My Doll Quilt arrived!

I got a lovely surprise in the mail today (lovely must be the word of the week)! My doll quilt winged its way from Australia today! It is a very cheery and bright bottled rainbow / ticker tape quilt.As you can see, Megan picked some of my favorite colours and some beautiful little scraps and put together this quilt just for me. It is super cheerful and fun in person (if rain wasn't in the forecast for the next three days I would wait and take a sunny photo).

As well as this cheerful little quilt, I also received some Amy Butler Love, a handmade card, and a really funky broach. It fits perfectly on my black felt hat, where the old button had fallen off, and it really makes my hat super classy (and if Aaron hadn't stuck his fingers all over my camera lens trying to get it open to take a photo, I would take a photo of it -- it shall have to wait for another day).

Also, check out that cute, cute tape she used to wrap it up in. Thanks, Megan. Cheers.

Finished my Doll Quilt!

Well, I can finally show you this finished quilt since it has reached its new home in Texas! My partner Cindy loves all things colourful and whimsical (which makes her a great partner for me) and has a little white kitty named Took. When I was looking through her photostream for ideas of what to make her, she had a whole gallery of cat photos that she loved. She also had a lot of funny images in her mosaic (including a nod to Calvin and Hobbes' snowmen), so I thought I would do something silly for her.

This is the full quilt, which I couldn't show before or she would have seen her cat in it. As you can see, the cat is knocking the wonky mug over, creating "broken dishes", which is the name of the quilt blocks on the bottom half of the quilt.

Here is a close up of the cat. He is raw appliqued in brown thread with a little bit of extra thread painting to give him some "fur". I essentially drew the shape, traced it onto fusible web, fused it to the fabric and ironed it in place, then sewed around it in brown thread.

Here is the back. I had extra triangles, and I knew Cindy is really into rainbows right now from her favorites, so I thought I would give her a little rainbow hit on the back of her quilt. I was too lazy / busy to drive up to Fabricville (didn't feel like braving Hwy 15 which is always congested and crazy) so I embroidered the label. "Canada" just about killed me with all those a's, I tell you.

Here is another look at the wonky cups. I don't know if you can see, but little red riding hood is looking worried, because she's the next to fall . . .

And here is the bottom of the quilt. I was a little scared of making these blocks because I actually cut out the triangles so I could have more control over the tight composition, instead of making half-square triangles from two squares. The bias wasn't too bad to work with on such a small scale, so I didn't need to worry (they are not perfect, but the whole quilt is  a little wonky on purpose, so I thought it would be okay).

I was really nervous sending it off that Cindy wouldn't like it, because she hadn't commented on it in process much, but she was really thrilled with it. It always brings me a big smile and warm feeling to know I made something for someone and that they really loved it, so I couldn't be happier.

So that was my doll quilt. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of stretching and thinking went into that little quilt, so I think my next few projects are going to be some fast clothing for spring, and a laptop cover and my next sarah and molly's free peicing blocks. A few easy things before I do any more heavy design lifting.

Doll Quilt Sqap 10 update

Well, I am soldiering away on my Doll Quilt. I realized that I haven't showed you all what I've been up to in a while, I've just been posting over on Flikr. So, I have now pieced it into three strips -- the bottom, and two rows of cups. The next bit is to decide what colour to make the shelves:

I thought grey or black, but I've tried both, and they are too dark. They cut up the top of the composition too much, and stop your eye from moving around the quilt. So this is my new idea: Yellow.

I realize that in Jill land there can never be too much yellow or orange or brown, and that this is not the case in most people's worlds, but in this case I think its legitimate. It makes the "shelves" visible, but not the center of attention.

In any case, I figure that anyone with whitewashed walls like that, and such an ecclectic selection of mugs is probably decorating in a Skandinavian style, and so they want the white walls with light pine wood effect. Right?

I'm probably going to stitch it together (for the third time) with the top yellow for the shelves, and then start working on the cat.

So excited to be in . . .

Woo hoo! I haven't done any swaps in a long time because life has been so busy. Life is slowing down a little, so I have time for just ONE swap. Repeat that again, Jill. JUST ONE. (The abseloutely amazing {Urban} Home Goods swap is also open for round 3 and I'm really tempted to play). So if I'm going to be in one, I'm glad to be in such an awesome swap. Can't wait to get my partner and get to work!