Melody Rose Pillow Quilt

There are two things you should know about this quilt … 

1) It's the first quilt I ever made and 
2) It was created for my beautiful great-niece who turns 2-years-old today.

After my interest in sewing and embroidery had been revived, the birth of this wonderful child seemed like the perfect time to try my hand at quilting. I wanted to make something girly and sweet for her and planned to start with a center square embroidered with her name and birth year.

Which was a terrific idea, in theory, until I added the lace and the square puckered. *sigh* 

Which led to my Hubby's brilliant solution of turning the center square into a stuffed pillow to lay her little head on. I love that man!

I made a small pillow back, leaving an opening for stuffing, and hand-stitched it onto the back of the square …

Stuffed it with polyfill and whip stitched the opening shut …

From that point on, I cut and seamed patchwork, learning as I went about joining seams and pressing. I made 5" squares and have been in love with charm squares ever since.

Adding borders, quilting, making and attaching binding -- I even ordered a special walking foot for my 1969 Bernina 707 that has been invaluable ...

The finished quilt has this puffy little pillow in the center …

And an embroidered quilt label on the back …

Aunt Janie loves you, Melody Rose … Happy 2nd Birthday!

2012

2014

Patchwork in Yarn

Ashley was sweet enough to lay out the 49 squares of mostly crocheted patchwork. I tend to over think projects like this and want to rearrange and rearrange and it would never be done so I promised myself that I would run with her arrangement and not change a thing. Soooooo much easier this way!

I am so pleased with the the colors and variety and especially using up so much yarn left over from projects over the years.

And I have the first row crocheted together with black yarn ... love it!

Along with being a superb stash buster, I think this will eventually make a nice gift. And it's a great project to work on in front of the TV. I'm on season 3 of Downton Abbey -- spoiler alert if you haven't seen it yet -- I cannot believe they killed off Sybil, the nicest person on the show!!! I may have cried.

So many projects, never enough time ...

49 Squares

I have a Yorkie sized stack of afghan squares ... count 'em, 49!

This is a stash bustin' project that will result in a patchwork afghan and several empty shelves where yarn used to hang out.

Miles cannot believe his eyes. Seriously, this pile of tiny blankets is the reason you've been unable to scratch my ears while we're watching TV?

Now comes the laying out of all the pieces -- I'm hoping to coerce the granddaughter into this portion of the project. ;-)

Then the assembly. I'm going to try crocheting them together rather than whip stitching, but we'll see how it goes. I'll let you know.

So many projects, never enough time ...