Baby Quilts

I have finished two more quilts!

Both of these quilts were almost completely made from either my stash or thrift store finds.

I love being able to do that...quilting is an expensive hobby!

Even the batting was from left over pieces.

I save almost every bit.

Check out the perfectly mitered corner!

Most of the others weren't bad either. ;)

I machine quilted both of the quilts.

I used the walking foot for duck panel.

I found this duck panel at the thrift store a couple of years ago.

I found the perfect use for it.

For the second quilt, I did free motion quilting.

This photo is the backside, which is usually fairly sloppy.

There was quite a bit of practice before I was brave enough to tackle the baby quilt.

Not perfect but much improved.

This is the front of the rainbow baby quilt.

I participated in a rainbow scrap challenge in 2019.

I did one block of each color last year not knowing what I was going to do with them.

Once I decided on a baby quilt I added the black and white.

This was all scraps except for the teal.

I didn't have any teal so I found some in the clearance bin at Walmart.

The striped binding I made for another project but didn't use.

It worked perfectly for this quilt.

 

I made these in memory of two miscarried babies of dear friends of ours.

These quilts will be donated to the local pregnancy crisis center.

The Dragon Quilt

 I finally finished Nolan's graduation quilt. AKA the dragon quilt. I finished it a couple of weeks ago and took photos. However, I didn't pay attention to the settings on my camera and none of the photos turned out well. I've had to wait a couple of weekends for good weather to do another photo shoot. (It's too dark by the time I get home from work.)

This quilt makes lifetime finish number 36. It's the first (but not last) finish of 2020.

It took over a year from start to finish...longer if you count the research and design time I put in as well.

Nolan gave me some suggestions of what he wanted and I went from there. I found a free-for-my-use dragon image that I imported into my quilting software and traced. He wanted Celtic/rune letters as well as a dragon. I did some research and did not like the meaning behind the typical ones I found. So I used the rune letters from the How to Train Your Dragon movies to write his name. Nolan loved it.

This is the fourth full-sized quilt I have hand quilted. I spent 201 hours over nearly 7 months to quilt this one. I'm not sure why it took twice as long as the others. Maybe it was all the curves in the quilting. I chose not to pre-draw the quilting pattern. All the wavy lines around the dragon were drawn free hand as I got to the area. That was something completely outside of my comfort zone. I like patterns and uniformity. Making it up as I went was a new process. I was a bit nervous as I couldn't see the final product until I took it off the frame. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

This quilt has traditional patchwork piecing, foundation paper piecing (sewing by number), and hand applique. It challenged my quilting abilities. I enjoyed every step of the process.

This photo shows the closest match to the right shade of blue for the blocks and dragon.

The others are a bit off.

Letters for Nolan.

Letters for Schultz.

Someone wanted to play.

She ran over the corner of the quilt at one point.

Silly dog.

If this quilt panel had been in the stores before I designed the front it would have been the front!

Nolan really liked it too so it became the center of the back.

Quilt stats:

#36

79" x 91"

hand & machine pieced

hand quilted

Pepper photo bomb!

I called her to me so she could get out of the way.

Almost.

Goofy mutt.

Catch-up

 It has been an embarrassingly long time since I posted.

Lately it seems like I start a lot of posts that way.

I have been pretty much using all my spare time to work on Nolan's graduation quilt.

I am happy to report that I have finally finished it!

A quilt-finish post is in the works.

In the meantime I'll play a little catch-up.

I can't believe I didn't make any posts in the month of October.

That means I missed sharing our anniversary picture...oops.

So here is our 26th anniversary family photo.

It amazes us how tall the boys are getting!

We didn't do anything special for our anniversary.

We just did life together...AKA parent/teacher conferences.

We did get blizzards on the way home!

Tenneesee - Anakeesta

While on vacation, we made a trip to Anakeesta in Gatlinburg.

It's by far our favorite place there.

So magical up on the mountain top!

We did not go on the canopy walk.

As you can see from this sign it suffered great damage in a spring storm.

It has since been re-opened.

We're hoping to walk it next year!

Why on earth did I take a picture of  the floor in the ice cream shop?

The quilter in me saw a quilt!...silly question.

Interesting tree sculpture.

One of the many places to sit and view the mountains.

Connor and I rode this coaster.

It's America's only single-rail mountain coaster.

It was quite fun!

They added an observation tower since our last trip.

Notice the hollow spot on the top deck?

It's going to be glass.

Places to sit and rest.

Looking down at some of the gardens and children's play area.

There was an Anakeesta employee at the top.

They answer questions and take photos!

The triangles are shade panels over the walkway.

Our shadows next to the spot that will have a glass floor.

They even have a shade panel at the top of the tower.

I'm not a selfie pic kind of person...especially with the anti-sun gear!

(I figured out how to take a selfie with my Nikon.)

Spectacular views!

The tower has a 360 degree view complete with directional markings.

We ate at this awesome restaurant.

It has two sides that open up.

Lots of fresh mountain breezes!

More breathtaking views!

That's the Gatlinburg sky bridge in the middle.

The view from our table.

The glass overhead doors that make the wall.

One of these trips I'd like to stay till dark and enjoy the fire pit!

It's such a relaxing, family friendly environment that was made so that you could enjoy the mountains.