilt is the quilting in the setting squares.  I stole the idea from old school comic books. 

BAM!


SMASH!


ZAP!


POW!


WHAM!


and BANG!

The border was quilted with continuous stars.


For the back I found this awesome coordinating fabric, in flannel of course, because I back all of my sleeping quilts with flannel. 

It's the printed names of all the avengers.  The colors matched perfectly!  

There you have it.  I'm rather proud of this one.  

♥Holli

Pastel Flower Quilt

My niece is getting big.  Kids just plain grow to fast.  I recently promised her a twin quilt for her bed.  I picked out a pattern and asked her mom to choose some colors. 


I appliqued this cute flower and added extra batting underneath it so that when I quilted around it it pops out as the main detail on the quilt. 


I love the big with stretch in the center.  I used a long cut so I wouldn't have a seem in the middle of it. I free motion quilted the whole quilt and added in a few flowers in the white piece.



I quilted her name into the white stretch and my husband suggested adding some floss stitching so it could be seen better.  It was a good decision.  


I made a simple square flower to go in the center of each block then quilted around the edges of each block with an on-point square design. 




As usual, I love seeing the back, the stitching just pops, it's gotta be my favorite part. 

♥ Holli

Christmas Cardinals

I used to live in Indiana, I loved Indiana.  Three of the things that I loved most about Indiana where the Lightening storms, lightening bugs, and cardinals. Those amazing birds would hang around my bird feeder year round, in the winter they stood out remarkably against the snow covered trees. 
So when I saw a picture of this quilt online I had to make it. 


I appliqued the cardinals and the pine cones, then I made a simple nine-patch for the offset squares. 
I hand quilted a poinsettia in the center of each nine-patch, I tied a few french knots in the center of the poinsettias as well.   


 I love these birds!  They're just so majestic.


I backed it with a vibrant poinsettia fabric that I just love, I wish now I would have used it on the front where people could actually see it.... Hindsight 20/20.  I hang this on my wall in December.  I just love it. 

♥Holli

Masculine Wildlife Quilt

Biggest Quilting Problem: my husband.  I love him. He loves that I quilt.  I learned to quilt because of him.  But when he wants a quilt he's rather picky.  He doesn't like girly fabric, (lets face it, they're almost all girly) He doesn't like frilly patterns, or cutesy patterns, he likes squares, blocks, straight stuff, dark colors, and he's tall, so I have to make the quilts extra long for him.  

Anyway, he wanted a quilt.  This is what I came up with. 

I had some wildlife pillow case cuts that I used, chose some dark colors and just made a simple design that I thought he would like. 


There's four different deer prints, I hand stitched around the deer and the printed borders.
 

I used an index card as a template for the overlapping block quilting on the pieced blocks. Not too girly but allowed for some dimension. 



I backed it with a wildlife panel flannel, he wanted it to be warm and soft.  


He takes it with him to work and uses it on his rack.  

 Well.  He loves it.  Which satisfies me.
♥ Holli

Cupcake Alphabet Quilt

When my niece was little I wanted to make her a quilt, she was kinda past baby stage though, but I wasn't ready to make a bigger quilt.  She was about preschool age so I though I 'd try an alphabet quilt.  I thought the cupcake fabric was just so cute!

 

I used my Silhouette cutter to cut the letters, love that thing!  It made quick work of the job.  
I just stitched the letters down and then I quilted little cupcakes in the blank squares. 


See... Cute little cupcakes 


Each cupcake is a different color
 

Backed with a super cute cupcake fabric and I think it's just so much fun!
 
♥Holli

Circles and more Circles

I made this quilt a few years back for my 3rd daughter when we transitioned her from a crib to a big kid bed.  She was our summer baby and the quilt was done in summer colors (totally did not do that on purpose).  This is also my first attempt at machine quilting... so the quilting job looks rather amateur, because it is. 


Doesn't look to bad from a distance I guess.  I'm my own worst critic.

I quilted inside each circle with a circular design, typically a flower-y thing, then I meandered around the blocks outside the circles.

I appliqued the circles on using the freezer paper method... not my favorite.  Next time I think I'll go back to my preferred method of wonder-under.  Much more user friendly.  




 I backed it with a soft flannel so she'd stay nice and comfy at night. 


What I love most is that she loves it, She doesn't even care about the flaws, she thinks it's awesome.
♥ Holli

John Deere Baby Quilt

 Probably one of my most favorite quilts.  Several years ago we decided to try for another baby.  We had two girls and were kind of hoping for a little boy this time.  Well, as fate would have it we had another girl.  Turns out she's the apple of her Daddy's eye.  Daddy was so smitten.  Well Daddy has a fascination with John Deere Tractors, and I find it adorable that they make Pink John Deere stuff.  Hence my new baby's quilt:


This is the only quilt that I have made completely by hand.  No machine was used, ever.  I hand pieced each one of those stars, it took me forever!

I even quilted little tractors along the border. 


I backed it with a soft John Deere Pink Flannel.  This quilt is so soft, not stiff at all.  Perfect for cuddling with my (then) little one.
She's half grown now, but she still loves the quilt... and strangely enough, she shares her Daddy's fascination for tractors... especially John Deere.


There's nothing I don't love about this quilt, or this little girl.  
♥ Holli