Doll Quilt Tops

One of my favorite people, Cousin B, is legally blind.  She has very limited vision, so she can't drive or sew.  She works as a nanny for a couple that she met in culinary school before her sight worsened.  B asked me to make two doll quilts for the two little girls she takes care of.  They're having a baby brother or sister in December and B wants to give them a quilt for their dolls.

For the first quilt top, I used leftover HSTs from the last Autumn Leaf quilt I made 3 years ago.  You can see a lot of the same fabrics in the original quilt.

I don't know about you, but I find this chain-piecing method an easy way to assemble a quilt top.

For the 2nd quilt top, I decided to use some of the leftover 3.5-inch scraps from the same Autumn Leaf quilt.  I played around with the squares for a couple of days, see below, before deciding that I needed to do more with them.  I snowballed opposite corners on each square and put them together for the completed top.  Much better.  It was far too windy for an outdoor photo, so the front door works well.

I have to take a break from sewing, I'm leaving for Iceland next week, so I need to pack and get things organized.  These two doll quilts will be sandwiched and quilted upon my return.

May your bobbins always be full,

TVMQG Mag Photo Challenge Quilt Top and Back are ready.

I challenged my fellow TVMQG members to make a quilted item using a magazine or newspaper photo as inspiration.  I actually purchased several mags trying to find inspiration and settled on the above photo of a corn cob from In Style mag.

I did a fabric pull on 7/10 and came up with a plan.  I decided to use 2" strips to make 4-patches, and to keep everything as random as possible; no matchy-matchy!  Then part two was to make HSTs the same size as the 4-patches, 3.5' square.  After starting, I caught Bronchitis and was out of commission for a couple of weeks.  Rest, rest, rest was all it did, so no sewing.

I slowly eased my way back to the cutting board and sewing machine.  I made 4-patches of the HSTs and 4-patches and thought I was pretty original.  Wrong, what I made was a Jacobs Ladder quilt!

I really love how the quilt top turned out.  Again, I kept everything random and no matchy-matchy.  The top measures 37" x 43". 

Then it was time to piece the quilt back.  I'd made the panel below to demo how to make a quilt block/item using a photo for inspiration for our May guild meeting.  I decided to use it as the centerpiece of the quilt back.

The photo below is the quilt back.  I took some extra 4-patches and made a "sun" for the "sky" above the beach houses.  The photo isn't great, but I hope you can see my intent.

I don't do my own quilting on anything larger than a doll quilt so this will go to my LAQ, as soon as she returns from vacation.

May your bobbins always be full,

A little of this and a little of that

My guild is having "Christmas in July" at our meeting this month.  We're exchanging potholders or hot pads concealed in a brown paper bag, so it's a Mystery Gift.  Above are the potholders I made for this exchange; as you can see they're not perfect.

 I've done this fabric pull for the guilds' next challenge, called the Mag Photo Challenge.  Can you guess what is in the photo that I'm using for inspiration?

May your bobbins always be full,