Hexagon doll quilt: a finish

I’ve finally finished my hexagon doll quilt!  I’ve only been working on this since, what, February?

For the quilting, I attempted wood grain quilting within the trunk and branches of the tree.  Then I went all the way around the edge of the tree, in a pale blue.

I did wavy lines across the “sky, which I extended into the border, and curved lines – switching to a variegated yellow/green thread – in the “ground.”

Do you recognize the binding?  It’s from this quilt.

I had decided ages ago to sew buttons onto the quilt to be “fruit.”

The finished front:

The pieced back, using pieces from my stash.  I love how the oranges play together.

 

WIP Wednesday: Hexie doll quilt

Hi habibis!  My hexie doll quilt is definitely a WIP.  I make a little bit of progress every week.  I’m in the final stages of the planned embroidery – filling in some of the leaves with satin stitch.  When that’s done, I’ll layer it and get to quilting!

Hexagon Tree Doll Quilt (Part III?)

Hi habibis!  I’m so pleased to say that I’ve been getting a lot of sewing done, but I’m working on two things I can’t share yet, so in the meantime I’ve got some small bits of progress to show you.  I’ve still been picking up my hexagon tree doll quilt every couple of days.   Over the weekend I added a border:

I put a lot of thought into the border.  I thought I wanted something warm – I was thinking of yellow/orange – but in the end this lovely brown with cream and blue won out.  I think the back will be orange – I’ve got three fabrics pulled for that already – and the binding will probably be a scrappy one leftover from the octopus baby quilt and/or the medallion baby quilt.  (Incidentally, I see I really need to update my Finished Quilts tab, as I just realized my last three quilts aren’t in there.)

In addition to adding the border, I’ve still been working on the leaves.  I finished all the outlines in forest green thread.  I’ve started to stitch lines across the hexagons to divide them into parts.  The goal is to then fill some of the sections in with satin stitch before I layer and quilt this.

Come back tomorrow and I’ll share my Stash Bee blocks – Mary picked such a cute block for this month!

Hexagon Tree Doll Quilt

Hello habibis!  I’ve made some more progress on the doll quilt I showed you last week, and I wanted to share.

First, I’ve finally finished attaching all the hexagons!

I think I drew too many branches for my tree, because I decided even with all the hexagons it looked a little sparse (and Z agreed).  So I decided to embroider my hexagon shapes to fill it out.  I’m using a forest green thread.  Maybe I’ll switch to a lighter green for more variety.  You can probably see here my pencil markings where I’ve traced everything out.

I’ve also embroidered the ground – rolling hills – at the bottom.

I’m going to put on some borders soon and hopefully get this sandwiched and start the quilting (after I finish with the hexagon “leaves,” of course).  My quilting plan is to do something wood grain-y in the tree trunk and branches and to do an outline of the foliage.  Beyond that I haven’t decided, although I think I’d like to sew buttons on for “fruit.”  That’s aways down the road, though.

 

June Charity Sewing

Habibis, I have to confess that June was the first month in which I didn’t keep my resolution of dedicating one sewing day a month to charity sewing.  I was trying to meet an end-of-June deadline for something (which I missed anyway), and I had so few sewing days that I wasn’t willing to sacrifice one for charity sewing.  That being said, I did do a little bit of charity sewing.

Yes, that’s right, the Handstitched projects are back!  This one was designed to be a tote bag, but I don’t need an embroidered tote bag, so I decided to make a doll bed instead.  Months and months ago I made my little EPP hexagons, all in green/leafy prints, and cut out my light blue square to serve as the background.  Finally in June I pulled it out, embroidered the trunk with a stem stitch, and started to attach my hexagons.  I’m almost done.  I may do a little more embroidery and then I’ll add some kind of border and sandwich it to get it quilted.  I’d love to have a couple of finished doll quilts when my guild meets in September, but we’ll see how summer sewing goes.

I’ve seen other people sew their hexagons on by sewing across from corner to corner, and I love that look.  In this case, I wanted to make sure the ends of my embroidery were covered up, so I sewed around the edges.  In the Handstitched course, Rachel had suggested pre-attaching hexagons that would be adjacent, prior to sewing them down, but I didn’t bother with that and just sewed one on top of the other.

Appliqued Doll Quilt

My doll quilt involved some applique practice and getting rid of scraps.  My guild makes stockings and stuffed animals around the holidays, and a couple of years ago I wanted to make stuffed animals but I didn’t realize that I needed to blow up the pattern to a larger size.  The pieces came out so small and I gave up on the stuffed animals.  (I think I made one tiny dinosaur.)  I had pieces cut out, including pieces to make a stuffed dog.   I also had a blue circle shape – leftover from this present I made for Anlichan.

I took the two ear pieces and sewed them right sides together, then turned them right side out. I turned the open end under and stitched it down to the dog body piece.

I had already embroidered the dog’s eye and nose when I was going to make the stuffed animal originally, so I didn’t need to worry about that.  I machine appliqued the dog to the blue circle with yellow thread using a zigzag stitch. (I’ve since learned that it works better if you use your satin stitch foot!)

