About Jenny

I love reading, quilting, backpacking, and photography.

Guess my Favorite Color?

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Jenny

I would love to make a nice big string quilt one of these years. I have started a few blocks, but I’m not sure what I want to do next or where I want to go with these.

This Orange pentagon crazy patch is for the block of the month for my guild this year. You just draw a random pentagon, and add and trim until you have a block the size you want.

I have figured out a formula for how long it will take me to finish this quilt. I will finish the blocks in November, since that’s the last time our guild meets. I expect it will be done by next August, which is the time of our annual guild show.

So, based on these blocks, can you guess my favorite color? It used to be blue. . .

Why I Haven’t posted…

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Jenny

I haven’t posted because it turns out that no one IS pregnant forever, although by the time this little squish got here I had determined that I would in fact NEVER give birth. Six agonizing days past 40 weeks, this child came. Ugh.

But he came! And I bestowed his maze quilt upon him, and my awesome sister in law made the beautiful matching crib bumpers you see in the picture. Did you know that you can buy crib bumper forms? Wish I had known that my first time around.

His older brother has decided that he is okay, although he keeps calling the baby boy Eliza, which is actually a cousin’s name. You can also see from the picture that big brother is sharing his Buzz. That really means love.

WIP to FO!

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Jenny

I finished my diamond quilt! I love this fabric line.

Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Jenny

I can tell I am totally restless to get this baby out, because I have almost finished this quilt. I never finish anything unless someone’s baby is due or the birthday/Christmas/Quilt Show is coming! This is it a couple of days ago, and once I finish sewing down the binding and the rain stops I’ll shoot the completed thing.

I love how versatile half-square triangles are for design.

Under the Sea Crib Bumpers

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Jenny

This is a little blast from my sewing past. When I was pregnant with my oldest, I wanted to make some crib bumpers that would be non-gender specific in order to use it again and again. I didn’t account for a few facts:

* I love to sew
* I was inexperienced and bound to make mistakes when not using a pattern
* After a couple of kids, it’s nice to change things up a little

So I could use a new crib bumper now, even though this under the sea one has served me pretty well. Luckily, since I am too exhausted, my beautiful and talented sister in law will be putting something together to go with the maze quilt, but before Under the Sea retires, I thought I’d share.

I was immensely pleased with my little sea creatures. I googled coloring pages for a sea horse, and I drew the octopus free-hand and cut them out in felt. I had those tiny buttons in my stash, and they made great eyes. If I did it over again, I would change a few things:

* I would make ties on the top and bottom of each panel, as well as intermittently. The first bumper I made had just one tie at the top corner of each of the four sides. They hung okay, but could have used more support.
* I would buy the good felt instead of the cheap stuff. These have only been washed a few times, and they looked much worse after each washing.
* I might do something more scrappy, because the strong turquoise in this one didn’t ever really match or even remotely mesh with any of the decorations or other quilted things I made for either child.

I liked the way these little yellow fish turned out. I love texture. I only embellished the side that I would see standing from the side of the crib. The other sides, I overstuffed with doll batting, and quilted in waves: