I’m in the middle of my annual trip to the Midwest, visiting family and friends all over Illinois and Wisconsin.  Normally I’d be sure to have a quilt (or three) with bindings attached, so I can do the hand-sewing while I’m here.  Alas, that didn’t work out this time.

The crazy circle quilt is basted and waiting to be quilted. I had hoped to do it before I left, but my machine went on the fritz (more on that later, ARGH), so no dice.

Thankfully, I had not given away or sold my old machine, so I was at least able to (mostly) catch up on Bee blocks before I left.

And, as I was getting ready to mail them out, I realized August is MY month for our Scraptastic Bee.  Since I won’t be back home until the very last day of July, I decided to cut up some fabric and send it early.  So everyone got a piece of Alexander Henry owls and I asked for wonky/funky square-in-square blocks.

The two Nicey Jane lake quilts were, obviously, a total pipe dream. Neither top is anywhere near complete.  Ah well, they can be my mom’s Christmas present!

A combination of heat/humidity and other life-gets-in-the-way things kept me from sewing as much as I had hoped before I left.  But my sewing space has been relocated away from my kids’ bedrooms and central air has been installed in my house, so hopefully August will be a pleasantly productive month.

What about you? Are you getting as much done this summer as you had hoped?

This quilt is for a little girl named Willa, a girl not much younger than my own nearly-three-year-olds.  I don’t actually know her. She lives in Pennsylvania, and her mother is a friend of a friend.  This friend of mine pointed me to Willa’s mom’s blog.  I read it and I cried and cried and cried. Willa is dying.

In addition to being born with a rare and serious medical condition, they then discovered a tumor. Cancer. Inoperable. I’m not sure she was even two years old at the time.

My heart broke into a million tiny pieces. I wanted so badly to do something to help, but what can I do? Aside from not being a doctor or a creator of miracles, I don’t even live anywhere close to them.  I can’t make a batch of cookies or bring over a few nights’ worth of dinner.

But I can sew.  I could make Willa a quilt. Is it a particularly practical gift?  No, I suppose not. But I have a little girl. She likes to get surprises in the mail, she likes pretty things.  All I can hope to do is to send a little smile via Express Mail.

Oh, and the latest blog entry says that the tumor is growing. They’ve stopped treatment and met with hospice. Willa is at home. That’s why I rushed to finish it as fast as I could. I thought there might be more time, but I was so very sadly wrong.  So I finished it and sent it Express.  Tracking says it arrived last week. I haven’t heard from Willa’s mom, yet. I have no idea if it made it there in time.

As for the practical details of the quilt:

It is my second time doing the Stacked Coins tutorial, which I cannot recommend highly enough. If you have a couple of charm packs lying around and want to make something beautiful and super fast, this is the ticket. It’s the perfect size for a baby/toddler quilt, about 40×50. The charm packs in this case were Moda Daydreams, which is a few years old but I found them last fall in Colorado and was waiting for just the right use.

Backing is Amy Butler Full Moon Dots in Camel and a blue tone-on-tone butterfly print from my stash, which the selvedge said was by Anna Griffin.  Binding is Full Moon Dots in Lime.  I quilted it in my favorite (and fast, though my machine was acting up and breaking thread a lot) loopy stipple, and the white pretty much disappears into the quilt.

Like I said, I have no idea if it made it there in time for Willa to see it or snuggle with it. I can only hope that it gave her, and her mom, a smile.

UPDATE, JULY 8

I got a beautiful thank you card in the mail from Willa’s mom.  Not only did Willa get it and like it, “she hugs it and won’t let anyone take it away.”

You’ll excuse me, I’m going to try not to cry.

Thought I would check back on the goals I set for myself at the very beginning of this year and see how I’m doing!

