Daybreak Sock Monkey Christmas Quilt

I've been hanging on to a Sock Monkey charm pack for many years. Then one day I went to a Quilts for Kids sew day, started digging through donated fabric to find coordinating fabric that matches the charm pack prints. It was a nice. surprise.

All I had to do is find a proper pattern to use that would incorporate the amount of fabric I found. As I sorted through my many Villa Rosa pattern cards I came across the Daybreak pattern. It was a perfect fit!

I had just enough fabric to make this cute little quilt. I took the finished top to the quilt shop and matched it up with some nice, soft brown flannel. It was a great compliment to the Christmas themed prints. 

I free-motion quilted the quilt and added flannel binding. It's a nice addition to my growing stack of Sock Monkey themed quilts that I have going.

A T-Shirt Quilt

I have a new t-shirt quilt project, a gift for a college graduate. Usually I sew the quilt blocks by spreading them across rows or columns. I wanted to try something new and I love the look of mosaic t-shirt quilts so I thought I would give it a try.

The neat thing about a mosaic is each block can be cut a different size. From there, you measure each block and draw it out on graph paper to scale. 

It was really fun to move the little graph paper blocks around until I liked where they were. What a genius way to work!  It was just as fun to convert the graph paper blocks into a quilt top. 

I spent a rainy afternoon sewing the blocks and by the end of the day the entire quilt top was done. All I had to do was add some borders.

I quilted the quilt with a swirl pattern and made the binding out of the same fabric as the border. There was no need to add any more color to the quilt besides the color from the t-shirts.  

I really like how this quilt turned out. I think it was the feminine color palette as well as the mosaic layout. I enjoyed making this one more than most of the t-shirt quilts I've made.

Dancing Bears Quilt

I had 2 kits that were designed to make throw pillows along with some matching yardage. I decided I didn't want to make the pillows so I took the kits apart and sorted through the fabrics. In the end, I had a little more than 1 yard of each of 3 different prints. So I got out my 3-yard quilt books and found a pattern that I thought would be great to use with the fabrics. The pattern is called Dancing Bear. Since there are trees and bears on the prints it felt appropriate to do a bear paw type quilt block. Like the bear is in the woods - haha!

The 3-yard quilt books have a different technique for binding than I usually use. Their version uses less fabric so I didn't have enough fabric left over to do it my way. So I found some green fabric in my stash that matched very well to use as binding and there was enough to use for backing as well.

I longarmed the quilt using a leaf pattern that complemented the tree prints. I like how it looks on the green background.

I will add the quilt to my stash for craft fairs. I can usually sell a few quilts when I vend at a lower price point so this one will work for that purpose.

Villa Rosa Red Rose Quilt

I made my mother a quilt from some pretty fabrics and last week I came across the scraps left over from it. There were some really pretty pieces left. After I sorted the pieces I chose a pattern that would accommodate the sizes of the scraps. The Villa Rosa pattern, Red Rose was a perfect fit. 

I put the quilt top together on one of my basement quilters days. We meet the second Saturday of every month in the basement of a church. My quilt group may not have a very original name, but it certainly is a fitting one - haha!  The leader of the group is a member of the church and so are a few of the quilters but most of us are not. The group is considered a community service offered by the church and they ask for nothing in return. 

I finished the quilt top in just a few hours while at our sew day. Once I got it home and put it on the longarmer and I immediately got a little extra help. I think my kitties like using the longarmer as a hammock.

Some of the ladies in the quilt group who belong to the church donate their finished quilts to the church. They give a quilt to all the babies baptized there and they also give them to their shut-ins. I thought this might be a good one for a shut-in so I donated it to the church. It feels good to give a little back to them since they allow us to get together at their facility.

I used as much of the leftover scraps to make the backing in the hopes there would be no more left. I'm doing my best to use up the good stuff I have in my stash. And it was nice to use this up in a good way.

Gumbo Sock Monkey Quilt

From a large bundle of Sock Monkey fabrics, I made a few quilts.  The bundle contained so many fabrics that I started by sorting through the many colors. I separated out the teals, pinks, and purples to make this one.  I used the Villa Rosa pattern Gumbo. It was fast and easy and didn't use many of the fat quarters in the bundle. I'm going to have some fun trying different patterns to use up the bundle. 

I found a bolt of polka dot fabric at my Quilts for Kids meeting. It makes great backing and the colors match the sock monkeys. It was a great fabric find. 

I

Mystery Quilt Class

Sew N Save is celebrating their 40th anniversary this year so to commemorate the year there's a mystery quilt project box filled with lots of goodies. Included in the box is a 40% off coupon for every month of the year. It was worth the purchase just for the coupons. 

I really didn't like the fabrics in the kit but I wanted to be a team player so I went to the class to make the quilt. It went together very quickly. By the end of the 4-hour class I had all the blocks made. I could have taken the time to put the quilt together while I was there but I really wanted to use my design board and make sure I arranged them in a pleasing way. 

Once I had the blocks sewn together. I added the border. Unfortunately, I picked out the border fabric before the quilt was put together.  I sewed the border on and I hated them. So on my next trip to the quilt shop I took the sewn blocks and picked out something that was a better match. It's funny how even though the original border matched the fabrics in the kit, when the blocks were done, it was a very different story.

I longarmed the quilt with a nice swirl to complement the straight strips. It went together quickly and I'm glad I finished it but it's just not my style. I plan on listing it for sale on Etsy. It really is a cool looking quilt with all the little gold specks in the fabrics.

Gingersnap Quilt

A line of fabric called My Red Wagon by Henry Glass hit the clearance section at the quilt shop last year and I picked some up. It had some pretty prints and some I just didn't understand. The colors didn't really seem to go together, I wonder if that's why most of it was in clearance. In an effort to use up what I have, I found that this fabric line would be good with the Gingersnap quilt pattern by Villa Rosa. It seems I can't get enough of those Villa Rosa pattern cards lately.

The Gingersnap pattern uses large chunks of fabric so I thought I could easily place the border print where a large print would go. I also had so much of one of the prints that it would easily make the backing and enough was left over for the center block. The patchwork used up some fat quarters and another larger piece made the borders. As you can see from the finished quilt, none of it coordinates. 

This was a good experiment in putting colors together that I normally wouldn't. I don't care for the results but I'm glad I followed through and finished it. 

I will send this quilt off to Quilts for Kids. The little wagons are very cute and some of the fabrics are quite charming. I do love the backing fabric.

I pieced the backing in order to use up all the leftover fabrics. It felt good to use up more of my stash. 

Villa Rosa Pattern Cards

Last year I purchased a large bundle of Villa Rosa pattern cards at a quilt show.  I spent a little time recently going through the patterns and found some I had forgotten about. I matched a few up with some fabrics from my stash.

The directions are well written and easy to follow. Within a week I had finished two quilts!

I used the Grand Prize pattern to make this spaceship themed quilt. It was a great way to frame the panel. The backing fabric glows in the dark. 

I had a small bundle of some nice modern prints I wanted to use with the Asagail pattern.  It turned out there wasn't enough fabric as required on the pattern card but I did get enough blocks to make a smaller version. Then wouldn't you know it! I was digging through more of my stash and discovered a large chunk of the same fabric line. Of course I found it after I put the borders on. So I did the next best thing, I used it for the back. I chose variegated thread in the quilting which really looks great in the white background. It still turned out to be a decent size for a kid's quilt.