More Bright Baby Quilts

I have been working on Baby Quilts of late.  I have finished them all, they have been sent and received so now I can show them to you.

Last fall I found some really sweet Jelly Rolls (on sale) that I thought would make great quilts for the three new babies due to arrive starting in early December and continuing into January of 2015.  I knew that one was suppose to be a little boy and one was suppose to be a little girl.  Which made picking these Jell Rolls and easy decision.  I found them on sale a Missouri Star Quilt Company.   If you have never visited their site, you ought to. (right now!)  https://www.missouriquiltco.com/ Sign up for their daily specials. I love this company and Jenny..... more on that later....back to my blog after getting a bit side tracked.

 As it turned out Landon Alexander Tietz was the first to arrive in November.  He caught me off guard since I was expecting him in mid December.  I had the quilt top maqde but it was not quilted yet!  He arrive November 19, 2015.  Landon is my first Great Grandson.  I had hoped to get Landon's quilt done before Christmas so his Aunt Elizabeth could take it home to him but the holiday mad house got in the way.  I sent it  to him in mid January instead.  I used a pretty blue Minky on the back.  It makes a baby quilt so soft!

Landon's Bright Quilt

Merry Christmas from Great Grandma Jan

Then came Isabelle Semp, my great niece, who arrived on December 17.  She was a little passed her due date.   Isabella got this sweet pastel quilt last week while her Grandma Pam and I were in Florida visiting our sister.  Derek tells me that it goes great in her room. She is a sweet little girl.  I'll have to ask the proud parents if I can post a photo of each of them.  Gotta ask first these days.

Bella's Sweet Pastel

I used Purple Minky on her quilt.  I gave her a purple baby blanket too. With any luck at all she will love purple as much as I do! 

 Things have finally settled down into the dead of winter..... and I have plenty of projects to keep me busy.  I am planning to get more blogging in to show you what I have been working on.  So stay tuned!

Happy Sewing!

Jan 

Michael Miller, BOM a move and a very busy few months...

Sorry it has been so long since I have been here.  We have moved...Need I say more...Moved from Illinois to Michigan...Packed my stash last and.... unpacked it last too since I had so many other things I need to get unpacked to just setup a household!  Never want to do a move that is that far away again!!!  Not at my age...

Quilting the Michael Miller Bag

The completed bag.

 So the Michael Miller Challenge project got finished..but my BOM did not.  It has become a great bag to haul Quilt projects to my new quilt group. I have stumbled unto a great group of quilters and we sew two Wednesdays a month.  


In  the mean time,  our family is grow rather rapidly so I have been making baby Quilts...One for a Grandson, Ryan Declan Diamond, one for a Great Grandson, Landon Alexander Tietz and one for a Great niece, Isabella Grace Semp.  Two are complete and one needs to be quilted yet.  I can show you Ryan's because he has received it.  I'll send Landon's soon and after I know he has it I'll post it here. 

 Was a cute little Noah's Ark print that I was saving just for the right baby and along came Ryan. 

Close up view

Label and Minky back

I backed it with Minky and added the label.  Turned out really cute.  I hope he loves snuggling with it when he's a bit older.  It is big enough for a toddler bed.


The long arm moved successfully and is now in my basement.  The laser doesn't work...I will have to look into fixing that. I got a new  SWF Compact Embroidery machine which I have not been able to get to the basement yet.  It is in the garage and man is it cold out there so...I have not used it much. I think I will hire a big burly moving crew in the spring to get it to the basement...

I'll try to do better about blogging.  Hope you are having a creative winter!

Happy Sewing,

Jan

Bright HST Quilt

Just thought you might like to see what I have been up to. Am working at the Garden Center so I do not get as much sewing time as I would like..But I had these bright fun fabrics hanging around in my stash just waiting for me to use in a fun happy quilt. So first I got the top done...

 
Its a great lap size quilt for a teenager with funky bright colored sneakers and cute hearts..

Since the house is on the market, I wanted the people who come to look at the house to know how I currently use the three season porch.  I have all my BIG sewing equipment out there. So I decided to load a quilt on the machine.   Well, it does not take long when a quilt is loaded for me to get the "itch" to sew!!  Several evenings last week, the hum of the long arm could be heard in the neighborhood well after dark! Last night I finished it. So I thought I would show you what I have been doing on these beautiful summer nights...

