This is my son’s baby blanket.

I made this 7 years ago when my son was born. Ihonestly knew very little (make that, next to nothing) about quilting at the time. I had only made a few other quilts before this one, so I decided to use a pattern that was simple to make and that I had used before. The pattern is called ‘Yellow Brick Road’. I would highly recommend it for beginners.

At the time, I didn’t know how to do a regular binding so I wrapped the backing to the front on all my quilts.

The backing was a cute dinosaur fabric that I had, and I still have pieces of that hanging around my house.

Here’s the part of the story that I am completely ashamed of though. This was not the first blanket I made. I put together another quilt, one that had much cuter fabrics than this one. I had the top finished, I basted the backing, batting, and top and then attempted to quilt it on my domestic machine. The thing was, I didn’t have a walking foot, didn’t know I needed one, so the quilt ended up all bunchy and weird looking because it wasn’t feeding through right. No big deal right? Just unpick and tie it like I had all my other quilts right? Well stupid, stupid me didn’t realize that unpicking was even an option. I threw the whole thing away. Yes, you heard me right. Only because my machine sewing was bad, I chucked this great quilt in the trash. I did not even remember this story until I took pictures of this quilt to share with all of you and the horror came flooding back to me. I absolutely cannot believe I was so stupid. I can only hope that someone way smarter than me rescued the quilt from the trash and unpicked it, like I should have, and made some child happy with it.

Even though I detest frogging, I certainly would have done it instead of wasting so much fabric and batting. I do not even have pictures of the first quilt, but I do remember that the fabrics were more boyish. I wanted the quilt done before he was born, so the I just grabbed whatever fabrics I had on hand. I can absolutely promise you I have never thrown away another quilt. My son loves this quilt, though he is not attached to it like a lot of children are to their blankies. I had a blankie that was basically rags by the time I was his age. He doesn’t ‘need’ this to sleep, but he will sleep with it. In fact he’ll sleep with it and 10 other quilts. He doesn’t have one favorite blanket, they are all his favorites.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

I thought it might be fun to participate in Amy’s Blogger’s Quilt Festival today.

This is Amy’s fourth Quilt Fesitval, and I have always enjoyed looking at all the inspiration. This year I have a blog, so why not participate!? If you click on the banner above, you will be taken to the post about how the quilt festival works and also get to see all the other blogs that are participating and sharing a quilt that they love.

So without furhter ado, my entry is a Christmas quilt I have. This quilt was finished about two years ago. I was seeing Christmas quilts around the web, and I felt inspired to make something with a little bit of red and green. I went out and bought the fabrics and put together the whole quilt, start to finish, in about two weeks.

The pattern I used is called ‘Stacked Coins’. It’s a really simple pattern where you sew short strips of fabric together, one on top of the other. I used a peppermint fabric to bind the quilt (kind of hard to see here, sorry).

I used a penguin flannel for the back. The fabric I had ended up being just a tad short, so I pieced a strip to go in the middle to make everything fit right.

My son loves this quilt, and I sometimes have to remind him that it’s not really his. Though if he were to press the point, he would probably get it anyway. My son has an obsession with blankets, the more the merrier for him. He can often be seen sleeping under up to 10 blankets and quilts at night! I’m not complaining though, at least I know the quilts I make are truly loved.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful comments on my first giveaway. The captions everyone came up with were simply awesome. I had a blast looking through them, but had such a hard time narrowing down my favorites.

Here are my top 10 favorite captions (In no particular order):
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Kitty on a Hot Pinned Roof from Paulette
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Yuck! I guess she must have said “quilt basting” not “quilt tasting!” from Riel
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Ancient Chinese Kitty Toture from Karie
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CAN YOU HAZ ANY MOAR PINZ?!?!? from Brittainy
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Hmmm…now, where is the spot that will maximize destruction? WOMAN, KNOW WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH! from Dot
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Ummmm….no bologna….no cheese. Quilt sandwich? I think not…. from Kim
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But I thought the song said Follow the YELLOW brick road?!?!? from Kristin
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Ciao, you must place the remaining safety pins in their proper position. No lifelines and you must complete this level. Remember you have A MINUTE TO WIN IT! Ciao, your time starts now! from Nancy Sue Phillips
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Here we have the native feline stalking the ever present pin bug. Watch now as it slowly stalks its prey. Those pin bugs can be quite a handful for the felines. from Mel
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If only I could train Ciao to bind as well as he pins from Jackie W
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All the entries were so creative!! I am blown away with what you guys were able to come up with, but I could only choose one as my winner. The reason I chose the winner is because we are a joking family. We are always teasing each other and joking around. A few years ago my husband taught my son to call me ‘woman’. You have not lived a day until you hear your 4 year old say “Woman make me dinner!” LOL Of course this was all meant in fun from my husband, and I think it is hilarious. (Though we have had to have the talk about when it is appropriate to call me this, it’s a little embarassing when he says it in the middle of Wal-Mart!! Oh and that he should NEVER call any other woman this as some may not think it is funny at all.) So with that reason, the winning caption came from Dot:

Hmmm…now, where is the spot that will maximize destruction? WOMAN, KNOW WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH!

I also used the random generator to come up with the second winner. All comments left counted for the drawing, minus any duplicate posts. There were 309 comments left and the winner of the random drawing is Billie K from Billies Bee Blog with a post of:

Who’s been sleeping on my blanky???

Billie

Once again thanks to all my commenters and thanks to those who found my little blog interesting enough to add me to your follow list. I am truly honored and hope I can live up to it!! I will email the winners to get your snail mail address.

I thought I would show you a better picture of the quilt from my caption picture. I used the stripey quilt tutorial to make this one. I had initially made it to use at work since I was always cold, but then I switched jobs to an office where it wouldn’t be appropriate to have it, so now it just gets balled up and loved at our house (hence all the wrinkles!).

If you hang around my blog long enough, you will find that blue and orange is a common theme for me. This quilt was bound in a bright orange solid fabric.

The backing I used was just a big piece of fabric I had hanging around. It was kind of a stretchy material, so it wouldn’t have been suitable for using in a top.

This quilt was quick and easy to make, and I do plan on making another quilt using this method again soon. If you haven’t seen this before, be sure to check out my quick tutorial.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel