Birds, Bees and Blossoms...Oh My!

 The whole time I was making this adorable little quilt, all I could hear in my head is the old Jewel Akens song The Birds and The Bees.  You know the one.  "Let me tell you bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees."  If it's stuck in your head now too....your welcome.  I know its been forever, but welcome back!  I am still quilting over here.  Slowly, but I am here.  I was contacted about making a special little quilt for a great granddaughter that was on her way.  I immediately remembered seeing this sweet little quilt online.

The great grandma to be, chose this cute little layer cake of Sweet and Plenty by Me and My Sister by Moda Fabrics.  It was the perfect combination of colors and prints to create this little mixed and matched blocks.

The pattern is a freebie on the Quilting Digest web page.  You can download the instructions for each block individually and toward the bottom of the page there is a link for making a pillow or a baby quilt.  As you can see the quilt top was, of course, cat approved, thank you Hobby.

The real fun was in the quilting and adding texture to this adorable top.  I custom quilted each little bird, bee or flower and really only used a handful of designs.  For the birds, bees and flowers, I chose to use an Aurifil light pink thread for the quilting.  It seemed to blend in in all the right places and ever so subtlety stand out where I wanted it too.

 I really wanted all the little critters to be the star of the show, so after outlining around them a quarter inch, I chose a gray colored thread so it blended in.  I chose a simple stipple for my filler.  

After all the filling in was complete, it was time to trim things up and pick a binding fabric.  When I ordered the layer cake, I also bought two possible candidates for binding.  Both fabrics are from the Sweet and Plenty line but one was pink and the other was black.

After much consideration, I opted for the black print.  I just felt like it added a pop, where the pink just kind of blended in.

For the backing I went with a bright pink print.  You can barely see the quilting from the back.  The pink and gray threads melt right into it.

I have to admit, it was hard to let this one go.  I think it turned out so stinking adorable!  But this one is off to little Miss Sophia in FL.

So, a little secret of my own.  This fall I am going to be a G-Ma for the first time.  We are super excited to welcome a sweet bundle of baby girl to our family.  It's time for me to start kicking back and spoiling.  We all know what that means...definitely more quilts!  But for now, I will leave you with a few more pictures of Birds, Bees and Flowers.

And of course, I had to make sure that the quilting was kitty approved.  So, a big thanks to fluffy Ben for inspecting all those stitches and Hobby for making sure all the block stitching were up to par!

Sunflowers in My Heart--Medallion Quilt

 

Welcome to 2024!  I know I've slacked off the past few years on sharing projects, but honestly, there hasn't been much to share.  I'm hoping 2024 is a productive year with lots of finishes!  Not a resolution, but more of a...my soul needs more time with a needle and thread.  So, for this year, my goal is to quilt, quilt, quilt.  I have so many tops that I just need to finish and I really want that to be my focus (with some random pattern testing sprinkled in).  Today I share a quilt with you from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs Just One Charm Pack Quilts book.

Both this book and Just Two Charm Packs Quilts are becoming go to books for me.  I love the simpleness of the patterns and it is a great way to use up charms, layer cakes and even mini charm packs.

While on vacation this summer I picked up a few charm packs to remember the trip by.  One pack was Sunflowers in my Heart by Kate Spain for Moda.  I paired it with a bolt of white on white I had at the house and a quilt was born.

For my threads I used Aurifil 50wt in a white, cornflower blue and a light lime color.  I wish I could take 100% credit for the quilting I chose for this quilt, but I can't.  I subscribe to Natalia Bonner's (Piece N Quilt) PNQ Academy; where for a small monthly fee, you can have access to quilting videos.  Natalia posts (at least) two videos a month showing how she custom quilts using free motion quilting and rulers.  I have learned so much about using rulers and even moving around the quilt just by watching the videos.  In March of last year, she posted a video quilting a Joplin Quilt (this is a YouTube link of a free snip it).  I am in love with that quilt!  So, I drew my inspiration from various elements of the Joplin Quilt.

Why, yes, that is a small kitten paw you see.  Benjamin is very helpful in quilt management.

