Babies for Lauren and Leah

Found these really neat cloth body dolls at Walmart this year and bought 4 of them! I picked up two first; for my granddaughters Lauren and Leah who are 3 1/2 and 1 1/2. Meanwhile another granddaughter, Kara, was born, so I thought it would be cute for the girls to have the same doll in a few years. I picked up two more dolls so I'd have one at home to make clothes for future birthdays and Christmas. The dolls are about 18" long, but have very fat and pudgy bodies. So, I used doll clothes patterns for 20 - 22" dolls and adapted them a bit. Here is the doll:

I planned to make tights for the dolls, but the feet are shaped so it made it very challenging. Finally I figured leggings would be a good choice for these dolls!

She can sit up all by herself. Here is the dress for Lauren's doll. I have a stash of fabric that rivals a quilt shop and just couldn't resist this pretty brown and pink floral. A FQ made the dress :-).

A corduroy jumper for Leah's doll:

Great Grandma Janie (my Mom) knit little slippers for the dolls. She had a bit of a challenge fitting the slippers over those toes too.


All the clothes (including a receiving blanket professionally serged by my friend Joan) for Lauren's doll:

Clothes for Leah's doll:

Of course the babies needed their own quilt. Leah got a pink one and Lauren a green one.

Lauren's doll all dressed in her new outfit:

Joan's Quilt

I made an I spy sewing themed quilt for my friend and local sewing buddy, Joan. She also happens to be the mother of my dear daughter in law, Heather! When I first met Joan, she had one or two sewing machines and a serger or two..fairly normal :-). Then she found out about all our sewing machines and acquired her Mom's old Necchi Supernova which stitched like a dream. Then we found her another Necchi and a toy Necchi and another Necchi. Pretty soon she had sewing machines all over the place and we consider her a full fledged sewing machine collector LOL! I have been collecting sewing themed fabrics for a long time (I do have a top finshed for my own sewing themed I spy quilt, but it's in my UFO pile! I need a deadline to finish it! I found the backing fabric and immediately knew this was the fabric for Joan's quilt. I matched up the brighter sewing fabrics I had and decided to make snowball blocks with red and black. I also used some knitting themed fabrics as Joan also spins wool and knits. I had tons of triangles cut off from the corners and sewed them altogether and decided to use them in the border! That was more work than putting the whole quilt together! My husband suggested the red and black binding.

I used variegated thread in the black border.


The backing fabric:

I had a block left which didn't work in the quilt...too white, so I used it for the label with some of the leftover triangle squares.

A bit of progress....

I have been sewing up a storm lately, but I can't post photos yet because some members of my family read my blog :-). Can't reveal their Christmas gifts! Tonight I finished another Psalms block. This is called Winged four patch and is based on Psalm 57, "I will take refuge in the shadow of Your wings until the disaster has passed."
I also finished another Dear Jane block, H 13 Farm fields. It was the block of the week on the Dear Jane list and since it was a very simple one, I figured I could do that between working on Christmas gifts.

Jane's Tears

I finished another little block on my Dear Jane quilt yesterday. I had the block back basted already, but did all the applique while waiting for an appointment! I'd better prep a few more blocks as this is the last one I had! I need to trim the background away from the white applique yet.

...and another block...

Finished D 3 Jason's Jacks for the Dear Jane quilt on Saturday evening while visiting my Mom and Dad for coffee. Sure is great to have a few blocks prepped so you can grab one while visiting. I thought I'd try a printed background fabric this time. Makes for a totally different look.

Finished another couple DJ blocks

I finally finished this Dear Jane block that I've been working on for four weeks! It is D 8 Dee Dee's Delight. I appliquéd it using the back basting method. I was happy with the way it turned out. This sharp points are murder to get right!

Last night I decided to try out my new hand crank sewing station and pieced a paper pieced block. This is the mirror image :-) of A 1 Pinwheels Gone Awry. Sorry about the funny colour...there was a halogen light on when I took the picture! It really is navy and white. I pieced this block on my new, old hand crank machine called "Dear Jane".

Here is "Dear Jane" all cleaned, oiled and spruced up. I got this machine given to me by a lady named Jane and I thought it very appropriate for paper piecing my Dear Jane blocks. I really like using a handcrank machine for paper piecing as you have so much control.

I set up a paper piecing station by placing Dear Jane in a lovely library table that's designed to hold this particular machine. When I want to paper piece, I just move my treadle over to the right, table with vintage Bernina machine to the left, insert Singer sewing stool and paper piece away. It worked very well.

Here my two American Girl dolls are looking on! The one on the left is Kit (1930's era). I got her from my husband for Christmas a few years ago. The one on the right is one of those 'just like me' modern American Girl dolls that I found sitting at the side of a driveway at a yard sale a few years ago! My daughter has Samantha and I thought that doll looked a lot like her. I picked it up and sure enough, the brand name was on her...for a quarter she came home with me! One eye won't close anymore and one arm is a little lame, but she's in good company in my sewing room :-).

And another Psalms block...

Just finished another Psalms block tonight. This is called Ocean Waves and is from Psalm 46. I used some new batiks that I bought a few weeks ago. Love this swirly fabric!

