Hello Kitty Herringbone and WIPs

I originally made these 2 herringbone strips to work as sides to the MHKL quilt but didn't care for the pink shades against the purple and blue. Instead, I sandwiched the two strips together and decided to do a pretty horizontally stacked border on the sides. This quilt ended up being perfect for baby's crib. It was quilted by hand and features a cozy, soft Hello Kitty backing. I even decided to go with a nice, hand-stitched binding that I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out. I had always thought that hand binding would be a very tedious project, but instead I found it to be a nice way to pass the time and found my happy place. I am very happy with how it turned out and hope that it makes a little baby very happy in the near future! Click here if you are at all interested in purchasing.

Now that this is completed, I have a few more things up my sleeve to keep me (crazy) busy. I've started cutting teeny, tiny little hexagons for a project I have yet to determine. I also dug up two quilt tops I made back when I was first learning how to do this stuff. There are some MAJOR flaws in these, but I believe I'll keep them the way they are to show character. I can always look back at them and show my growth, if there is any.

These projects are: one strip lap quilt, and one lazy log cabin queen-sized quilt. I may try my hand at machine quilting on the queen, but I'm not committed to that idea. The corners are nowhere near matchy-matchy, but it holds a special place in my heart. The strip lap quilt may end up being pet-bedding on my Etsy shop, or for our cat - Sam, the queen. Who knows? Maybe it will look nice at the end. The pictures I have aren't pressed as I had just dug them out of my storage box, so please disregard the wrinkles.

Meadow Hello Kitty Lilies

It all began with a drawing. Ok, I didn’t design this quilt but I am awful at visualizing what my final product will look like. It helps for me to draw things out and imagine my fabric in the pattern, sometimes even using colored pencils to shade it in. I’m pretty sure that eventually I will master the color palette and be able to visualize my quilt without this step, but for now this happens.












Sewing time usually gets squeezed in when my husband is home from work in the morning or in the evenings when the boys are in bed. I like to say I'm going to sew in the afternoon during nap time but it never happens. Netflix happens. When do I clean? Hahaha...clean... That being said, I do sometimes get the urge to sew when the boys are awake. It requires snacks, tv, and also singing and dancing but, hey. It's pretty easy to dance when you're happy sewing!

This quilt is from a Thimbleberries book, and the pattern is "Meadow Lilies". My niece, Giana, loves Hello Kitty and I like to make kid-size things because I am fond of instant gratification. I'm working on this weakness. The pattern is composed of Meadow Lily blocks offset by nine patches with borders. The nine patch blocks frame the lily blocks and makes a fairly easy pattern look très fancy and complicated. I can't wait to try this pattern again. A lily block is composed of 4 lilies and 4 leaves. Obviously my colors aren't true to the pattern as the leaves should be green, but that's the story of the pattern.

I didn't get a good photo of a finished nine patch block. Here's one in the quilting process. I love the diagonal line quilted through the nine patches. It's funny how I do kid-sized projects for quicker gratification and yet, I prefer to quilt by hand than by machine. I prefer this for a couple reasons. One, I like the way it looks - homemade with love and "stitched in the ditch". Two, I don't have a walking foot yet and I will need a lot of practice as I have trouble sewing a straight line with machine.

I finished her off with a cozy flannel in hot pink Hello Kitty fabric and a satin blanket binding. This was also my first time using binding - in the past, I've wrapped the border around to the front by hand. This was a very handmade feel and took a lot longer than I like. When I get to the binding, I usually am so excited to see the finished product so I loved the fastness of machine binding. I used a zigzag stitch on the top of the binding and I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out. Lesson learned though, if you've never done something before, best to not use slippery satin to experiment on your first try! Or use pins? Maybe that would have helped!