Gabby's 1st Contributing Post

(So I wanted to make a little button with a picture of Gabby to put at the start of her posts but...my macbook died and therefore I do not have photoshop for now. More on that later)

Hey blog readers! I’m so excited Samantha asked me to be a part of her blog and can’t wait to start sharing some of my projects with you all. Some of you might already know a little bit about me (like Samantha and I are sisters in law) since she has mentioned my name a few times, and for everyone else new to the blog, I’m excited to meet you!

Samantha and I both love DIY projects (and even attempted one together—see the post about the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Entry Table), so I’m going to share some of my adventures in DIYing…the good, the bad and maybe even some of the ugly.
One of my favorite crafty past times is making quilts. I know Samantha will agree with me since I made this chevron quilt for her birthday last year!

I started quilting many, many years ago with my mom, and within the last couple years picked it back up after a summer trip to Cape Cod. There was a really cool quilting shop there called Tumbleweed Quilt Shop and I saw some AWESOME quilts there. I am in no way as gifted in quilting as these ladies are, but I try!
      
Source: http://www.tumbleweedquilts.com/photo_album.html

Since all of my siblings, friends and coworkers have all of a sudden started having children (eek!), I started making a lot of baby quilts as baby shower gifts. I’ve always tried to think of personal and unique gifts, so this was one way I could give them something no one else would!

The hardest part for me is always picking a design that I like and finding material that I think fits the design. I’ve spent hours at fabric stores (just ask my husband! he’s called me before asking if I’m ok haha) mixing and matching colors and patterns. Apparently I’m a perfectionist…who knew?

My latest project is for a friend who is due in March. She’s having a girl and decided to stay away from the pink theme. A few months ago she told me about her nursery color scheme (funny enough, it was at another friend’s baby shower…) and I decided to stick to those colors and make a quilt for one of her baby shower gifts!

So the last time I went to JoAnn fabrics I just so happen to find all the material I needed within a half hour! Seriously, that’s an all-time record for me! My friend wanted a mix of orange, grey, teal and lime green colors and decided on polka dot and chevron patterns. I threw in the navy because I love the color combo and then later added the owl pattern (from spoonflower.com… check them out, they have some really great fabrics) because it broke up the other patterns more. Plus, who doesn’t love owls? I found some really cool chevron material for that back that had some of her colors and I thought would be really fun with the front.
     



I had already decided on the pattern before I picked out the material, so I knew how much to get and the general layout I wanted. Then the fun began…cutting and sewing all the pieces together. It started to come together pretty quickly and I loved how the colors are so vibrant next to each other!
    
I pinned and sewed and pinned and sewed…until I finally finished the top! It ended up being 25”x25”. There’s no real “right” dimensions, I could have kept going with the squares and made a bigger quilt…but I stopped since it’s a baby quilt!


Then I got to the fun part…sewing the inside batting and backing on with the binding. There’s about 100 different ways you can do the binding, I kept it simple for this one and just folded the edges over several times to the front and sewed it down.


And here’s the finished product!

         
        
Right: without quilting. Left: with front quilting.

I absolutely love all the colors and how much fun it is. I think she’ll like the non-pink themed quilt!
I found a really cute box at Target that was the perfect size and made a “Care Instructions” card so she’ll know how to wash and dry the quilt. I can’t wait until her shower!!

Thanks for reading!! I’m so excited to keep sharing all my crafting adventures with you all. I already have my next project. Hint: It involves burlap! See you in February!