Butterfly Quilt for Baby Girl

For each of our children, I've made a quilt, and with each child the quilts seem to be getting more complicated. It's kind of fun to look back at my square block designs and then to see how much I've learned through the past 8 years about quilting! I'm still far from perfect, but I've learned a lot from trial and error!

The design I chose for our baby girl was a butterfly design. The pieces of each block are small enough that I was able to use a lot of my cute spring fabric scraps. I had cute scraps left over from the girls' spring dresses and it was fun to put the different colors together to see what I could come up with.

These blocks were a lot more complicated than any I've ever tried. Lots of pieces and lots of angles.

These are a couple of my favorite blocks.

And here is the basic quilt top. I used a lighter shade of lavendar and a light beige calico for the strips and blocks inbetween the pieced blocks. I was trying to pull all of the different colors together and because I bought a backing fabric that was another shade of lavendar...I really tried to pull all the different purple shades together.

I decided to do three outline strips around the outside of the quilt. I started with the beige, then the green, and ended with the purple so that it would coordinate well with the light lavendar flannel backing.

Here is the completed quilt top. It's hard to see the detail in this picture, but I machine-stitched the little antennae on each butterfly block. I used a deep brown thread to match the deep brown strip of the blocks. They turned out really cute.

Now I just need to put it on a quilt stand and do some quilting and tying...and then binding!

The Finished Table Runner

So I finished this project a couple of days before Christmas...whew! Just in time!

After I had each of the blocks completed and framed in with strips of fabric, I figured out what shape I wanted it to be and cut out blocks of coordinating fabric to complete the top. Here is the top, sewn in three strips, and ready to be sewn together.

After sewing the top together, I added a very thin border strip of dark green fabric.

I also added some little ribbon bows and buttons to the tops of the trees. I realize now that I didn't take a picture of the backing...but I backed it in the maroon checked fabric. I sewed the top to the backing with right sides together, leaving a small opening for turning. After turning and ironing, I edge-stitched the opening shut. Then on each block I used my machine applique stitch to border the trees...quilting the top and bottom together. I also machine-quilted around the entire edge and also around the inside rectangle-shaped block. I had some fun experimenting with some of the stitches on my machine.

This was such a fun project! I'm already thinking about making one for another Holiday...like 4th of July or something.

Christmas Table Runner

One of the projects I'm working on right now is a Christmas table runner. I have a lot of scrap fabric in my basement craft room that is just asking to be used for something! Years ago, I bought this fun book titled "336 Ten-Minute Quilt Blocks" and have only made one project with it since! So, I pulled it out and found two pages of Christmas Tree block patterns to make.

I went through my scraps and found colors that would coordinate well with each other and piled them on my table in different color groups. The Christmas decor that I use in my dining room area is casual and rustic...so these plaids and ginghams worked great with the overall theme of the room.

There are a total of six blocks, and each one is completely different in design, but each has the same colors so hopefully when the project is all done it will look nice.

First I made copies of the block patterns from the book, and then enlarged them to the desired size plus 1/4 inch for seams. Then I started cutting out the fabric pieces. To make sure that I didn't lose any pieces and that the pieces stayed with the right block, I used a ziplock bag for each quilt block. It was good that I did this because I had to put the project away after this step for a few days!

When I got around to sewing the pieces together...I was curious to see if they really only took "ten minutes" like the title of the book proclaims. I think I must be a little slow or something, because most took me at least 15-20 minutes. There were so many angles and I'm a bit of a perfectionist so it took me a long time to get them right. I love how they turned out. They are each unique...and I think they'll make for a cute Christmas table runner in the end.

So these are just the raw quilt blocks.Next, I'll frame them in and then work on the border pieces.

And then think of some fun ways to embellish each block!

It's a fun season for crafting!