1. Quilts for both kids. Done and done!
2. Duvet cover for us.  Not yet, but I’ve got it written down on the white board of insanity as something to design and have an idea of what fabric to use. So I haven’t forgotten!
3. Matching Pillows. Not so much. Realistically, not sure I’ll make those for the kids. But maybe for my bed…
4. 2 Project Linus donations. Not yet, should definitely work on that.
5. A bag. Also not yet. Hrm. Gotta pick a beginner-friendly pattern…
6. Clothing. Two sets of pajamas, hooray! Have been tempted to make a skirt or something more complex, and may make more pajamas in the fall, but they’ve fallen off the priority list.  But still, goal accomplished!
7. Name quilts. While they haven’t necessarily been the most interesting names in the whole world, I am glad to now insist on calling my quilts something other than “that one with the pink squares.”
8. Say “no” more often. Though it obviously has gone undocumented here, I have actually said no to a number of requests from friends, and decided against joining in two swaps that were calling my name. I’d love to do it all, of course, and I never want to say no to a friend.  But being realistic about my time and my to-do list has allowed me to hang on to a few extra threads of my sanity.
9. Use scraps/stash more. I’m doing a bit better on the pull-from-the-stash front. Charlie and In Full Bloom were, by and large, stash quilts, and the circle quilt in progress is all stash.  Trichromatic was the only one so far that I’d call a “scrap” quilt, but I’ve got at least one big scrap project planned for late-summer/early-fall (which I might work as a quilt-along if anyone is interested).
10. Use fabrics from all one line less.  Hrm. I still have five finishes on the year that are all-one-line-of-fabric quilts (Big D and the Bean, Cobblestones, My Favorite In-Laws, and Lucy Elizabeth), plus one more that I’ll show in the next day or two.  Plus two in progress and one in my head. Hrm.  I’m not going to beat myself up about it, though. The fabrics are meant to look good together, why fight it?  And with at least three on that list of five, I think I’ve done a good job bringing in a lot of solids to make it more interesting. Still something to be conscious of, since I don’t want to get creatively lazy by only using the fabrics that were designed to work together.
11. Bigger quilts. Not super on this one. In fact, with the exception of the doll-sized quilt, nearly all of the quilts I’ve finished this year have been in the baby/lap-size range.  That said, I’ve got a twin and a full in progress, and the duvet for my bed would be a queen. And two of the quilts, though not huge, are actively in use in two small beds. So I’ll take it.  That goal wasn’t 100% about size, it was also about being used on a bed. So I’m partway there.

I’m not going to add any new goals at this point, nor am I going to take any away. I think there’s still plenty to work with on this list for the next six months.

What about you? Did you set any goals for yourself for this year? If so, how are they going?  If not, why not set some now?

Great to have all of you stop by and comment, and fun to get some solid fabric love.  Without further ado, my virtual computer friend at Random.org says that the winner is:

#105: Helen! Who said:

I really like Sage, and think they should add pomegranate. Neat giveaway.

I couldn’t agree more, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Sage (and will be ordering several yards from Peg & Becca in the very near future…).

Helen, I have sent you email, so please get back to me with your mailing address!  As for everyone else, come back soon and I hope to have a little destash giveaway of my own.

Happy Sewing!

I have four quilt tops actively in progress at the moment, which feels like quite a lot.  Usually I get in a groove and finish one before I really get going on the other.  But this week I am literally bouncing back and forth on all four.  Sewing a bit here, a bit there. It feels a little crazy, but also kind of fun. Let’s check in with the White Board of Insanity:

So yeah, as I mentioned before, the status is color-coded. Because I’m a huge geek. And the white board came with four markers. Black status means the project is anywhere from “in theory” to cutting fabric.  Green status means fabric is cut and I’m at some stage of piecing the quilt top.  Red status means the top is done, so just finish the damn thing already.

As you can see, my poor pinwheel sampler is still hanging out in red, waiting for me to piece the back.  It’s going to wait a while longer.

The quilt for Willa is a stacked coin quilt, and since taking the picture of the strips this afternoon, I have now finished the top and am coming up with a plan for the back. I’m hoping to finish this one ASAP, it just got bumped to the top of my mental priority list.

The quilt for Gus is going to be a raw-edged quarter-circle quilt, and may end up being the brightest and loudest baby boy quilt ever created.  My friend Kathy is his mom, and when she asked me to make this, she specifically said that bold colors were welcome, and I took her at her word. I will sadly not finish it before they move away to Miami in a matter of days. But I’m sure they have more than enough things to pack at the moment, so I’ll mail it down when it’s done.

I’m sewing along with Amanda Jean and her latest quilt-along, which will be a rather lovely twin-sized quilt.  I’ve got the strips all made and chopped up, and the center block together.  Awaiting further instructions (though I suppose I could guess what they are, I’m not going to get too far ahead… plenty of other stuff to keep me busy).

But I originally bought that fat quarter bundle of Nicey Jane with a particular location in mind: a bedroom in my mom’s lake house. That bedroom has both a twin- and a full-sized bed in it, and it would seem a shame to get one bed a new quilt without the other.  So, a coordinating full-sized quilt is the fourth one on my list.  It’s going to be a disappearing-nine-patch with nice big blocks.

In an ideal world, I would finish those two Nicey Jane quilts before I leave for Chicago/Wisconsin and the lake house in question on July 15, but if that really happens, it’ll be a miracle.

So, what about you? Do you frequently have a bunch of projects actively going at the same time, or do you keep the actual in-progress list a little shorter?