My quilting is still not as accurate as I would like since I am still learning.  Great quilters make it look so easy!!!  It takes a lot of practice!  Some day I'll have the time to devote to it and I will be a great quilter! In the meantime ....I keep playing.

The back is a really fun teenage fabric too. It is bright pink texting fabric. It has many of the texting short cuts printed on the fabric...

I need to keep a piece of this fabric to help me learn to communicate my teenage grandkids!!!


I hope you enjoyed this!


Happy stitching!


Love Jan

Jacob's other Blankies and things...

In the box of goodies sent to Jacob last week there were a couple of other things that he will need even more frequently.

He got a couple of blankets...

And some bibs...

Enjoy! I already sent some cute hourglass flannel shaped burpers...I'll make a few more and put them on a different blog.  So I have been busy sewing baby stuff these last few weeks even thought I have not posted much here.

Been such a long time...

It's been a really long time since I have written for this blog.  Was not intended but when I starting working at Home Depot  a year ago...I got really busy and put some of my other " loves"  on the back burner.  I did a better job of keeping up with my Shared Smith Memories blog (http://sharedsmithmemories.blogspot.com/)  and the Needles in the Haystack blog( http://sharedsmithmemories.blogspot.com/) .  And I have to say that I have not been sewing quite as much either... I have been making reusable grocery bags...and giving them to all my sister and sister-in-laws for their birthday...I have several more cut out and ready to sew but...have started other projects so.....when I finish the next batch. I'll show them here.

Many of you, who are connected with me through Facebook know I have a new grandson...Jacob Ryan Tietz was born on April 2nd. A few days later, Kyle and Christa received a box with a few new presents that Jacob will make good use of.  I waited to show them here until they got to see them first so.. This winter I spent some time on an Alphabet Quilt for Jacob's crib. Kyle and Christa went to retrieve the Crib I bought for Caleb from storage and found that they were missed a few parts; screws and nuts.  On further investigation, Kyle found that the Crib had been recalled for safety reasons so a new crib would be necessary.  It gave my sister Sharon and I a reason to go in search of a new crib for him when I was visiting Michigan last month. And we found one!

 When I found this fabric on clearance at a Quilt shop a few years ago, I knew that one day a busy little boy would need this quilt. That day has arrived and the busy little boy is named Jacob.  Each of the red framed squares if an alphabet letter or two with the cutest busy characters.. The stripes at the top and the bottom show at old fashion games that I played when I was a child...and the middle stripe is a parade of the awesome animals used in the alphabet blocks. This fabric reminded me of the Richard Scarry books that I bought for my boys when they were little.  They were my favorite books to read and look at with my kids. We spent many afternoons at nap time looking at those books before they drifted off to sleep.

I could not help but fall in love with the "artist Alligator , or the fishing Fox, or the golfing Giraffe, the Joker Jaguar, the kite flying Kangaroo and all the other colorful busy characters" who belong to this quilt.  It will make a wonderful "I Spy" quilt when Jacob is learning his Alphabet! 

In the mean time, it will keep him warm at night and look really cute on his bed! 

Quilt Label for Jacob's Quilt

I backed it with a soft butter yellow minkee.  My friend, Julie quilted it on her Quilting machine which is computer controlled..so she could show me how it works.  One of these days, I would like to add a computer to mine but there just isn't money for that now, besides, Lucy and I are having fun learning to quilt .

Hope you enjoy!

Jan

Christmas Job...Labor of Love

Well, it is now 2013 and all the Christmas packages are delivered and opened.  So now I can talk about what I was doing in November and December. I had a Christmas job which involved dissecting about 30 Tee shirts, making blocks out of them and placing the blocks in a Quilt. It was suppose to be ONE quilt but my friends sent me so many shirts, it began to multiply and before I knew it, it became three.  The tee shirts were Justin Grabowski's shirts. Justin was the son of Rick and Ivy Grabowski.

