A Quilt for Aven

Our sweet friends from college put off having kids until educations were finished and careers were settled.  

When the time came to try, it wasn't working, so tests were done, and they found out she had a rare form of uterine cancer (rare for someone her age).  Which means hysterectomy.  Devastating.

But they were given a chance to go through a really tough series of treatments and surgeries to give them a chance to have a family.

They finished, and went to the doctor to start blood tests for infertility treatments (a given in her situation), and they were pregnant!  A sweet, beautiful miracle!

I tear up every time I tell the story.  God is so good!

A Baby Blanket

Some sweet friends from dental school are having Baby Vera next month and I got to go to the shower last weekend.  I whipped up this quick little blanket and wrapped it up with a gift card so they can get some of the things left on their registry after all is said and done.

It's a small little blanket, meant for the stroller or car seat, since it will (presumably) be getting cold in a few months.  Hard to believe with 104 degree temps day after day...

I used some white dot minky and this pretty paisley from my stash and bound it with a satin binding.  I hand quilted around the big paisleys just to hold it together in the middle better.

 

Hope it sees lots of love!

The Nursery, the Quilt, and Some Portraits

 So, here it is : )

 (Please ignore the piles of laundry that I just couldn't get put away in the few seconds I had to take these photos...)

The wall color is the same as every wall in our home...Summertime.  We use to have such a hard time picking out beige wall color until the day we asked the paint guy at Home Depot what all the builders use.  He said it was Summertime.  And we like it : )

Erik did the crown molding and plate rail.  We bought the letters on Etsy from Simply Sawdust and Erik sanded and spray painted them.  We attached them to the wall with those 3M Command Strips.

These lovely paintings are from our dear friend Vanessa who also has an Etsy shop called Nessa Dee Art.

Aren't they perfect in the room?

 

The dresser is IKEA, the lamp is Target with some added ribbon, and the chair is from Walmart online.  We really wanted an upholstered rocker, but they are soooo expensive. This rocker got good reviews on Walmart.  You have to buy the slip cover separately, but I kinda like that it's a slip cover, anyway.  It's really comfortable for me when we're nursing and my nursing pillow fits perfectly.  

Right now on this wall, there's just a little black/brown chest on the floor with toys, books, and junk piled on top of it.  We're looking for a bookshelf to go on the opposing wall so we can store all of that stuff.  Not sure if we'll keep the chest as a toy box or what.

And the quilt makes an appearance!  I did the Fat Quarterly Jelly Roll Quilt Along with fat quarters.   

The fabrics are the same ones we used in the frames plus a few more.  Some of the greens are so muted, it kind of washes out in all of these pictures.  I need to take some in better lighting.

 

Some of the prints have some light blue, so I did the border in the same blue to pick it up a bit more and brighten up all the green and brown.  I hand quilted it with shades of green and white using perle cotton.  It went pretty quickly as I avoided the record-setting heat by watching Friday Night Lights on Netflix on our Roku with my feet propped up to dodge swelling.  Yeah, it's been finished for a while now. : )

I kinda have a feeling she'll be getting a girlier quilt now that we, well, know she's a girl : )

This is the dress I wore when I came home from the hospital : )

Those dress pictures comprise my most successful photo shoot with her now that I have my new camera.  The trick?  Nurse, drape blanket over papasan/bouncer chair, and take some sleepy pictures!

I'm also loving my birthday present from my in-laws: a 50 mm f/1.8 lens : )

We also had some professional pictures taken by Jo Brock of Jo Brock Photography.

Sweet girl!

36 Weeks and a Quilt Top

This little number is now all pieced and I'm working on the backing.

This little number still has a few weeks to go...

Everyone (including many strangers) says it's a boy.  I have no prediction whatsoever.

Any guesses?

Flattered and Impressed

Browsing around my blog stats led me to this great blog of Kati's called from the blue chair.  She is very talented!  I was flattered to find that she made a fabulous diamond quilt inspired by Courtney's quilt.  It is so amazing...you really have to go check it out!

Hattie's Quilt

Here's my niece-on-the-way's new quilt!

Please bear with the bad lighting and iPhone shots as we are in camera transition : )  It's getting a little old.

Miss Hattie Jane is set to make her appearance maybe late this month?  Next month?  Her sister was 3 weeks early and her quilt was sooo not finished, so I'm glad that I have this one waiting in the nursery for her!

I used Michael Miller's Large Whimsy and Kona White to make these coins and gave it a good stipple.

And there's some monkeys on the back ; )

So here's Hattie and her mom on the left at 34ish weeks and me and Austin/Audrey at 31ish weeks!

Guess I should get started on his/her quilt!!!

