Why aren't my quilts ever the right size?

My sister in law is getting married this September and I wanted to make her a quilt. My hubby wants to give his little sis cash for their gift so I decided I would make the quilt for her Wedding Shower. That gave me a months less time to procrastinate so I got started. I figure if I can have it done by this Friday I can take it to get quilted and the turn around is about three weeks and that would give me a week so sew on the binding. So here is my start.

Is it loud enough? I was just fascinated with the Coats and Clark advertisement that featured this quilt. Its Kaffe Fassett's Hot Diamonds.

But I am not one to have this much color in my life. I like color but as you can see this is a lot of color. My Sister in Law and her fiance are not afraid of color. She's an interior designer and he does some sort of design . He creates chandeliers and light fixtures for some of the rich and famous. Anyway, they have an orange wall in their living room so I figured this would be a great lap quilt. So, here is my problem. I sewed everything together and according to the template if I made the large diamond, 144 pieces, 12 rows up, 12 down the quilt would be like 54x90 inches (that's a lap quilt to me). Some how the quilt is only like 59x56. I don't know how it happened. I swear I used every piece and I even had extra that I used. So, I am going to add a 15 inch border and make it a Queen Size quilt. I can never make my quilts the right size. Oh well. When I am all done I will take a completed picture to share. I like it but it sure is LOUD! I hope she likes it.

Oh and Diamonds are not that easy. Way too much brain power needed. You can't just line the seams up and sew. It has to be off slightly so it lines up right. Luckily, I figured it out on my third row of where the placement needed to be. I think I might have to make myself a diamond quilt now.

Sarah's Quilt

My friend Sarah was married last Saturday. I wasn't able to go because of M's recital and birthday party and it is was on the other side of the country. I made her a lap quilt as a gift. I am holding off on mailing it because she is movie to Hawaii in a couple weeks so it only makes sense to wait so I had time to procrastinate and finished the binding last night.

So this lap quilt is very simple. I wanted something clean and bright and I love the quilts at Twiddletails. Here is one that I really like and was going for a similar idea. Sarah is a neat freak and a very cheery person. The poor girl had to live with me and Andy. We aren't gross or anything but the two of us are not the tidiest of roommates. (We had another roommate but I don't remember her name- she was in her room the whole year getting stoned so we never saw her since that wasn't our scene.) We lived in this awesome 4 bedroom house that was on the verge of needing to be condemned. You had to pick up momentum to make it across the slanted kitchen and you had to be cautious near the microwave because the floor was soft. Andy's room was over my room and when her boyfriend was over I swear her bed was going to fall through the ceiling and they weren't even doing anything but sleeping! I loved that house. Fond memories. Good times.

Back to the quilt. I picked out three colors that I thought would look nice together. I thought about getting a purple but there weren't in the right color shade (all of it from Joann's). I then cut out squares of each fabric. I believe I had 3 pink, 2 blue and 2 green different fabrics. Then I sewed a different fabric same color on 2 sides. Then I added tons of Kona white. I wasn't trying to make a pattern. I made two rows I was happy with and repeated. It just ended up wit the pink and blue down the middle.

It was so quick to make it. I usually get carried away for gifts and make them huge so I used a lot of self control here. I did take it to Two Thimbles to get it machine quilted. I am not the best at it especially with my card table set up and since it was a gift... Totally affordable. I paid $45 and it was worth every penny. My mom had one done too and it turned out great. I had it stippled in a multi color thread. I did the binding multi color as well. I think it turned out really nice. I think Sarah will really like it buuuuuut maybe I should keep it. :) Go buy her a premade one at Walmart. Just kidding. I would never do that. My mom would have a heart attack if any of her children bought a blanket.

U-G-L-E-E

This quilt is not one of my proudest projects. Probably my most loved however. M has been collecting dog fabric for a while. Every time we saw one, begging would start for me to get some. So, I made her this "puppy love" quilt. I started with paper piecing dog squares. I saw them and I knew M would want it. She was mixed on them at first but that was because I didn't use her favorite colors at first. Then the center is one big piece of fabric. It was just so cute with all those faces. The poodle is her favorite. Then the squares on the sides are just to show off the fabrics she chose. Now you may not be able to see them but there are random dog buttons all over the quilt. She wanted more but I said no. I hate hand sewing. So boring. I just realized that I sewed on all those buttons but I haven't given the dogs eyes yet. I guess I am not done yet.

I still have a ton of dog fabric left but my mom asked for it so that she could make M a doll blanket for her doll. She thought M would like to be matching. I even have some I didn't use. The reds didn't match well enough (like it really mattered) so she will probably get a little outfit out of it since I have 3/4 yard of each.

