Adam, my niece Sarah's middle child, loved his quilt (I made for his 2nd birthday) so much that it is now in tatters. "Aunt Janet, can you fix it?" It was beyond repair and it was time for a new quilt for a 9 year old. I asked him what theme he'd like and he chose Legos.
I wasn't inspired by rectangles of plain colors but when I googled Legos, I saw these heads and I was off and running.
I watched my grandniece and nephews today so their mother could teach a class. I thought it would be a good time to post the quilt I made for Vanessa in February, 2006. She is now 7 and quite the young lady. We sat down at the sewing machine and together made a pinafore for Nellie, her American Girl doll. She was really very good at cutting and controlling the sewing machine.
Vanessa loves her quilt as do her brothers (Flying in Formation and Geckos). The butterflies came from on-line free patterns. This was my first project to free motion quilt by machine. The antennas were embroidered by hand.
Sarah (her mother) asked for pink, yellow and plaid to match the sponged painted plaid on Vanessa's walls. Her room is all girl and fits her to a "T".
We went to the park, had lunch at In and Out, played outside, rolled on the floor, fed, changed diapers, pottied, bathed, sang songs, said our prayers and fell into bed every night to start all over again at 6:00 in the morning.
Tomorrow we take them home. Whooh. We survived and had so much fun.
Tim and Krista are in Argentina. As a new professor at Pepperdine University, the faculty is sent to one of their satellite campus for a week. So we have the boys for 7 days. My husband is being a big help (I just don't remember him being this helpful with his own boys.) Being the Grandpa makes all the difference. It's so much fun but exhausting. No quilting this week.
Autumn, my grandniece, made this pillow with me at the same age as her mother made her first sewing project with me...age 5. Her mother, Abby, sewed her first day kindergarten dress using a fabric panel printed with an A-line dress front,back and facings. When she told her teacher she made her dress, she told her it was wrong to lie. How wrong she was. We can teach children to sew!
My niece decorated Adam's room with an airplane theme. I found this block online and planned the arrangement to emphasize the diagonals (creates movement). The plaids seemed more appropriate for a little boy rather than the usual prints. Piano keys are a great way to repeat colors and use up scraps.
I hand quilted spirals over each plane, zigzags in the border, and down the center of the sashing.
Adam' favorite part of the quilt is the flannel backing. The print included airplanes, cars, buses, and roads on which he runs his toy vehicles.
My grandson loves his Thomas Train. There are plenty of Thomas prints to choose from but I wanted Benjamin's quilt to be unique. I googled and found this site: http://www.hobby-tronics.com/Chiloquilters/Block1_of_the_Month.html. I adapted the blocks I found online and backed the quilt with Thomas fabric.
This adaptation of "Jig Saw" was completed entirely from my stash. The geckos were inspired by one of the fabrics used. I found it easier to plan the placement of the puzzle pieces by scanning strips of my fabric choices first, printing in color and cutting out the same number of small puzzle pieces as I had fabric. The paper layout showed me which fabrics had to be included in each block and auditioned the placement and contrast of colors. The gecko applique pattern was also an enlargement of the scanned gecko print.