I am thrilled to be working with my friends Peg and Becca at Sew Fresh Fabrics.  Peg and Becca are a pair of fabric-loving quilters who recently opened an Etsy shop, specializing in modern designer cottons and Kona solids (a shop after my own heart!). I have crossed quilt-y paths with them in various places – Flickr quilting bees, the blogosphere, and even our local quilt guild.  That’s right, I might be shopping online, but I’m also shopping local! It’s more than just fabric, though.  Not only are you supporting a pair of wicked awesome gals by shopping with them, but you know you’re working with people who love it just as much as you do.  You can tell when the package shows up at your front step (or, in my case, when Peg knocks on my back door – lucky me!), pressed and folded and packaged with great care.

Anyways, today I’m lucky enough to give away one fat quarter bundle of the new Lizzy House collection, Castle Peeps! This will be six fat quarters in the green colorway.  How much do you love this new line?!

To enter, visit the shop and leave a comment telling me your favorite color Kona Cotton that they have currently in stock, and what color you think they should order next!  (Seriously, people. Solid obsession over here. Stage an intervention.)

Comments will remain open until this Friday at 5pm.

And if you want to keep up with all of the great stuff they have in stock, you can also check out their blog, as well as “like” them on Facebook.  They’ll have another shipment of Tufted Tweets next month (squee!), and a continually expanding selection of solids.

Thanks to Becca and Peg for doing this giveaway with me, and for being such a great (local to me!) resource for beautiful fabric!

Edited: comments are now closed, but if you want to order some fabric or suggest new colors of Kona to Becca and Peg, you can always reach them through the Sew Fresh blog!

And yet I got ticked off if people asked me if she was a boy.  Yeah, I get it now.

Anyways, somewhere along the line, she decided she loved butterflies and “spinning” dresses and anything involving “beautiful colors.” Most specifically, pink and purple. What can I say?

I knew that Far, Far Away was for her.  And, thankfully, she loves finding the unicorns and snails and frogs in the different blocks.  She’s been pestering me for ages, any time she sees me sewing.  “Mama, are you making my quilt?”  Yes, my dear.  Yes. It’s finally done.

The double gauze is a little tricky to work with. It really wants to distort in shape and fray a lot, so I handled it really gingerly and breathed a little easier once each piece was enclosed in a ring of Kona.  I used ten different solids for borders: violet, periwinkle, petal, lime, cactus, amber, peach, carnation, salmon, and melon.  Part of me thinks it was too busy, that I shouldn’t have used that many colors.  And maybe if I was making it for someone a little older, or as a lap quilt for my house, maybe it would have looked a little classier if I had toned it down. But somehow I think all the different colors work well for a little girl’s quilt.

Sashing is Kona Cerise, which I am completely in love with.  It’s such a great, bold raspberry color.  Rebecca is tickled because she can’t quite decide if she should call it pink or purple.

The back is mostly Kona Petal, which is a very pretty shade of pink that has a hint of purple to it as well.  I quilted it in my favorite loopy stipple, except I did a double-loop instead of a single one.  I saw Amanda Jean do it once, and I agree with her that it’s somehow a little fancier or more girly or frilly or something. But still playful.  And FAST!  There’s something about the motion of the loops instead of a “standard” stipple that feels so natural. I did the whole thing in a single sitting.

The binding is Kona Cactus. I saw several other Far, Far Away quilts with the cerise and a kind of lime-green contrast, and thought it was so perfect.  Looking at the other solids I used, I didn’t want to do another shade of pink for the binding. I wanted some contrast, but the blues weren’t doing it for me.  Green was bright and it popped, a little something different and interesting. I love it.

But nothing beats my sweet, sweet girl who bounced up and down when she saw it was finished.  “Mama! Is it done?!”  She immediately pulled it upstairs to put on her new bed.  Two nights later, as she cuddled up for our song before bed, she said out of nowhere, “thank you for my unicorn quilt, Mommy.”  You’re welcome, my Becca Bean.  You’re welcome.

My son, Daniel, was born first. A whopping 45 seconds before his sister (they don’t mess around in the operating room!).  And so, for today, he gets the first post on his quilt.  Think that’ll cost me much in therapy later on?

Daniel’s quilt is primarily sock monkey prints, from Erin Michael’s various collections for Moda (5 Funky Monkeys, Goodnight Monkey, etc.).  I’ve been slowly collecting a bunch of them over the last year, and they all went into this quilt.  For good measure, I also threw in six coordinating Kona solids (buttercup, cornflower, tomato, school bus, grass, green tea).  The blocks are crazy nine-patches, made using this tutorial from Oh, Fransson.

It’s easy to follow and very forgiving. I started out with 10″ squares of fabric and had plenty of leeway in trimming them down to end up at 8″ (finished) blocks.  It goes really fast, making nine blocks at a time.  If you’re usually one to press seams to the side, however, this is one time when you’d benefit from pressing open.  Those last two cuts through the entire stack of fabric are a little tricky, and would be even worse with the extra thickness of side-pressed seams.

