New Dresses and a New Design

Healing Frog, Piglet, Lumpy, and Tigger Modeling the
Latest in Dog Fashions

I have been keeping busy this week making doggie dresses.  I am very happy with all of them, and unless you click the image bigger you will never know just how dog gone cute that brown dress which Piglet is modeling actually is. Hey I couldn't help the pun.  My personal favorite this week is the mermaid costume which Tigger is sporting below.  This is my own design and I drew the curves free form after looking at different fin types.  DD loved it so much she wanted me to keep it until the next time we go to our friend's photography studio so she would know for sure that she could see Mocha wearing it.

Tigger, M.R. Monkey, and Pooh showcase their darling dresses
 upon my Spirograph Fabric 

This brings my dress count this month up to 13 how about that?

Baby Butterfly Quilt Finished

Girl's Safari Quilt Side

My little girly safari quilt is all finished.  I washed it before photographing it for you so it has that ultra cuddly look from not preshrinking the batting.  Where the yard was short the tops of the heads on the baby animals is cut off, but I find the effect charming.  Like a Built in Peak-a-boo.

While I did marry into being an aunt, and all of my siblings have experienced the first "niece" in DD, this quilt is for my first niece.  The quilting is loops with extra quilting on the WonderUnder + raw edge butterflies.    Randomly I threw in a couple of stars and whenever it seemed right I added a heart so those are at least every foot or so.  The top and bottom borders of pink are quilted loops of hearts.  I wasn't sure which thread to use, so I laid out all of my pink threads, and the winner was a nice muted mauve surprisingly enough, but it looks nice on both the front and back, with just the right amount of blending.  So the baby's name would stand out I quilted that in florescent bright hot pink and then loops of hearts in the mauve underneath.

Quilted Baby's Name

Clearly this is one of my reversible quilts.  The butterflies are the same batik as the binding and front bordering strips.  For an extra bit of detail I hand embroidered antennas on the butterflies with lilac embroidery floss which if you click the image below to see it in a larger size you might even be able to see the antennas on the bigger butterflies.  

Baby's Butterfly Quilt 2nd Side

The best fairy tales say  you can give the baby a blessing for the future:

Dear Sweet Grace, I wish you to be able to forgive easily and 

love deeply. 

My River Art Quilt is Finished

Wall hanging River Art Quilt Finished

My River Art Quilt is finished!  Thank goodness.  I was really not liking this quilt while quilting it.  So many thread color changes, so many different textures.  It felt like it really drug on.  But now that it is all bound and ready for a hanging sleeve I am feeling much better about it.

Now to get to the Butterfly Baby Quilt that I have loaded on the quilt frame!

Baby Butterfly Quilt

Pink Safari Quilt Flimsy

This is a little quickie quilt.  A love it up and wear it out sort of blankie.  It is reversible with this wonderful baby animal print.  Nearly all blocks have a detail in pink that matches the broad strip that I added.  The more I stitched on the pink the more I loved it for this quilt.  It is a batik with flowers but it has a certain tribal look which goes great with the baby African Animals.  I found this print as a 35" inch remnant and the friend I was with said "well no one else will have anything like it".  That is for sure.  The piece wasn't quite the right shape so the pink was added to square it out a bit.

Butterfly Quilt Back

The back is a grey blender with raw edged applique butterflies on it.  I was planning to quilt the antenna onto it using a buildup of thread, but instead I think I will use a bit of lilac embroidery floss instead.  The pink butterflies are made from the same batik as the pink strip on the front and I have already made the matching pink binding.  I will be quilting this one with simple swirls all over it.  As though the butterflies are fluttering around.  In a big open area I will be quilting the baby's name "Grace" and likely run over that a time or three so that the thread builds up well.  I would love to see this quilt on the frame by the first of next week.

Layouts and Fabric Issues

Lilly's Quilt Front

The other day when looking at the charms I would be using in Lilly's Garden Quilt, I discovered many of the fabrics I'd selected were listed on back order.  No time like now to be proactive right?  So I popped them a note asking when everything would be avail again.  The response was swift but the answer was not a pleasing on.  They are not expected in until Jan./Feb. of next year, and the recommend I select something else.  Well I'd tried that and wasn't having much luck so selected a different online fabric store and revised the layout of the front to suit.  The colors for the applique are divine!  Not that you can really tell that with the bit of line drawing I've thrown there to show what it will look like.

Below you will find the back that so far I like best.  EQ tells me I have made something like 35 revisions, but I think it's more like 10 okay maybe 15 different layouts.  The blue is picked up from the borders, the light of the stars is the same fabric that the fairies are embroidered on to.  As for that purple and the green those are from the fabrics I have selected for the Wisteria applique.  Oh and lastly the deep green squares are the applique fabric for the calla lily leaves.  

Lilly's Garden Quilt Back Star Option

There is just one problem and that is were all of you come in.  What can I do about the way the purple vertical border dumps into the black?  I thought a HST would work, but it doesn't.  I tried splitting it half black and half purple and that made the black border look odd and then I tried  splitting it half purple and half blue and that provided an off balanced look.  Suggestions Please!

I have also been working on something else.  This time it's something for me.  Just for me, okay and by default my DH; for all those times when I have to put a comforter on my own bed and wonder why I don't have one of my own handmade beauties for my bed.  Do you recall this fabric?  Oh yes I thought you might.  When I was digging for the perfect something or other quilty answer for another quilt I found a pattern in an old McCall's quilting magazine called Mandala you can see the original quilt here.   