Plus Quilt

It's been a long time coming, but this quilt is finished and gifted!

The members of the Garza family are the first friends I made in dental school.  More precisely, Rudy is the first person I met in my dental school class.  I was set to have a lunch date with his sister, Elizabeth (quilt seen here), and we were meeting at her house.  Little did I know that their mom was *making* lunch and I would have the privilege of meeting all of their family + Stephen, another dental student.

Let's get this straight here: 2 brothers, 1 sister, all in dental school.  Add in Stephen who was living with the family at the time.  That's a lot of dental school insanity going on in one household!

Needless to say, Rudy and his family played a huge role in my life these past four years as great friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, and in Rudy's case, class president : )

I figured he deserved a quilt.  He also asked for one.  Most everyone else in our little "group" received one upon their wedding and Rudy here is still living up the bachelor-hood.  He complained that he'd never get a quilt, so I said I'd make him one when he was accepted into the Oral Surgery residency he was applying for. He matched with Houston and starts medical school in July, so here's the quilt!

I didn't think to measure, but based on Rudy's approximate height, I'd say it's at least 60" x 72"?

I made it out of scrubs : )  I had several pairs that took quite a beating in dental school, so instead of throwing them out, I cut around the stains and holes and made something useful.  I started to exclude the pockets and seams, but decided they gave it character and left them in.  I think that's pretty fun.  The border and backing is from a sheet I had in my stash.

After piecing the top, Erik still insisted it was "boring".  I think he's just used to printed fabric.  But I took his comment and decided that this might be a good time to try my hand at hand quilting with pearl cotton and some crochet cotton.  I chose contrasting thread for each cross, either a shade of blue or white or off-white.  I think it gave it a lot of character and I'm glad I took the time to do it.  I outlined each cross and quilted the border with 4 different lines all the way around.

I'm all graduated and licensed and working on insurance and registration with drug agencies so I can start practicing!  I'll be substituting for a dentist for some random dates in June and July and maybe even August, so that will keep me going with my hand skills, but allow me to take it slow while I grow ever-larger.  I'm seven months tomorrow and everything appears straight-forward with this pregnancy so far!  This God-send of a job will also give me more time for some neglected quilting projects ; )

Mom's School Quilt

You might recognize this map panel that's sold at Joann's.

I saw a quilt made from this and immediately thought of my Mom's classroom.

So I bought one online, it arrived at my house, and sat in my sewing room for at least a year.

I finally got tired of such a simple project sitting around, and found a backing for it and basted it.

I then decided to hand quilt it.  Because I'm crazy.

I could come up with no other way to quilt it except to stitch along the latitudes and longitudes and since they curve, I decided the only good way to do it would be by hand.

I guess in the end, it was nice to have a mindless, therapeutic, straight-line pattern to quilt.  

My markings were already there, so it really wasn't too bad.

Of course, it still took forever, but in the end, it made my Mom cry and that's all that really matters.

Courtney's Quilt

Courtney is my dear, sweet college roommate.

I really do love that girl.

First, she was my suite-mate in the dorm.

Then we joined the same sorority.

Then we joined Campus Crusade.

And we went to the same church.

Then she hooked me up with my husband.

And I had my first margarita with her when I turned 21.

Then we shared a bedroom in a very shady old house in Bryan, Tx.

And we started throwing killer Christmas parties.

And then we had a nice apartment back in town.

And we shared lots of good and bad times and prayed together and cried together and all the great things great friends do.

And I really miss her.

She sent me an email a year and a half ago telling me that she really liked this fabric.

Really?  Why was she looking at fabric?  Huh.

It happened to be Lantern Bloom.

So I bought a fat quarter set.

Because by golly, she would get a quilt made from it!

I don't get to see Courtney but once a year when she comes home on furlough.

She has been serving as a missionary in a far away land.

A "lantern", herself, if you will.

I made sure this was ready for her when she came home this Christmas : )

So why diamonds?  I've loved looking at the quilt Jane Austen made, and I've always wanted to make something like that, being a lover of all things "Jane".  I bought a template at Joann's and just went for it with the sashing.  I learned a few lessons the hard way when it comes to lining up (or not lining up) corners when working with diamonds, but it all came out right in the end, and I can say I learned something new.  Oh, yeah and that whole bias thing.  Yeah, I've had enough of that for a while!

Jane's Quilt

It's a big quilt for me, about a twin size (60+/80+).  I used Kona White for the sashing, border and backing. And I threw in a few shots of Kona solids for a little added interest. And I stippled it.  I hadn't stippled in a loooong time, but it all came back to me as I watched a season of The Office.  I quilted it with thread from Connecting Threads, which I've been using for a while now and really liking.  Especially since it's inexpensive and my machine is ok with that. I just got a spool of their new thread for machine quilting and can't wait to try it.

