maggistitches

July Doll Quilt Challenge: Bug-O-Mint

July Doll Quilt Challenge: Bug-O-Mint
Originally uploaded by maggistitches

In addition to making two swap quilts, I can't seem to keep myself from making more of these little things, especially when fun patterns/methods are thrown my way as challenges. At the Flickr group for the Doll Quilt Challenge, you can see how a few others took this one on. The original was a Whiplash entry created by the talented Lady Harvatine, who provides instructions here.

I read Liz's tutorial once and then got started even before my recent swap quilt was complete. I added four sides of Kona cotton instead of three and used bits of ladybug and other insect prints left from the fabric-square swaps for the Wee C's 100 Good Wishes Quilts, ladybugs being a folkloric totem in the China adoption community. The mint background fabric is left over from last spring when I made my Block Swap blocks. So I only purchased the border and backing fabrics. I'm not so sure I like the buggy border -- except when seen from the back -- but again the alternate self-border method was something I overlooked after that first exposure to the design. I had an extra strip left and incorporated it into the back, which I like. I don't think I want to make any quilts with whole-cloth, plain backs!

Good Frogging*

A few weeks ago The Purl Bee featured this cute and simple pattern. When I had some fabric left from making matching tiered skirts for the girls (yes, Wee C's second), I made them matching frogs as well. Betsy's sporting the skirt below, so you may be able to make out the first two fabrics. The Kaffe Fassett print of the frogs is also the third tier of the skirt.

You can really see it in this blurred representation, typical of my moving child!

*Bad frogging, on the other hand, would be the undoing of more than an inch of Pal-sock #2 when I found the gusset to be happening in completely the wrong place . . .

It's Melissa's Now

And according to her comment on the post below, my Doll Quilt Swap II partner likes it. Yay! I mailed it Monday afternoon just before four, so I must say I am rather impressed with the USPS for showing some speed for a change. I'm proud of this little quilt, prompted by Kim's Doll Quilt Challenge Flickr group and featuring fabrics that made their debut in my daughter's May outfits. (Lots of purples in my stash, too.)

Thanks again to Lisa and the other swap mamas and all the participants who have me checking the Flickr pools several times a day!

Heading North

~ in tomorrow's mail. Is that too obvious a clue? I think several other swappers reside in that direction, and I'm only revealing the back ~ and a bit of my imperfect hand quilting. (I cropped the shot so the label doesn't show the recipient's name.) The finished quilt is on the small side, measuring just shy of 13" x 18". I've pieced one for the Doll Quilt Challenge that is 20" x 24" and it feels huge!

Sallie's Quilt

Here's the quilt I completed for my goddaughter's 10th birthday last month, the one I started after Heilbron came to February S&B and got me all excited at the thought of returning to quilting (which I had already moved toward with last year's Block Swap ~ not that my blocks have been joined into a finished work yet). When she explained about the Turning Twenty concept, I went stash diving and found a fat quarter set of six that I could augment with four additions. i didn't plan it to match her birthday, but I think it's fun that it worked out that way, and gave me a title for the FO, Turning Ten.

Other than my first Doll Quilt Swap quilt, this was my first go at free-motion quilting. I changed to a stronger needle so I didn't experience the thread-shredding ~ and I had gotten the perfect thread at the Hampton festival. I didn't have a pattern or draw anything out, just stitched the block grid in the ditch then "drew" diagonal squiggles on the larger rectangular pieces and my freehand six-petaled flower on the squares. I did parallel lines on the big corner rectangles. And because I'd made that pair of gigantic double-size corner blocks, I decided to applique a pieced and embroidered circle on the square, one with Sallie's initials and one with the tenth birthdate sewn in old reliable chain-stitch. The quilt has a label on the back, too, and is bound with the backing fabric (which may actually be the eleventh ~ one to grow on!).

Best of all, she likes it, according to this excerpt form her thank-you note: Thank you so much for the wonderful quilt. I love it!!!!!!! It is on the foot of my bed every night (except when I get cold).

July 3 S&B

Look, it's Lou! She of the amazing chicken, she of the Socks That Rock! Showing off the latest Rockin' Sock Club yarn and pattern. Yum. But since I've yet to knit up the four colorways i received in my partial membership for 2006, I'm OK just admiring hers (and Beth's and L-B's).

Heather was back with another lovely project, Koigu's popular Charlotte's Web shawl ~ in 10 Painter's Palette shades she bought as mill ends at Maryland Sheep and Wool. Hey, I have about seven greens in the stash from my 2006 attendance at that as well . . .

And here's Frances, whom I believe I rather coerced into knitting the Mystery Stole #3 with me, which she's just beginning in this shot. We both bought gorgeous Malabrigo Lace merino in the Frost Grey shade (Bonne Marie's knitting with the same yarn, and I got the idea from Cate). I just downloaded the second clue, and hope to knit a bunch this weekend while the girls are sleeping, as we'll be in a Northern Virgnia hotel for a China reunion. By the way, yesterday when we stopped in The Yarn Lounge for an Addi lace needle (since it's my other #4 being trapped with the Clementine Shawlette that's kept me from starting), the Little B said knit for the first time ~