{Quilts} For Carrie & Katrina

     I hate it when I am working on a project and I can't tell you anything about it, its so tough for me to keep a secret but I managed to keep two of them this past month! The first was a quilt a good friend commissioned me to make for his girlfriend, Carrie. He really gave me the freedom to create whatever I wanted to keeping in mind a soft color palette.

   I went with Nicey Jane fabrics from both color ways paired with some blocks made out of two Kona solids, grey and white. 

     The overall design was really simple, but the way the solid blocks altered with the prints made for a pleasing design. The grey and the white blocks made a very soothing base to complement the color in the fabrics. 

I quilted an all over looping meander throughout the quilt and chose cream minkee for the backing. 

I also quilted her name into the quilt and the date to add a little something special.

     I finished the quilt with a print from the line, Hop Dot in blue, the perfect finish to a very amazing quilt. I had such a hard time giving this one up, but I know she loves it. Enjoy Carrrie, this quilt was made just for you! 

     The second secret I had to keep was a t shirt quilt I was commissioned to make for a Christmas gift. My cousin had saved all her college and sorority t shirts, sweatshirts and pants with the idea of making a quilt with all of them. All the way back in May I was given her box of shirts and spent the next few months finding the perfect fabrics to complement them. I wanted to try to use her sorority colors best I could, blue and yellow. 

   After I fused woven interfacing on the back of all the garments and cut them out, I went to work on my design wall. I started by laying out the blocks where I thought they complemented each other. Since I didn't have a ton of t shirts I also embroidered some blocks with her sorority letters, significant symbols and her chapter's name. I also took off some of the letters from the butts of her sweatpants and re-appliqued them back onto mirror ball dot blocks for a little extra shimmer. 

I built the quilt block by block as I laid the blocks out, cutting sashing to fit. 

When all said and done the quilt measured about 60" x 65"

     She received the quilt top this Christmas as a gift and absolutely loved it! We wanted her to be able to choose what she wanted for the backing, so she received the unfinished top and went with ivory minkee.    The last weekend in January we had a mini sewing retreat at my cousins house where I was able to reveal the finished quilt. 

    We washed it right away for that extra cuddly feel and she went home a happy girl. I really enjoyed making this, keeping her in mind the entire process. Love you Bean!

Whew! It feels good to have both of these secrets off my chest. I have much more to post this weekend, so much in fact its hard to keep up. I've been super busy with a few more quilts, some new quick change trousers and a secret I cant quite tell yet :) Oh secrets...so hard to keep but so worth it in the end! 

xx steffani