Little surfer quilt

Many times when I am working on a project, some scraps will fall to the side and will end up becoming random quilt blocks. As I spent my last few months before having the baby, last year, I became driven to use up whatever unfinished blocks and quilts and projects I could find. I came up with the hashtag #crazypregnantladysewing and posted my ridiculously prolific work on there. Insomnia helped with that too... One of those projects was this sweet surf turned quilt ... These four very simple blocks had been sitting neglected after another baby boy quilt was made a year earlier, and so I turned them into a surfy baby quilt for a baby boy born to an old friend of mine. It was backed with the softest brushed cotton and gifted just in time for both of us to have our little guys.

Sturdy fabric baskets

I've made a couple different styles of fabric baskets and recently needed a gift so I decided to make another one. But I wanted something that was a little stiffer than the ones I had made before, so I opted this time for a pattern I saw in an Instagram feed... The #sturdyfabricbasket by LillyElla's World - click this link for the pattern (http://lillyella.blogspot.com/2014/12/sturdy-fabric-basket-tutorial.html?m=1)- it was a fast and easy pattern and I had fun filling the end result with goodies for the gifted one and remotes (!) for my practice one... My favorite part is the $2.50 thrifted leather belt that I used for handles...

Twin sized quilts for twins

Two of my very best friends had twins this past year, their birthdays bookend Dax right in the middle. Both of these friends are quilters and Alissa had two little girls just a few weeks after Dax was born. Alissa also has a toddler for whom she has been painstakingly hand piecing a twin sized quilt made of tiny hexagons for over a year. When she got pregnant, we teased her that she was going to have to make another (no, TWO!) twin sized quilts for her new girls.
So instead of giving her a bunch of baby quilts (she still got a lot of them from the other quilty friends), Latifah and Hollie and i collaborated to make two twin sized quilts for the twins. They're bright and scrappy log cabin and log cabin house blocks with I-spy centers to make them fun for the girls.

The log cabin house one was a pattern that I had made two blocks for my friend, Janice, in BeeHappy a few years ago and had always wanted to revisit. It's such a fun block to make that I may have more in my quilting future still. :)

I've also included a pic of Dax and the twin girls on another one of their amazing quilts, made by the uber talented Liz Harvatine.

New jewelry

Every once in a while I get the urge to pull out my beads and jewelry making supplies. When I was making a birthday present recently, I really wanted to make something special for the birthday girl... She's a knitter, so I started with some stitch markers made from tourmaline I've hoarded for years... But then the bin with tourmaline also had fluorite and amethyst and this necklace also just sprung out of thin air that night too. Lucky birthday girl!
The earrings are smoky topaz (oh how I love deepest browns) and pearl... And I'm keeping them. :)

Men Quilters exhibit

An artist friend of mine, Luke Haynes recently opened a show at the Craft and Folk Art Museum near my house. It's a show of quilts made by men, and it was a wonderful, very creative and liberating show to see. The emphasis was on the creativity and message and some of the quilts there simply blew my mind. Luke once introduced me to the artist Joe Cunningham, and I was excited to see he also had quilts in the show.

Joe's quilt, the black/white/chartreuse one that I have details of here was so stunningly quilted that I nearly cried with inspiration. There was also another quilter who I had not yet heard of, named Jimmy McBride, who made this Mars moon quilt which took my breath away.

I would have loved to stay so much longer than I did, but alas, I had a date with me names Dax, who was getting a little bit squirrelly by the end... His buddies Dash and Vaughn were also there (since their mom, my girlfriend, Hollie) was there as my real date. We figured that as quilter moms of boys, this was a great way to expose our babies to quilts as art.

A birthday celebratory giveaway

I have so many things to catch you up on... Dax is now almost 8 months and my feet are finally underneath me, I think... Though my house is a mess! I'm starting to get my energy back and a little of my creative mojo too.
This Christmas only one family gift was homemade - if that doesn't tell you the state of things!

But here we are in February and it's a great month to be born in. It's always made me feel a little weird and a teensy bit special to have my birthday on Leap Year - this year I will be 9 - again, for one last time. 😊

I've decided to celebrate my birthday month by giving away some treasures. This first one is a 9 piece collection of red fabrics. Which I seem to collect, but never use. Well, no more... Each of these is 1/4 yard of something I bought and have been sitting on way too long. So I'm sharing them instead.

The giveaway is being handled completely on Instagram, but you can find it there at #libbydibbybirthdaygiveaway

There will be more too, so keep your eyes open

Charity quilts

I love sewing. Like really love it. And there just aren't enough bodies or beds in our family to justify how many quilts I make. So a favorite way of mine to help the quilts find homes is to sell them and donate the money to good causes. Here are some I sold in the beginning of this year.

Advent collages

About 4 years ago, I was invited to have a solo art show at a gallery in North Hollywood.  The show was to be advent themed, and I made 10 collages for it. They were all made from junk mail and catalogs, then blown up really big onto canvases. I haven't pulled them out or looked at them for a while, but I thought now would be the perfect time to bring them back out. 

This one is called "Messenger"

Half Square Triangle baby quilts

When I first started quilting, I was terrified of anything having to do with triangles. They can be fussy and really show mistakes. These days, I've still made some major blunders with them, but I have really come to love what are called Half Square Triangles (HSTs by quilt nerds). They are super easy to make and really versatile in their possible outcomes.
I actually have a bunch of HST quilts to share, but these three baby quilts are some recent favorites that I've made. You can see how the layout changes everything and the fabrics really get to show off.
It seems like my world is really full of boys these days, only about 2 out of the last 10 or so baby quilts I've made have been in girl colors... That's okay, these color schemes are currently in the top 10 for me.

Pillow-palooa

Everyone knows pregnant ladies nest in different ways. Since I had no nursery to paint (Dax sleeps on our room) and no house to remodel, it made sense that I would sew. And especially towards the end of my pregnancy, the only thing that took my mind off of my discomfort was sewing...

I quilted commission quilts until I was too tired to make deadlines, I basted every top I could
Finish until I was too big to baste, then I pulled out all the bag patterns I've bought over the years to try out those (fun)... And I made pillows (I think about 14 in all) that I have as teacher gifts at the end of the school year. They were small, short term projects that required minimal effort of moving my big body around.

The pleated design became so much of a favorite that I made a bunch of them. I plan to write a pattern for how to make them.