Dino Dig!

Every now and then a pattern finds its way to me more than once, and more than twice.  It's not necessarily a bad thing!  That just means that A.) I know what I like, and B.) my family and friends know what I like.

This pattern found its way to me three times. 

It's a cute pattern!  The dino on the middle right has something strange going on (a long-necked herbivore with carnivore teeth? Exsqueese me?), but overall, it's cute.  So I made it and we kitted it up.

Nevermind my face...I was vexed at shorting myself just shy of 3" of border on that one side.  Damn it. And yes, the dinos all got button eyes after it was quilted.  No eyeless dinos here!

But, I do have to brag for a minute...

THAT CORNER, Y'ALL.  It is so sharp and so clean!  So much so I had to take a picture of it, because otherwise it may not have actually happened.  (Pics, or it didn't happen!)

Bucky McFinn

It's pretty rare where I find a book and I like every single quilt in it.  I think you probably can relate there, I can't be the only one!  Usually I will like a couple of things in it, but I also usually see a few stinkers.

Well, I have found one of those rare books in which I like every single quilt in the book.  But...it just so happens to be a kid's quilt book.

Animal Parade By Cheri Leffler is full of really cute quilts targeted to kids, but I fell in love with the sea life quilt in there.  I made it for no other reason than I liked the quilt and that we had the perfect, silly sea fabric to go with.

Most of you have seen this hanging in the shop already over the past few months, but I'm just now getting around to posting it on here...

I call the quilt Bucky McFinn because if you look at the shark in the border, he has a CRAZY overbite.  Mom and I named him Bucky McFinn - no one's afraid of him because he can only bite himself!

Friday Finish: I Spy Quilt

Okay, so maybe I finished this on Monday.  I'm trying to be diligent about these link party things, so it's a Friday Finish.  From Monday.

Let me preface this by saying (in general and for my mother's benefit): No, I don't have kids.  No, I'm not pregnant.  No, I don't want kids right now.  No, kids are not in my near future, and no, you don't need to ask me if I think I might be "waiting a little too long for kids." 

But I do love kids quilts.  Kids get all the super awesome fun fabric because apparently grown ups can't like super awesome fun stuff anymore.  And, that super awesome fun stuff did not exist yet when I was a kid...the fabric industry just wasn't there yet back in the late 80s/early 90s.

WHERE WAS THIS FABRIC WHEN I WAS A KID?!  IT HAS THEIR CORRECT NAMES ON IT FOR KIDS TO LEARN!

Ahem. It's stuff like this that makes me like kids fabric now.  This is awesome and mark my words, I will find it and I will buy it and it will be for me and not some kid.  That's the bonus of not having kids.  I get to keep the kickass dino fabric for me and it won't get drooled on (much). 

Annnnyway.  So I made up a sample of an I-Spy quilt I've had my eye on (haha...see what I did there...fine, fine I'm done), which means I got to root through the kids fabric for cool things for the littles to hunt for while they're in the shop.  

I liked this one so much because the pattern was really different.  It's like peeking through a key hole at all the I-Spy prints. 

Here are a few of my favorites (the blocks haven't been trimmed yet, I promise they aren't that wonky for real):

And here's a few of the finished product.  26" x 39"...not as large as I'd hoped it would be when I started and didn't read the size on the cover of the pattern (I know, I know):

 

Now off to quilting!

"An elephant never forgets" (but I almost did, about this project)

Last June when we had the fire in the warehouse behind the shop, everything kind of got scattered to the winds in the hurry to get everything out of the building safely.  Fat quarters were mixed with books, mixed with patterns, mixed with cut goods...you get the idea.  We managed to keep our programs organized, but everything else had to be re-sorted when we put the store back together.

As usual, Mom and I generally each have a few projects (samples) we're working on in the classroom.  At the time, we just had to stuff those projects in bags and get them the hell out.  I found a few of the ones I was working on, but unfortunately a few were missing.  Most of the merch was stored at my house a few blocks away, but as I ran out of room, some went to my folks' place too. I looked at her house, came up empty handed and assumed that everything was out of my house at that point so, my project was among the missing.

The other day I was neatening up my sewing room and I came across a big ziplock baggie full of blocks.  Lo and behold, there was my project, which by this point, I had just about forgotten about.  All 12 elephant blocks AND the pattern (score!) had been in my messy sewing room since June! So the other day I took them into the shop...squared them up, picked a sashing and....boom. Ready to quilt!

It'll make a cute addition to the kids' room at the shop.  Just need to reorder the pattern and there you have it.  This would be cute for a little boy or girl...or make it bigger (and not a stupid 1.5" sashing) for a grown up who likes elephants too.