Emma's Fancy Forest Quilt

I'm working on making a bed quilts for my grandchildren and this week I got Emma's Fancy Forest quilt finished.  This is a pattern by Elizabeth Hartman.   Emma has been very patiently waiting for her older cousin's quilt to get finished before I could get hers done ☺.  I started on this one about three years ago and would work on various animals at retreats.  This was a time consuming quilt and needed to be broken down over time! 

I started with a bundle of FQ's I picked up years ago at a quilt show which had Emma's name all over it.  I put one of the bundle in each of the 8 rows and added tone on tone colours to the rows. You need 8 rows of 5 FQ's and there's a very good plan of instructions in the book which helps keep all the pieces in order.

Everything is cut according to the directions and then put in baggies which are marked with the proper animal.  When it came time to do the next animal, I would cut the strips down to the small pieces and lay them out on batting remnants.  This was great as you can stack them and take them to a retreat or sewing area.

The animals were meant to be arranged with the cool colours at the top and warm colours at the bottom.

I rearranged the animals and we liked this arrangement better.  The animals looked happier :-)

After some fine tuning of colours, this was the final arrangement.

The quilt was quilted with a lovely wavy pattern and green thread which Emma helped pick out.  It was quilted by Julie Cassidy.  I bound it with 12" strips of about half of the colours in the quilt.

(Click on the photo to enlarge the photos.)

Toby's Quilt

On Wednesday evening, there was a shower for a young Mom in our Church who had her first baby, Toby.  She was over for dinner a few months ago and I had her choose a fabric she liked.  She picked a lovely fabric called "Rusty and friends".  I used that fabric for the back of the quilt and chose solids to coordinate.  I used Elizabeth Hartman's pattern, Fancy Fox, and had so much fun making the different coloured foxes. (Click on the photo to enlarge for a better view :-)

This is the Rusty and Friends fabric with a coordinating print that I bought at another shop not realizing it was from the same line!

The finished fox quilt.

It was quilted with wavy lines with a King Tut variegated thread.

It was a good thing I had the mushroom fabric that matched as the quilt was larger than the backing fabric I had.  I found the green version of the mushroom fabric in a clearance bin at yet another quilt shop and used that for the binding.

More Pillows

I got a little sidetracked working on my UFO's by making some pillows for myself :-).  My sister loved the pillows I made for my grand kids and wanted to make one herself...so of course I had to join her and make a matching one :-). I found a half yard of awesome fox fabric with bright colours and we cut it carefully, so we could use it for the backs of the fox pillows.  My sister drew up patterns for glasses matching our own glasses :-).   I then decided to try the hedgehog and two foxes.  There are instructions on Elizabeth Hartman's website to make these rectangular pillows using IKEA pillow inserts. (You will still need the patterns for the fox, hedgehog and cats to make the blocks.)  This worked very well on my IKEA chair upstairs, so I also made two kitties into a pillow for our second chair in the living room.  Now I can read comfortably in those chairs :-).

Fox fabric for the back of the pillows

The first IKEA pillow and my fox (bottom right) and my sister Thea's fox (bottom left)

The pillow fits perfectly on the arms of the IKEA chair.

The cat pillow (Simon and Daisy)

The fox pillow

Thea's fox pillow quilted and ready to make into a pillow when she got home.

 At least these pillows did not end up on the UFO pile...they are finished!

Pillow mania!

This year I got the idea to make pillows for my nine grandchildren and two foster grandchildren for Christmas.  I had several patterns from Elizabeth Hartman and set those aside to make a fox for Josh and kitties for Kara and Lauren (I would have liked to do the hedgehog and bunny, but I just purchased the Fancy Forest pattern before Christmas to make Emma's quilt eventually - I see more pillows in my future :-).  I also follow Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts blog and purchased several of her downloadable patterns for various animals for the rest of the grandkids.  I used the large elephant for Leah, the small elephant for Emma, bird for Charity, turtle for Alex, frog for Aiden and two doggie variations for Katie and Ben.  Then I did the Canadian beaver for Joey.  That one was a lot of work, but it will match the quilt that I'm making for him so I persevered :-)  

My stash of pillow forms purchased at thrift shops and yard sales came in handy.  Josh is the oldest so he got the 18" pillow form and the next four had 16" and the rest 14" pillows.   Fortunately there was a pillow form sale on for ones I had to purchase LOL.

The pillows even have zipper closures in the them!  Lorna had a link for a blog that had very good instructions for doing these zippers.  I was very impressed with the backs.  Here is a photo of the back of one of the pillows:

 
Sew Fresh Quilts' blog has a good photo in this post that shows the zipper in the back.
 

 (Click on the individual pillow pictures for a larger view.)

Grandkids and foster grandkids with their pillows

Aiden's frog

Alex's turtle

Ben's doggie

Charity's bird

Emma's elephant

Joey's Canadian beaver

Josh's Fox with glasses

Kara's Kitty

Katie's doggie

Lauren's Kitty with glasses

Leah's elephant

It was quite a process making eleven pillows over a few months.  I made a list of the grandkids names and then kept notes of possible animals and fabrics.  Then I purchased and downloaded the Sew Fresh patterns and had them printed out on a colour printer.  Collecting fabrics was next.  I searched for fabrics I had used for the kids' own bed quilts (those that already have them that is) or of their I spy JK quilt or of pillow cases or doll quilts I have made in the past. A few quilts are in the planning stages so I stole a few pieces from the stash for their pillows. Of course by that time, the fabric stash was a disaster, the cutting table and floor were covered and the spare bedroom was piled high with pillow forms :-).

 

total disaster on my cutting table getting patterns organized and fabrics chosen and cut

pinning on the design wall helped keep track of things

all blocks completed (the glasses were too small so I had to cut the larger version - they are from Elzabeth Hartman's web page)

pillow forms piled up :-)

I used three sewing machines for making the pillows:  black 301 for putting in the zippers and topstitching, Bernina 830 (vintage model) for doing the quilting and the binding, and Singer 15-88 treadle for piecing the animals.  A girl just needs more than one sewing machine for convenience LOL.  Sewing machine collecting really comes in handy for these projects!

all pillows finished!