So, there you have a mismatched, paper pieced, uneven (see some squares are trimmed to fit) quilt with buttons. I purposely have the fabric in different directions and the dogs facing out. I wanted them to face M whichever direction she had the blanket. I actually finished it the other day and I asked my hubby to help me take a photo of it but I can't get it away from her. She even had to sleep holding the puppy love button that is actually covering a quilting mistake (shhh). Funny kid. I'll be so sad when she outgrows this phase and hates everything mommy makes her. Oh and to make it even more of a dog quilt. My dog help sew it. Yes, she did. She laid on my foot while I had it on the presser foot. You know how hard it is to get a comfy 65lb dog off your foot in a timely manner. I think she is trying to tell me I am sewing too much and she needs more love. Poor puppy, poor, poor puppy.

I started my next project already, making a wedding throw for my friend which I hope to have the top done to show you later this week. Its more of a twin size but that is what I make for a throw. I want my whole body covered when I curl up.

PS Don't look at my floor! The shards of my dogs favorite blanket are there and I haven't vacuumed. Why vacuum when I can sew. :)

Birthday Quilt

I wanted to post about something new since I had plans to work on my projects this weekend but my mother in law ended up in the Intensive Care Unit. She went in to get an artery cleared in her heart and the physician accidentially poke a hole through her heart wall which made her bleed into her chest. She is fine now. Well, not perfect. They didn't even clear the blockage so she will have to go back. Crazy. So my weekend was spent at the hospital keeping her company and my husband sane.

I made this a few years ago before kids and when my husband was in Iraq and I was in Germany so I had a lot of time on my hands. I decided I would make quilts for my two best friend's birthdays. I didn't really sew quilts at this time but I really had a lot of time on my hands. Both of the ladies were very special to me. They were both my bridesmaids. This quilt was for Tracy. I will show Andy's later. I met her in college. We graduated in the same program and it being such a small program (Community Health) we became very good friends. The quilt is a Learn to Quilt called Triple Threat. I couldn't find the specific pattern but here is a link to their free patterns. This pattern has tons of triangles. I actually cut out a ton more and hated how it looked so I bought more fabric and now I have a bunch of extra triangles waiting to be used. The main fabric is Daisy Kingdom's Donna's Picket Fence Small Packed Daisies. Its really cute and simple which at the time was really her style. The quilt is just a lap size. You can see I have it hanging over my quilt rack so that can give you an idea of the size.

Grandma's quilt

So, last year M turned three and we made her room into a big girl room. I would have taken a picture for you to see it but you can't see the floor at the moment. Anyway, we got her a big girl bed. My mom and I were just browsing at IKEA and in their broken or display stuff they had this cute wrought iron bed, really low to the ground. It was super cheap. They were discontinuing it and this was the display model. We bought it right then. Try to fit a bed into a car with two adults and a car seat with child in car seat. Along with all the stuff we picked up when we were browsing. It is quite a challenge, let me tell you. Anyway, so Grandma wanted to make her a big girl quilt for her new bed. This is just a close up of it. It is so beautiful. She used the blue and white fairy frost that makes it all sparkly. She has a Brother Disney fancy dancy embroidery machine so in each of the Dresden plates has a Disney princesses. I really didn't want an obsessed princess child and luckily I don't. If we knew she would become dog obsessed 2 weeks after her birthday we would have put dogs on it. M really loves her quilt and she loves that Grandma made jammies that match the back flannel. She giggles whenever she gets in bed and sees that she matches. And the bed being close to the ground has been great. She sometimes doesn't even notice she fell out of bed. Once I found her sleeping with her feet on the floor and her body in bed. Funny girl.

Pieced Together Quilting Bee - March

I finished Stephanie K's blocks last night. I was given X and B and I wanted to do something special. X, I decide to make it look like it was weaved like the criss cross of the X. B, I had no idea what to do but I knew I wanted to add a little bit of the butterfly fabric I had that fit her request of sticking to pink and green. It just such pretty fabric and all I had left of it was a little strip so I was able to use it. B for Butterfly. I thought I was clever. I hope she likes them or rather, I hope her daughter likes them. I still have one more block to do for March. Sara requested a spider block made with paper piecing. I am a little intimidated by it so I am holding off a bit till I get some courage. She picked awesome 1930's reproduction fabric which will look awesome when all put together. Wish me luck on making it!

Baby Quilt

My cousin, Heather, is due for her first child, well, anytime. They live in Texas so I wasn't able to attend the baby shower for her but I decided to make her a quilt.
Really, I wanted an excuse to use this awesome kite material. The quilt got a little big while I was making it. I wanted it smaller but it kept growing and growing. So, it is a great size for a lap quilt or for a toddler bed. The baby will definitely be able to use it for years. The red is more of the corduroy that was for my daughter's dress. See -no dress. It's just so soft, I thought it would be nice for some texture. I love it. I backed it with a blue flannel. Flannel stickes a little better so it won't fall off a wiggling child as quickly. I thought seriously about keeping it for myself but I thought better. I do have some more of the kite fabric left so I might have to make myself one. Sorry the pictures aren't that great. I am hoping that she will send me more pictures. My aunt told me it was well received though.