Psalms Block

Finally got another one of the Psalms blocks finished. This is Psalm 23, A Table for Four:

Matthew's quilt

This quilt top was finished quite awhile ago and when one of Jake's co-workers announced that he and his wife had a brand new baby son, I thought this one would be appropriate. It's one of those stacked four patch designs which is really fun to do. There wasn't enough fabric to use for the border and I couldn't find anything to work with the bright busy fabrics, so it just got binding :-). Here is the finished quilt:

The back, incorporating a leftover piece of the original fabric:


The quilting:


A couple of the blocks close up:



With a kid's print these work up almost like an I spy.

Micah's quilt

I got sidetracked again from my UFO's (unfinished objects) to make this quilt for Micah, a 5 year old boy who is having serious surgery today. Of course he needed a quilt to give him hugs :-). I dug out this cowboy fabric and matched up squares to go with it, but it was too busy for the border. I had lots of it, so used it on the back instead. With the 7" squares I had, I could cut them in half and use rectangles for the borders. I really like this layout and will use it more often.

The quilt is meandered as I was in a hurry to get it finished and I used a wonderful variegated multi coloured thread which I purchased at the Marsh Store. The label says, "Superior Threads, Rainbows trilobal polyester and it was colour no. 842.
These I spy quilts are so fun to work on. The quilt was pieced on a Singer 403 electric machine from the 1960's (my trusty treadle needs to be serviced :-) and quilted on a vintage Bernina minimatic model 807.

Now back to the UFO's after I clean up my sewing room!

Kara Abigail's Quilt

Our 5th grandchild, Kara Abigail was born on October 15th. I handquilt the first quilt for my grandbabies and this one wasn't quite finished! She was born a week early, so that's my excuse! It has been finished for a little while; just haven't had a chance to upload the photos onto my blog. This design was done using the fractured 9 patch or magic 9 patch. You start with a large 9 patch block and cut it in half both ways and play around with the smaller blocks to get a nice layout. The corner of the quilt:

Back of the quilt showing the quilting:

The finished quilt. I used two similar original 9 patches; one with a green center and one with an orange center and a 9 patch with the print in the center for the border blocks. A lippy and binding using the blue brought it altogether:

Quilting in the center:

Quilting in the borders:

My daughter Amanda and my two daughters in law, Heather and Jannyne, chose the fabrics for this quilt. Kara loves looking at the bright colours.

A Posy table runner for Heather

My daughter in law, Heather had a birthday on Canadian Thanksgiving day, October 8th. She happened to mention that she would love to have table runners for all seasons for her home. I went to a quilt show the week before and picked up a fun kit for a simple table runner containing two of the 5"charm packs from the Peas & Carrots line of fabrics. On Thursday, I picked up Fons & Porter's new Fun and Easy quilt magazine (link below) and there was just the table runner for these fabrics! I found out that I could get one table runner out of each charm pack so set out to make two right away so I could have one for my kitchen as well. By Saturday night (after a trip to the quilt shop to pick up more binding fabric!) I had both of them finished. So, now I don't feel guilty for starting a new project when I have so many UFO's because they're both done!!! :-) Heather loved her table runner. Aren't they just so much fun!?

Here is a closeup of the posy. I used the striped 5" charm squares for the yo yo's and added a button to the center.
Raided my stash to find just the perfect background fabrics for the posies...one with tiny blue circles and one with tiny red ones. This fabric has been in my stash for ages...proof that a perfect project will come along if you wait long enough :-). One runner was quilted with single looped flowers in the squares and the other with double loops and leaves.




Here is a picture of the original table runner in the magazine. Check out the link for information on the magazine which has the pattern. Fons & Porter

New Psalm block

This is the 6th block in the Quilting the Psalms (see post of October 19). This block is based on Psalm 16 and is called End of Day. I decided to use brown and green again since I was drifting to a lot of blues lately :-). The browns and greens were perfect for an end of day kind of scene and I put in the little touches of yellow for the sun going down at the end of the day. Verse 7 really fits with this block:

7 I will bless the LORD who has given me counsel;
My heart also instructs me in the night seasons.

She Love me, She Loves me Not, She LOVES me!

When I first saw this quilt in the May /June issue of the Fons & Porter magazine, I knew I had to make it for my husband! It took me a few years, but I finally got it finished for his birthday in September this year. When I started making the blocks and assembling the center of the top, I realized that this quilt was a lot bigger than I thought it was. So, I did not add all the borders that were in the original quilt as I wanted it to hang in his office above his computer. The letters are embroidered with an outline stitch on solid black cotton.I also assembled the blocks from bottom to top so that Jake can see the complete daisy at eye level when he sits at his desk. As the eye travels from block to block, a petal drops off each flower. With each block the suspense increases...loves me? loves me not? At the last flower pot, it ends "Loves me"! Phew :-). Here it hangs above his desk to brighten up his white office walls.

Hearts are hand quilted in each pot. It took me awhile to find the right colour to resemble clay pots.

Quilt top:

I found a few daisy buttons in my stash and added them at random to the o's of love on the border. The centers of the flowers are yo yo's with a button added.


This was a really fun quilt to work on. Now I need to make curtains for this room as well! That could be a challenge :-).