I fused that to a large square of the polka dot fabric leftover from my polka dot Drunkard’s Path comforter.  I used a blanket stitch to hand applique it down.

I used batting scraps and a square of the shirting fabric that I’m still trying to get rid of to make the quilt sandwich.  I quilted a spiral from the circle outward to the edges.

Here’s how the quilting looks from the back:

Then I squared it up and I added the binding.  I used the leftover binding from the American flag quilt I made.  I hadn’t measured it to make sure it was long enough, but I got lucky and it was slightly longer than I needed.  (I didn’t want to make binding, and the red, white, and blue looked cute with the blue and yellow fabrics in the quilt.)

I realized as I was sewing the binding down that the shirting fabric had a little stamp on it, and that the marks showed.  So I made a little quilt tag to cover it.  It says “For someone special.”  Maybe I should make little tags for all of my charity quilts in the future.

Another Doll Quilt

Hello habibis! If you’re in the U.S., I hope you voted (or will vote) today. One of the perks of being a civil servant is that I get the day off. (I know!! It’s not like I couldn’t vote before or after work, but a random Tuesday off is nice.) I’m going to see friends and go to the gym (and vote, of course!), but I’m  planning to use the rest of the day for sewing.

Speaking of sewing, I had a pretty productive weekend considering how much else I did. I worked on the magnum opus – more on that tomorrow – and I started the free motion quilting on my other big project that I haven’t shown you. It’s going pretty well so far!

As a quick reminder, voting has opened for the Blogger Quilt Festival!  Vote now through November 7th! I submitted my Drunkard’s Path polka dot quilt and the hand quilted wedding quilt I made for my friend N.  Check out the rest of the submissions here.

Today I’m showing you my final doll quilt. Like the other one, it’s both unnamed and unfinished. I still haven’t sewn the binding down. I couldn’t come up with a good name for it, either. I think not all of my quilts will be named and that’s okay.

I went through my stash and pulled together fabrics that I thought went well. I love this floral print but the color isn’t easy to match. It’s bluer than mint but too pale for aqua – I don’t even know what to call it. (I think it looks a little greener in certain lights than it photographed here.)  I thought it went nicely with the yellow print in both color and tone, so to speak.  It’s the same color – or almost – as the center circle it matches the blues in the house scene.  The piecing was simple – just a rectangle with borders, to highlight the yellow print.  I had trouble finding thread to match both fabrics, so I went with this teal color; it went nicely with the center fabric and I thought the deeper shade complimented my floral fabric.  (What kind of flowers are those?  They almost remind me of Queen Anne’s Lace, but I’m sure that’s not what they are.)

Here’s a close up on the center – it’s actually off-centered, but purposely so.

I started by quilting around the circle in the center, on the inner line and the outer line. My quilting isn’t perfect – I was eye balling it.    Then, since I wanted to practice my FMQ, I did a meandering line in the yellow.  I tried to highlight the flowers.  It’s not the neatest quilting ever but I thought it was pleasing.

In the border I did vertical wavy lines on the left and right side. For the top and bottom section of the border I tried meandering again but it looked terrible. I hated it.  Look how horrible this is.  What seemed pleasing in the yellow just looked messy here, with the thread so dark.  Stippling might have worked better.  As it was, it just upset me to look at.  I hate ripping out stitches, but I could not live with this attempt at FMQ.

I finally ripped it all out and replaced it with horizontal wavy lines. I hate ripping work out but it was worth it. I hated the way the meandering looked even more.  Now it’s more more soothing and pretty.

Here’s a view of the backing fabric and the quilting on the back.  I used the blue fabric from the front for binding, which I’ve attached but haven’t sewn down yet.  I’ll post again whenever I finish this quilt and the flight one.

Flight-themed Doll Quilt

Another doll quilt! I didn’t name this one.  I thought for a while about a name for it (Flying High was a contender -it makes me think of the Reading Rainbow theme song – and so war Soar) but nothing really fit.  I decided not all quilts need a name.  (To be honest, “Butterfly Dreams” is the first quilt I’ve ever named, I think; in the past I’ve always thought of the quilt as “so-and-so’s quilt,” whoever the recipient is.  I like the idea of naming quilts but I hadn’t really tried until recently.)

I started with the plane panel.  I rooted around for matching fabrics and came up with the navy I used for the border.  I have no idea how it got in my stash.  It’s apples? Or pears.  Or turnips? It’s produce of some sort.  Does it fit thematically with flying?  No, but the colors match, so I went with it.

I used this other navy (definitely leaves – at least I can identify that) for the back.

I’m practicing my FMQ!  More wavy lines.  I tried to do something more involved but I need to play around with my machine more before it’ll actually do that for me, so wavy lines it is.  They’re horizontal, with white thread – they’re supposed to look like flight, if you know what I mean.

