Fifty Shades of Tan

I have been wanting to do a neutral quilt for a while but it was put as a back burner project for what felt like ever.  This one I accidentally came to make, meaning I ordered the wrong fabric and ended up with these amazing tans instead of a whole bundle of one off white that I was looking for.  Oh well, I was excited to have these since they were perfect for a neutral quilt.

I was inspired by this quilt that I found on pinterest.  I wish I could have done a bigger quilt for my bed but I love how this turned out and it was a lot of half square triangles for just this quilt.

I nicknamed this quilt my fifty shades of tan because I had it on my wall forever switching out the colors almost every time I would walk by.  I have to say that having your lay out wall in your bedroom is not a great idea, I ended up nit-picking at my design way more than I would have if it was in a different room.  That and it stared at me night after night with puppy dog eyes wondering why I hadn’t sewn on it in forever and just left it on the wall.

Here is the finished product.  It is for sale in my Etsy store which you can find HERE.

I’ll be adding this to the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.  First time joining in on this but it seems like an amazing place for quilters to share their ideas and journeys.

Rainy Day Baby Quilt

So I finished up another Pattern Jam quilt.  I love Pattern Jam, I mean LOVE!  They still have the fun design your own quilt options and it calculates the fabric needed but they also have these amazing designs that you can put all your own personal touches on.  This is what I did with this cute rain cloud quilt.  They originally had it designed with different colors but I wanted it to be simple and have a light background.

Once I got the printed quilt top, I searched for the perfect fabric for the back.  I wanted to do a minky not just because it’s soft and cuddly, but it would make it a thicker heavier blanket that can grow with the baby.  I envision some toddler snuggling up with this in their “big” kid bed and feeling safe because the extra weight of the minky and the batting I decided it also needed.  I have this for sale in my Etsy store if anyone is interested.

I didn’t do much quilting because I really wanted to leave the texture of the clouds on the back of the quilt and I am also not very good at quilting with minky yet (it’s thicker than most fabrics and doesn’t like to cooperate).  So outlining the cloud and raindrops seemed simple enough and let the quilt be extra fluffy.

Mandala Swirls

Have you heard of Pattern Jam?  It’s an amazing quilt design website that has the ability to design your own quilt and calculate the fabric needed (yay for not having to do all the math).  It also has the ability to customize your own quilt top from an ever expanding selection of fun designs.

I have used this site multiple times to calculate pricing for quilts that friends and family have asked me for quotes on quilts and to test out different color schemes and designs.  It has been an amazing tool for me.  I hadn’t yet ordered a pre-printed quilt top because it felt like cheating.  A pre-printed quilt top means that they print the design (that I’ve chosen and customized) directly onto the fabric.  So really intricate quilts can be designed and printed much faster and better than I could make it.  I decided to try a small one for my etsy store (which you should check out HERE) and ordered a fun mandala to make into a baby quilt.

I was very impressed with the detail that was able to be printed on the fabric for this quilt and know that whoever buys it will love the bright colors.  I decided to stick with the circle theme for my quilting and did a never ending (or at least it felt that way as I worked slowly toward the edge) swirl.  I love how it turned out with the swirl because it looks more like concentric circles and really accentuates the mandala shape.

If you’d like to purchase this quilt, make sure to visit my Etsy shop.

Mother’s Day Gifts

Another day, another sewing project here in the Shearer household.

This year I finally accomplished the project I set out to do as Christmas gifts a while back.  It only took me a couple of years to get the timing right, but in my defense how many people are really working on gifts 3 months in advance.  So this year I started EARLY so this could be done.

I found this idea on Pinterest (of course) and got the more detailed directions HERE.  I found out that I can print my own fabric HERE!!  Yay and this gives me so many more ideas of what I could do for future projects.  Anyway, this project was recipe cards that were scanned in and then turned into tea towels.

For my mom, I searched all the boxes of recipes and made up a cheesy excuse that I was going to scan them in and share them (which I really do plan to do….when I’m not sure, but someday).  So we sifted through the box and sadly only found a few recipes in her hand writing.  The ones we did find were written on pretty much any scrap piece of paper she could find.  One of the finished towels was from a recipe written on the back of an old receipt.  I love that the front showed through when I scanned it.  Also, instead of just having plain recipe cards covering the towel I decided to add some watercolor clip art that I found online (the links are below the photos).  I’m so glad I did this because it looks like they were painted directly on the fabric and I love how it turned out!

Left: The one pretty recipe card my grandmother used; Right: Click HereArt Left: Click Here | Right: Click Here

For my husband’s grandmother, I got her 4 kids to write down their favorite bible verse and I scanned them in and put them on her own set of towels.  I loved how these turned out also.

Art: Click HereSee what I mean about the watercolors looks like they were painted on the fabric.  Love!!Art: Click HereEach of the towels had a color border that I folded and sewed to the back.  Next time I may leave a little bit of the color showing on the front.Art: Click HereI can’t find the exact link for this one, but THIS is similar.For my mother in law and her siblings to say thank you for the help in making such a special gift for their mother, I made each of them a towel with their mother’s favorite bible verse in English and Japanese.  I am making one of these for myself later.Art: Click Here