Did someone say elephants?

If you are reading this Meagan stop right now. You have to wait until Saturday!!

Have I mentioned before there would be a lot of baby showers coming up in the next few months? I know about 18 women that are all pregnant right now. When I say about that's because I lost track after 16. I had two this week. Three I guess if you count the double baby shower on Tuesday night as two. I whipped out these onesies in an hour after work. One of them had a boy, and the other one is having a girl and is due in about 3 weeks. I love the little pink skirt. I call it the "30 minute skirt". The butterfly I had on hand from my days working at the scrapbooking store, and the bow tie I free handed. Not too shabby, huh? Thanks to my sister for the suggestion.

I guess you can call this week a huge dose of quick finishes. This blanket is for the other baby shower on Saturday. I am going to finish it tonight. The elephants I cut out on the LPF using the Animal Kingdom cartridge and dark brown iron-on sheets from SEI. I just love them. My goal for the coming year is to use all my scraps before I buy more fabric. This is one such project. The fabric isn't quite a full-on crib size. It's about 44x54" but I figure a newborn is going to be super small and it will take him a couple of years at least to grow out of it, so I'm solid. I wish I had more of the green fabric to break it up a bit, but I tied it with multi colored yarn so it will still look cute. I learned tonight that I still have a lot of learning on my machine before I try to quilt on it, so tying it will have to do. The back is solid dark brown to tie it all in together. I can't wait to give it to her.

I just love the elephants. I think they are just so cute.

Linking up to Finish it Up Fridays with Amanda Jean. I'm so glad she started doing these again. It really motivates me to finish things up.

Polka Dots and Dragonflies, and Butterflies, Oh My!

I love this blanket!. It's rare that I do a piece of work with such a strong attachment to it, but I really am having a hard time deciding who to give this quilt to, or to just finish it and hold on to it, hoping for one day to have a baby girl I can give it to since it's a crib size. I love the butterflies and the polka dots, and the pink and black and white color scheme. The best part was, it was all made out of fabric I already had. I had originally bought much of the pink and black fabric for a different quilt, but the way I had it pictured in my mind just wasn't going  to when the fabric was all laid out. Thus the idea for this one was born. The dragonflies butterflies are actually iron-ons. Some of the butterflies and all of the dragonflies came from a sheet of pre-made iron-ons from SEI and others were done using the LPF. When it is all said and done I'm hoping to make this my first stitch-in-the-ditch quilt. I generally tie my quilts, but felt that the yarn would overshadow the cuteness of this. Now that I have finally figured out how to drop the feed dogs on my machine after FIVE YEARS, quilting so go much faster. 

Close up of the butterflies and dragonflies.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts

Prison Suits?

 This quilt was another quick finish. I received the squares a couple of weeks before but between the two baby showers and the Halloween costume there was no time for the quilt top to get done. The quilts were assembled and are being tied to donate to those who are in need during the cold Utah winter. 

I started it Friday night when my husband went to work at 10:00pm and finished right around 7:00 am the next morning. 9 hours start to finish on this baby. The squares were not perfectly square so each one of the squares had to be cut down and corrected, but despite my sewing all through the night, it worked out well and was ready to go for the 8:30 service project the next morning. I took a cat nap between 7:00 and 8:20, grabbed an orange juice and headed out to meet at the church house. The squares are 6 1/2 x 6 1/2. It's amazing how fast you can whip something out when you've got Netflix going in the background, and no interruptions. The striped areas are strips of 3"x 6 1/2 sewn together. It was surprisingly heavy and I didn't find out until later the material was donated by an organization that makes police uniforms and state prison jumpsuits. That explained a lot. But it was good and sturdy, and will keep someone nice and warm. I didn't even mind staying up late to do it since it was going for such a worthy cause.  It's the first time I've made a blanket out of polyester, and it was the talk of the meeting since such an intricate design had gone into it. If I hadn't been so gosh awful tired, I would have taken pictures of all the other ones. Maybe next time. :)

Linking up with Finish it up Fridays and Family Ever After