Add caption

Mandala Spirograph Quilt

Well I just knew it was the perfect answer to my spirograph fabric shown above and I have not only been hard at work trying to make all the colors and tones work together, I've had the help of my friend Vicki (thankfully).  The fabrics aren't set in stone yet, but isn't coming together nicely?

Because I'm a nut, each circle will be turned edge hand appliqued. With both the smallest and medium sizes of circles coming from the panel as shown above. The background fabric is a circling swirl.  Though I do plan to use true black for my HST's. 

Talk about having my burners full.  Not to mention the top and backing of a quick baby quilt that I finished up today, but that is a story for tomorrow when the camera battery is all charged back up!

Tigger Models Again!

Pink Dress with Crystals

Give me a T-I-Double G-er!  Tigger is my model for today's doggie dresses.  The pink one is embellished with crystals, as per my friends request.  I have to tell you those crystals take a long time to get into just the right spot!  I think I have an hour in the crystals alone.

This second dress, has been tickling at the back of my mind since making the first dress.  My friend had raved about lined dresses she picked up somewhere - made in China and she was so impressed that they were lined.  Well since I don't have a serger each edge is double stitched anyway, so I figured aside from cutting the lining material it's the same amount of work lined or unlined.  She had also commented on dresses with multiple tiers of ruffles and how they can be such a pain.  My mind told me everything is gathered at once, so it is mildly more work but not hair pulling.  Hence this dress is lined on the bodice and has three tiers of ruffles.  I did not line the skirts because that would have created lots of extra bulk and I was concerned about how warm something like this would be.  When I was all finished a bit of sparkly ribbon caught my eye and I stitched it on with a little bow.  I adore this dress.  I plan to offer it to my friend and if she doesn't want it I will be selling it online.  The ribbon is iridescent so it is worth clicking on to see in more detail.

Lined Dress

Love the new fabric mom!

The other day I did a little fabric shopping and found this lovely baby animal safari print.  Tiny thought it smelled amazing right away, which is a surprise normally she only gets like this after I've been a serious number of hours into a project.  I am planning on using this as a backing for a baby quilt for my sister.  The binding will be a wonderful pink batik that matches those great flowers.  The reverse is the grey fabric above as a background, and the pink batik will be butterflies appliqued on it.  I will be quilting it with pink thread.

Green Dress

Thursday I believe it was I finished up this little green dress.  The crystals on this one are purple which I picked up out of the print.  I put the final touches on this one right before seeing my friend so it and the others have already gone to their new home and have likely been worn on a real already.  Likely Tigger is devastated!

Lilly's Garden Layout 1

Eye of the Beholder

Yesterday I finished up the first layout option for this quilt.  I was planning on making more than one but my friend already loves it, so this is the quilt.  It will be quite a bit more natural looking when the real applique is added.  What do you think?  This quilt is using 4 charm packs, Wisteria will be appliqued in the upper left, and then moving clockwise I have added some butterflies, last night I found a beautiful method using hand dyed fabrics, then from there I will place a cluster of Giant Calla Lilies.  Then in the bottom left hand corner I plan to place a cluster of toadstools.  How magical!

I call this one Sunset.

This quilt will be reversible, with a more simple back.  Something not to flashy, but I haven't stumbled on just the right design yet.  Any thoughts?  The purpose of this second side is to provide a less "magical" side of the quilt for when friends and so forth come to visit.  A Muggle side as it were.  Sue would be horrified to know after typing that I picked up her book to see if there was anything there that might help.  Maybe her Poppy Twist, there is a nice sub-design there that I never noticed...

Doggie Dresses!

Yesterday was a great day in the sewing room.  A friend of mine had asked if I would mind making some dresses for her dogs.  Who knew such a thing could be so much fun?  I happily stitched through an entire afternoon and when I was done I had these four pretty dresses to show for it.  Just two more left to finish up.  Sure seems like a great start for my September NewFO's hu?

I always knew Lumpy was really a Girl

Tiger was by far my best model as he was
likely horrified by the experienced.  

Piglet could only hide his face in shame.

Lumpy wanted to try something in green as well.

DD held in the background in the above pictures
and since I knew she wanted to be in them...
Sunny was to tired to comment

Which dress is your favorite?  I'm partial to the blue and the yellow ones myself.  Though the pink...

Lonestar Quilt-a-long Day September

Hidey Ho There!  It's my birthday!  Yes, it sure is, and I'd tell you my age too, but this is the Internet and you all might hunt me down and stalk me.

My Lonestar hasn't changed since the last time I posted about it but my mother did give me an Amazon gift card, so likely I will be using that to order those Fabrico Pens that I need for the Swirls in the border.  While I'm at it I have another project that I'm planning, I've been working on this one for about three hours this afternoon and it will likely need some Tsukineko Platinum ink, so that will make for a nice joint order.  What have I been working on?  Well I'm calling it Lilly's Garden, and it is a contract quilt.  I am using embroidered fairy blocks from a friend and those are already placed within the quilt.  I'll be using charm packs for my piano border which should look very nice.  What you're not seeing is the embroidered garden scene that will grace the middle that isn't started yet, as well as the Wisteria branch that will drape in the upper left corner of the blue and green, and a group of giant white calla lilies will bloom in the lower right corner.  From there little toadstools will wander out from the calla's off to the left.  I'll be posting those as I make more progress on this mock up.

My inspiration is this McKenna Ryan Quilt Bella Garden and while I tried to make her peacock fabric work for the background it just fought the colors of the fairies to much.