I sashed it in a great shade of blue (Kona Evening).  I was a little lazy when I basted it, though. I figured the top was “good enough” and didn’t iron it again before basting.  That was a stupid, rookie mistake, and I ended up with some annoying puckering when I quilted it. Not the end of the world, but it bugs me, for sure.

The back is mainly Kona Grass green, with a single strip of the remaining crazy nine-patches.  Quilting is intentionally wobbly vertical lines, roughly 1/2-3/4″ apart (I used my walking foot as a rough guide).

Anyways, I love it, and I love that my son loves it.  I love that it is fun and silly and appropriate for an almost-three-year-old, without being excessively babyish and something he’ll outgrow in style before he outgrows it in size.  I love seeing my big boy snuggled up underneath it. My Daniel / Dan / Mr. D / Big D (and, formerly, Señor Fussy-Pants).

Being a mom of twins has, to state the obvious, shaped my parental world-view in countless ways. One notable thing is that everything in my world comes in pairs.  I never pour a single cup of juice or get a single snack from the pantry.  I always ask if there’s a “twin discount” when I’m buying two big-ticket items, like carseats or cribs.  Most recently, we bought a pair of toddler beds and moved my big kids into their own rooms and big beds.

Having two kids of the exact same age makes me a little obsessed with keeping everything “equal.” I don’t want them to always have two of the exact same thing (though sometimes that’s the easiest way), since they’re two very different little people with different interests.  But we do try to keep things fairly equitable.

And, so, you’ll notice that my kids’ new quilts are indeed very similar, but hardly identical.  They are both made of 8″ blocks with 3″ sashing and 5″ borders.  Lots of solids, including the binding. Similar strip of blocks on the back.  The layout, the structure is the same.  And yet, the actual quilts have very different looks and personalities.  Both suited to their recipients.

I’ll give them each their own post in the next two days.  Much like my beloved kiddos, they are certainly their own individual quilts.  And yet, I cannot ignore the fact that they are, and always will be, a pair.

——–

** OK, here’s your mini biology lesson for the day, in case you want to actually know the difference between identical and fraternal twins.

IDENTICAL or MONOZYGOTIC twins occur when a single fertilized egg splits in half, generally in the first couple of days after fertilization.  Therefore, the two resulting babies have the exact same DNA.  Having the same DNA means they will be the same sex and will likely be almost impossible to tell apart to the casual observer (barring things like different haircuts and the like, of course). Boy/girl twins, therefore, cannot be identical. (No matter what the crazy lady at the grocery store tells me. There is also not, as she would have liked to believe, such a thing as “almost identical.”  WHAT?) Identical twinning is a random occurrence, and there is no scientific evidence of it “running in families.”  It just happens.

FRATERNAL or DIZYGOTIC twins occur when two separate eggs are individually fertilized.  When they occur spontaneously (i.e. without fertility treatments), it means the mother has ovulated more than one egg in a single cycle (or, as I like to say, “double-dropped”).  The resulting babies are no more genetically alike than any other pair of siblings, and can be same- or different-gender.  Because they are the result of multiple-ovulation, fraternal twins can and do sometimes run in families, as the mother might have a genetic pre-disposition to double-dropping.  But, as you can now tell, it only matters if there is a history of twins on the woman’s side of the family, as the man obviously has no influence on how many eggs she’s going to drop.  So it does not matter in the slightest whether or not there are twins on my husband’s side of the family (there aren’t, but everyone likes to ask). There are other factors that can give a woman a higher risk of multiple-ovulation, even if there is no family history.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist this mini rant. As you might imagine, we twin moms get a lot of very strange comments.

My kids’ quilts are in the dryer as we speak, actually. Just hoping for the rain to let up tomorrow so I can take pictures and show them off.  In the meantime, I spent some quality time in front of the DVR with my rotary cutter to start two new projects.  The first is for Amanda Jean‘s new quilt-along.  I cut from a fat quarter bundle of Nicey Jane that I bought a few months ago.

But here’s my question to you, friendly readers… I would like to use some of the remaining Nicey Jane to make a coordinating full-size quilt.  (The ultimate destination for both, I think, will be a bedroom in my mom’s lake house, hence the desire to have them match.)  What would you make?  Would you do a near-duplicate of the twin-sized one from the quilt-along?  Something else with a similar feel?  Please please share ideas, as I can’t decide. I’m leaning towards something either very simple or with very large blocks, you know, so I can actually complete it sometime this year. You know how it goes.

The other bit of fabric that went under the knife this week was a pair of charm packs.  I think I’m going to make another stacked coin quilt, and it’s sort of a surprise for someone I don’t even know, who I thought could use a nice quilt in their life.  Will share more of the story when the quilt comes together and makes its way to its new home.

What about you? Have you felt the call to chop fabric to bits recently?  I’ve been focusing so hard on several finishes, it feels nice to start fresh.