So, it's been a long time coming, but I'm so excited to give this quilt to her.  I really hope that the amount of time it has taken me to get this done was enough to throw her completely off track and she will have no idea what's coming.  

Edit: She loved it.  But I'm the one that cried!  I love her so much!

I decided to enter this quilt into Gen X Quilters' Love Nest Quilt Contest, so I'm adding the button here!

I've never considered entering a contest, but Anne Marie was sweet to make me aware of it and my post here already had all the details they wanted! Fun!  Wish me luck!

Yasmin's Quilt

Tonight was my friend, Yasmin's, co-ed bridal shower and we had a blast!  The food was amazing, her family is always so sweet and it was great being with all my dental school friends for a fun evening.  I got to give her the long-awaited quilt and she loved it!  It was so much fun! 

See, Yasmin and I had a chat about her quilt before I even started on it.  It went a little something like this:

Yasmin: "So, isn't a quilt supposed to have meaning, to represent something in a person's life?"

Me: "It can...in fact, I've been researching Islamic art to see if there was something I could use in a quilt."

Yasmin (sounding very surprised): "Really?"'

Me: "Yes, I have." *wink*

So after deciding on the 8-pointed star, buying a template to make it out of diamonds, chaning my mind, finding nothing to help me out on the internet, buying one set of fabric, totally scratching that when Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow came out which HAS the Islamic star IN it, then finally finding Modify Tradition's tutoral that makes the star, I was in business. 

I made the quilt top and then thought, "I sure hope all the colors and patterns in the quilt are appropriate for a wedding gift.  I mean, what if trees represent the afterlife or something like that in Islamic art?  That would be terrible!" After a little research, trees, turquoise, dark blue, white and earth tones are all very good things, so no worries ; )

The pieced back...

The label....

Can't wait for the wedding! 

While I had a few extra hands, I took some better pictures of my sister's value quilt while I had it in my possession...

I never got a picture of the back...

And remember these?  Erik and I went out today and bought frames and mattes and he did a great job hanging them in the kitchen!  You're sure to see many more projects as we get the house we built ready to sell.  *tear*

May Flowers and my UFO Progress

Our crazy, haphazard garden is all a-bloom.  Erik planted seeds and a few bulbs wherever he felt like it and sure enough, they all came up!

Even the bluebonnets he planted in March?!?  It's nice to have a few bluebonnets in May!

I went to my first Saturday Sew with the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild today!  I'm so sad I've missed everything that's happened so far, because I'm playing catch up meeting people and I'm slow enough at that as it is : )  But it was a good time, and I was surprised at how productive I was.  I'll definitely go to the next one if at all possible!

I got there still in the planning stages with this quilt, but here's what I accomplished today:

This is on my UFO list as the "stars quilt". See the star in the middle?  That's what I'm going for!  There was no way I was going to piece that critter, so I opted to take the easy way out and piece around it : ) Believe it or not, I hate piecing and was actually going to applique this before I convinced myself to suck it up and learn how to match up seams and make decent points. 3 more groups of 4 and I should be done.  I used the center portion of the Quatrefoil pattern on Modify Tradition to create this cross pattern, and the line of fabric is Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow.

This is also on the list as the "undecided quilt".  Once I realized it had to be a t-shirt quilt, I jumped on eBay and bought up all the Valpo shirts I could find, and even got a few new ones at Walmart.com.  This one's a secret retirement gift for my father-in-law, so Evelyn, if you're reading this, Shhh!

I just lack a few sashings and then I'll piece it all together (the first row is done!).

I still have some good weekend time ahead of me, so I hope to get a lot more done!

Quilt Festival!

When it came time to pick a quilt for the Blogger Quilt Festival, I immediately thought of the quilts I've made that I would want to have.  And they were girly.  'Cause I'm a girl.  But I really do love this quilt!  It's so colorful and happy and cheerfully modern.

It was made for my cousin's baby boy, although it could totally be gender neutral.

Despite recent post's comment about breaking quilting rules and not using patterns, I actually used a pattern.  Kind of.  Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts fame gave the super easy instructions for this quilt on her blog and I even went so far as to cut out each little piece per her measurements.  But it was sooooooo easy.  Go take a look....go on.  See?  That is so not a pattern, right?

It's made from the super fun Peas and Carrots line and coordinating solids, stippled all over, and I *heart* the pieced back. 

So, thanks for stopping by my little blog on this festival tour!  Now go check out everyone else's creations!  : )  Come back later and see what I've been up to this week (once I get it finished, find my camera, and get it all up here.....how 'bout Sunday?)!