You can see from the pictures that I used quite a bit of marking with a blue water soluble pen.  For my rulers, I used a Handi Quilter Mini Scallop Ruler (I love it as a straight edge) and Natalia's Sway rulers and Mini 4-n-1 ruler.

Now that I've given you some of the details of the quilt, let's get down to some good ol' texture filled quilty goodness pics!

And of course, quality control was called in to inspect the over all quilt goodness.

Both Carmella (orange) and Benjamin (creamsicle) give this one 4 out of 4 paws up.  You always know to worry about the quality of a quilt when you put in on the floor and zero cats lay on it...just saying.

This quilt maybe finished but don't worry I still have around 107 (big and small) quilts to finish quilting...but who's counting?  Hopefully, I'll be back real soon, to share another finish and see how everyone is doing?

Malted Mystery Quilt and A Few Other Things

 

This is a whoops I did it again post.  About a month ago, while on vacation, I ran into charm packs at a quilt shop and fell instantly in love.  The charms in question were Dance in Paris by Zen Chic for Moda Fabrics.

I knew that if I bought a background fabric and coordinating fabric, I should be able to make something from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs Just Two Charm Pack Quilts book.  So, I guessed at fabric amounts and headed home.  Turns out the amounts I purchased where just enough to make a second version of Snapdragon Cove.  

The picture doesn't do these fabrics justice.  I'm so in love with this finished top.  Of course, it joins large piles of other tops needing finished, but at least this little earworm is out of my head.  I mean there are still probably 50 more in there crawling around begging to distract me.

Speaking of Cheryl and Meadow Mist designs, her yearly Mystery Quilt kicked off in July.  

I was lucky enough to pattern test once again for this project.  I love getting a sneak peek before the actual event.  I tried to take pictures of my progress so that I could share during the actual hop.  Probably for the first time ever, I used the same colors she used in the pattern.  They just spoke to me.

I went with print fabrics that for the most part read as solids.  

This is my progress for the September instructions.  If you would like to join in the fun and have a chance at winning some very cool prizes hop over to Meadow Mist Designs.    

And I will leave you with a project I am playing catch up on.  I was asked to make a T-Shirt quilt for my niece.  I have most of the bits pieced and the T-Shirts are all ironed to stabilizer.  The hope is to get this one finished before the holidays get here.  Wish me luck!

 

Psychedelic Crazy Cat Lady Quilt

 

I present to you Psychedelic Crazy Cat Lady Quilt...finally finished!!!  This quilt began life as a finished flimsy back in 2016.  The pattern is Fat Quarter Shop's (free pattern) No Bake Jolly Bar.  

I ordered two 10" square packs in Cat Lady and Mosaic Blooms from Connecting Threads to create my own 5" x 10" rectangles. 

It's like these fabrics were made to be together. 

And together they would stay, married to a fun white on white print for 6 years (well technically for life) until I decided enough is enough, I want to quilt this quilt!

So, it was time to come up with a plan.  For the quilting I used a light Aurifil 50wt gray thread, the Piece and Quilt 4-in-1 Mini Quilting Ruler and the Handi Quilter Scollop Ruler.  Each white section received a different filler and each row of colored squares had a different free motion quilting motif.  Inspiration for those motif's came from Natalia Bonner's Let's Stitch a Block a Day  and Angela Walter's Shape by Shape books.

I shared a few quilting videos on my Instagram page that you can check out below.

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A post shared by Tish Lower Stemple (@tishnwonderland)

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A post shared by Tish Lower Stemple (@tishnwonderland)

Needless to say, I had so much fun quilting this one!  

I wish all quilts quilted up like this one.  Actually, I think they do, it's just me that gets in my own way.  This finish definitely has me supercharged wanting another one.  Fingers crossed I'll have another finish soon enough.

If you look to the left of the quilt, you can see where the deer have been bedding down at night to stay warm.  So, it's kind of like having a bed with a quilt.  

Full disclosure....I actually wrote this post back in March and somehow forgot to post it.  I call it tax season brain.  I promise there have been no freak snow storms in August.  Though, honestly, nothing would surprise me.