I haven’t sewn down the binding yet.  I made it with scraps from the two navy fabrics. I see that I didn’t take a picture after I put the binding on, but since I haven’t sewn it down I guess that doesn’t matter much. I’ll do that eventually.  Possibly after Christmas.  Christmas is less than 10 weeks away!  I have so much to do before then.

Extra Tuesday post

Hello habibis!  I felt like writing an extra Tuesday post this week.  I wanted to write about some things without distracting from the stuffed animal I made my goddaughter, which is my other post today (going up at noon).  (Blogging gets kind of addictive, doesn’t it?  There’s so much I want to say – but normally I’m too busy sewing and/or by the time I’ve finished the present and gifted it I’ve forgotten half of my thoughts about the beginning of the project.)

I was able to go to my guild meeting this weekend, after missing last month’s meeting (for the bachelorette party, so it was a good cause).  I took my magnum opus to work on while I was there.  I saw my friends in the guild and I enjoyed our speaker.  She talked about “celebration quilts,” by which she meant any quilt that celebrates a moment or an event or someone’s life – baby quilts, wedding quilts, anniversary quilts, cancer quilts, birthday quilts, travel/vacation quilts, even charity quilts.  By that definition I think every quilt I’ve made except for the two on my bed are celebration quilts!

We’re having pretty nice fall weather now, so I can snuggle up under my two quilts (speaking of) – this is the first year I’ve slept under a quilt I made myself.  It’s a good feeling.  I worry that they won’t be warm enough for a winter like last year.  (My first instinct was to make another one, but I’m too busy with other projects.  I have at least that much sense when it comes to time management!)  Next weekend I’m going to my parents’ house and I’ll have a chance to switch out my summer and winter wardrobes, which I’m looking forward to.  (We only have two closets in our apartment, one in each bedroom, and they are very very small.)

I dropped the two doll quilts I’d finished (read about them here and here) off at my guild and I just wanted to show the cute little labels I made for them.  I haven’t posted about the charity in a while (http://www.emergencydolldispatch.org/donate.html), but they work with (I think) the American Girl Doll company, and for every doll quilt that’s donated they donate a doll (to go with the doll quilt) for an abused child.   (I won’t say I’m dating myself because probably anyone reading this has a pretty good idea of how old I am, but I LOVED my American Girl Doll growing up; I had Kirsten and I took her literally everywhere except for church and school.  I slept with her every night, I messed up her hair so badly my mom had to send her to the doll hospital for a new head, I even threw up on her once.  My mom has my sister’s and my dolls stored away for when we have daughters.)  Anyway, I want those kids to feel like they’re special, so I put on each label “for someone special.”

I also put the name on the “Butterfly Dreams” quilt label, but I still couldn’t decide on a name for the purple one so it shall remain nameless.  The micron pen doesn’t show up as nicely as I’d like.  I got thicker pens but I couldn’t find them when I was doing the labels.  I’ll try the thicker ones and if that doesn’t work I may need to change pen brands.

I posted about my third doll quilt, the blue and yellow one, last week – that still needs the binding sewn down.  I have two more doll quilts to show you, both of which are in the same state.  I have so much other hand sewing to do that the bindings are taking a back seat.  The magnum opus is my priority right now, so those doll quilts may not be done in time for the November guild meeting.  We’ll see.  I will, however, be making a stocking or two and some drawstring bags before the next meeting.

I’ve left the best for last!  As I mentioned a week or so ago, Lily’s Quilts is hosting a small blog meet, and I’ve met some lovely bloggers.   There are twelve of us total in the blog meet and my goal is to meet (“meet”) and follow all of them, but here are the four ladies I’ve met so far:

Marie @ Stokes Croft Stitching  – I love the cute bag she made with some orange on blue flamingo fabric

Amy @IndigoCottageQuilts  – Amy has some cool Halloween projects she’s cooking up (very seasonal!) and check out the Union Jack she made with Downton Abbey fabrics

Margaret @ Pieces of My Heart  – These two quilt tops have really caught my fancy.  (If you’ve perused my finishes you probably know how much I love hexagons!)

Shelley @The Carpenters Daughter who Quilts  – I love the train quilt Shelley made for her father-in-law; it reminds me of the train quilt I made my grandpa.

Check them all out!

 

Blue and Yellow Doll Quilt

Hello habibis! I hope you’re all doing well.  I got quite a bit of sewing done in the last week: my magnum opus, doll quilts, and a gift that you’ll see at some point. Today I’m showing off a cute little doll quilt. I used leftover scraps from various projects, including a couple of prints (one flannel, one not) from the baby quilt I made for my friends J and N’s older daughter. How cute are the nursery rhyme prints?

It’s a simple quilt – a center square and three borders, two of the striped flannel and one of the nursery rhyme characters.  I used more of the striped flannel for the back.

I quilted wavy lines in light blue thread to practice my free motion quilting.

I was pleased to have enough of the center fabric to make the binding.  I’ve added the binding but haven’t sewn it down yet. I don’t have any finishes I can share (all my finishes are gifts) so it’s WIP doll quilts or nothing today!