  

Rick, Ivy and Justin

They became my best friends in 1981 when Ivy and I began to work together at StorageTek in Phoenix, Arizona. And through that relationship, I met another friend, Karen, Rick’s sister and Justin’s Aunt.  We lost Ivy to cancer 10 years ago in April...  and then Justin.in 2010. So hard to believe.


This quilt was a labor of love.  Karen and I had talked about this project for sometime.  Last winter I had the chance to go to Phoenix and while I was there, I had dinner with Karen.  It was SO good to see her and we both needed it!  It was a special evening.  And she promised that evening that she would get with Rick and they would go through Justin's shirts and send me some.

Well, about three weeks later a box showed up on my door step.  It was an electronics box and my husband thought for sure I had ordered something for him!  When I saw the return address, I knew what the box was.  I had several other projects already in the works so the box sat unopened for several months while I got caught up.  Before I knew it it was fall, and I thought I better get going on this project so I can get it done for Christmas...

In early October I started taking apart the shirts, removing all the fronts and some of the sleeves. I left as much of the shirt fabric as I could since I still did not know what size block I could make out of each of these shirts.  Karen stated that they(she and Rick) had trouble trying to figure out what shirts to send so they sent extra!  "Oh what a great idea" I thought... "DON'T send any back", she said..."It was all I could do to get Rick to go through them once."  So immediately I planned to not have any left to send back. I am of the opinion that quilts are very hard to share.  Everyone has to have one of their own.  So with that in mind, three quilts it is and that is that.    

Justin was a BMX bike rider when he was young so I found the perfect BMX fabric for the borders.  After looking at all the shirts and the colors, I went in search of fabric for sashes.  I decided on light gray for Heidi's, orange for Ricks and black for Karen's.  Not all the shirts were tee shirts.  There was a cotton button down shirt with an embroidered back and an interesting knit shirt from Las Vegas. 

Heidi's Quilt

Heidi's was the first one completed.  Then Rick's and finally Karen's.... 

Rick's Quilt

Karen's Quilt

And here are a couple of the photos from Karen taken the day they opened the box with the quilts. Karen was expecting one quilt and was very surprised to find three. 

Rick opening the box

Heidi's Quilt

Heidi's Quilt - Justin's Embrace

Rick's Quilt - Born to Ride

Karen's Quilt - Auntie Karen's Hug

 So now you have it...This was my Christmas project. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Happy sewing,

Jan

Quilts from Tee Shirts....

I thought maybe you might like to see a quilt made from Tee Shirts...Concert Tee shirts!  This was my first Tee shirt quilt.  It was a challenge by a friend . She was moving to Texas and decided to leave the shirts for me to make a quilt out of them...So I did. Needless to say...I learned ALOT...about what  to do and what not to do when making a Tee shirt quilt... but it was fun.  I mail the Quilt to her last week and she got it...so now I can put it on the blog and will not spoil the surprise.  She loved it!

During the quilting process with Lucy!

Used Sheet music fabric for the around each block...

"The Boss"

After it was quilted.

Not quite a queen size

 Cate has seen many awesome concerts in her life time.  Bruce, the Boss,  Bon Jovi, the Stones, the Who, Peter Gabriel, U2...oh my goodness...I would love to have seen these concerts...Looking at the quilt will give her great memories everyday and it ought to keep her warm during the cool Texas winter months!

Lots of memories...

After completing the quilt top, I visited a local quilt shop in Barrington, Illinois.   From across the room, a close friend called out to me from a bolt of fabric.  His name was Cody.  Cody was a Border Collie who was Cate's best friend in the world!  It was because of Cody that she and I met years ago.  This bolt of fabric made the perfect back for Cate's quilt. 

When she moved to our neighborhood, she and Cody walked every day to the park down the street from my house.  One day we lost a big tree in our front yard and a short while later Cate and Cody came walking by.  As I stood looking at the mess in my front yard, Cody scampered up to me as if he had known me for all his life!  And from that day until the day he died, Cody repeated this routine hundreds of times with the same enthusiasm and love!  He loved my bridge, he loved my porch, and he loved me...I knew I was a second choice for Cody but he made me feel so special.  The simple unconditional love of a dog!  There is nothing more special than that! 

So this quilt is called "Cate' s True Loves" after her favorite music and Cody, her dog. 

Happy Quilting!

Love,  Jan