One of the most beautiful updates ever - Anna, Brian, and Catherine's quilt

Any of you who follow me know that I love to make quits for babies. My daughter's bestie, Anna, and her husband, Brian announced they were expecting and I got to work hunting for fabric and coming up with a design. He's into trains and she's into him, so by default, she's into trains too, right? ROYGBV makes for a nice color scheme. I found the train fabric first (had to order more!) and then took that to the fabric store to match up the nontraditional red/orange/yellow/green/blue/violet colors. Babies like bright and contrast, so I tried to keep that in mind.

To refresh your memory, here are the posts from conception to completion:

• Design and first block.
• Coming along.
• Taking shape.
• Done, oh, and let's do a pillow too!

Yesterday, February 20, Anna posted the most beautiful pictures on Facebook featuring Catherine with her quilt and pillow. Cuteness overload! This kind of stuff makes it all worthwhile. And now, here's she is:

I told Anna I had tried to make the pillow as delicious as possible. 

Must have worked!

Look at this beautiful baby. Who cares about the quilt!?!

Thank you Anna, Brian, and Catherine for sharing the pictures with me and for allowing me to share them here. How can you not smile when you see this? 

Anna and Brian quilt, now known as Catherine's quilt!

The quilt is done (May 28 - October 1, 2017). The baby's been born. Now to bring the two together. It's taken time as I've been working on a play and doing some other things, but here's the result and I hope they love it.

This is a 4x5 block log cabin design. The first fabric I chose was the train fabric, a nod to Catherine's father, Brian. I found muted ROYGBV fabrics at Joanns and created the log cabin around a 2" piece of the train fabric. 

I had plenty of the log cabins left when I was done, so decided to create a small pillow to go with the quilt. I fashioned a ruffle out of strips of fabric and there you go!

The back of the quilt, which was made quilt-as-you-go, is train fabric.  

Here's a closeup of the ROYGBV log cabin. I used 2 strips of each color, but all the prints are different. 

I created binding using the strips I had cut for the log cabin itself. I reinforced all the seams in the binding since the pieces are so small and I want it to hold up to as many washings as needed. Everything except the binding was machine stitched. I like to hand stitch the binding on a quilt. 

And the pillow. I added strips to an original log cabin until I had used each of the color designs twice. That made a nice size (about 12") pillow. But it needed a ruffle! I had plenty of strips left from the quilt itself to make a ruffle. For the log cabin side, I used train fabric.....

....and for the train fabric side, I used the ROYGBV strips. I think it looks pretty cute! 

I'll be seeing Anna soon and will deliver the quilt, pillow, and some other goodies in person. I'm excited to pass this along and hope Catherine drags it around the house, gets it dirty, loves it, and who knows what else with it. It's hers now. Welcome to the world Catherine Jenkins!

Anna and Brian quilt, take 3

I finished a row today. I feel pretty good about that! Four rows to go. The nice thing about quilt as you go is that the whole thing is pretty much done when you finish the rows.

I'm running out of train fabric! Thankfully, the person I bought it from on eBay had one more yard and I found a yard from another seller. Doesn't always seem to be that way? I underestimated how much it would take to make the foundation blocks. Thank you, eBay.

I may not finish this quilt before the baby shower (July 1). So, what I think is going to happen is I will take whatever is done to the shower and let Anna unwrap it, then bring it back home to finish it and mail to her when it's done.

More pictures as I get a little further along!

Anna and Brian quilt, take 2

I'm trying to work on this quilt every day so I have it ready for her baby shower on July 1. I'm determined to make it so!

I played with connecting the blocks today (quilt as you go) and I think it's going to look pretty cute.

The train fabric is going to connect the theme and I chose to use a wider sash than the logs in the log cabin. Yup. I think I love it.

I am going to bind the quilt with the ROYGBV fabrics somehow. I haven't figured that out yet. I think binding with the train fabric might be too much.

Anna and Brian's baby quilt

Brian is an engineer, so choosing a train theme was a no brainer. I wanted, though, to make sure the train fabric was suitable for either gender, not that anyone sticks to gender rules anymore! I found some fun train fabric and went to the fabric store to pick ROYGBV pastels.  Here's the first square; they'll all be the same, but with train fabric sashing around all four edges:

A simple log cabin style that will hold up to many washings. I can't wait to work on it some more!

And a pillow for my daughter's friend! & a mini how-to

My daughter met her bestie at Busch Gardens many years ago. They both worked at Land of the Dragons as teens and have been inseparable since. When her friend saw the pillows I made for my daughter, she was verklempt! She had to have one. Her boyfriend also worked at Busch Gardens as the engineer for their train. So, I got the fabric I had leftover, found a coloring page of a military train (he works on a military base now), made a train with fabric and Wonder Under, and voila, a pillow for the friend and her feller. 

Here's the front and back:

This is the front in progress. It is a simple log cabin block variety. I always do log cabin freestyle without really measuring anything other than the center block. For this pillow, I knew I would run out of the Land of the Dragons fabric, so decided to do it more like a Courthouse Steps design. Here are some really simple instructions for log cabin blocks. You can do them simply or complicate the heck out of them with paper piecing and foundation piecing and fussy cutting. I like the freedom of cutting all the strips the same width and just place, sew, turn, finger press; place, sew, turn, finger press; etc.

I printed the pattern, then traced it (so it made a mirror image), tracing also the windows and star on the side. (Source - Military train coloring page)

The pieces were placed on cloud fabric that had been enlarged with the blue print used for items on the train and on the reverse side of the pillow in the log cabin design.

I chose a light blue to outline the windows and star on the train itself, and since there was black in the bandanna used for the train, I used a black satin stitch to outline the train. I always use stitching on a piece that is placed with Wonder Under to keep it from fraying and to give it an accent. In this case, I set the zig-zag to a fairly thin width. 

And that's that. It's been a good sewing week!