Finished Magnolia Mystery Quilt

BAM. It's done, and none too soon, as it was a gift for my super awesome good friend L, and I am so excited that after working on it for A YEAR, I finally got around to finishing it and sending it along its way. Spoiler alert: she loved it!

This is the Magnolia Mystery Quilt from Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs. This is the second mystery quilt that I've finished by Cheryl, and I LOVE them both. I'm a bit ashamed to tell you the first one STILL isn't completed, but it's waiting longingly for its time to shine. One of these days....

I kept it simple and straightforward with this one's quilting. Black stipple in the batik areas, and straight line quilting in a lime thread through the blocks. Woulda shoulda coulda gotten a picture of the back to show you the yum lime against the super awesome Grunge dot print, but I didn't. Lately, it's a struggle to remember my first name!

I so enjoyed making this quilt, and I am so pleased to know my friend loves it. She has been such an important influence on me, and I was thrilled at the idea of gifting her something that I made with my own two hands.

I'm going on seven years of quilting now, and there's something still so magical about that!

C2C2: Stephanie's Quilt

It has come to my attention that I still have not one but TWO Coast to Coast Traveling Bee quilts in progress to share with you! I've actually finished up my commitment to that bee for this year, and this year's quilt tops have me soaring with excitement. BONUS: I can't WAIT to get my own quilt back!

First, up, Stephanie's quilt. I lucked out and found Stephanie's original blog post showing her quilt start and a bit of her inspiration. Stephanie shipped it to K, who shipped it to Chelsea, who shipped it to me, so I'm the fourth person who had the privilege of working on this lovely.

This is the bulk of Stephanie's quilt as of now. You can see her original trees, and also the flying geese K added and the tulips from Chelsea. I added a row of butterflies down the right side to follow along with the nature prompt. I felt like there was a lot of plant life, so we needed some insect life too.

I had so much fun picking out the fabrics for the butterflies. I kept the bodies the same fabric, but each butterfly had different colored wings.

But I didn't feel right about just sending the super fun to piece butterflies, so I went back to the cutting board...

...and churned out a row of Ohio stars. Of course, I did my quilty math totally wrong, and instead of fitting over the top of the quilt, it hung seriously over! Thankfully Alison, the next person in the chain, is a total peach, and she said she'd add the stars for me after making her own additions. Whew!

I'm not gonna lie, I struggled with the theme for this one. Not because it was particularly hard, but the prompt was nature, and I am SO not a nature-y kind of girl. Have any of y'all seen the Jim Gaffigan sketch on camping? I think it's in his King Baby special, but the line that always sticks out to me is when he says he's "indoorsy." SPOT ON, Jim Gaffigan. I'm not a nature kind of girl, I'm just indoorsy.

I'm starting to think about round 3 of the bee...sure, it's only June, but I'm a planner! Hopefully I'll have Alison's quilt to share with you next week!

A Geranium Dress for Vanilla

One of the perks of taking a three month blogging hiatus is that I actually have a few things to share with you! This whole, I'm moving soon business has been taxing to say the least, but I've managed to get a few things finished, including this super cool Geranium Dress by Made by Rae for my Vanilla Bean.

This green and white print came from my grandmother's stash, as did the gingham lining. I'm fairly confident they were purchased at the same time, and for the super high cost of eighty-six cents! I don't know when my grandma purchased these lovelies, but my daughter is rocking some sweet threads, let me tell you.

It's obvs not perfect, but I am so pleased with how it turned out. The buttonholes aren't *perfectly* spaced, but I like to think people will be so enthralled by my adorable daughter that they won't even notice the buttonholes.

Speaking of perfect, it looks as though I was totally bomb at matching those stripes and pleats from the skirt with the bodice. Between you and me, because we're friends and all, it was a TOTAL accident in cutting. But like, I'm not complaining. It looks fierce.

I also finished up these stuffed pups from the Woof Woof Panel by Stacy Iest Hsu. The little pups are done too. I was watching a friend's kidlets when we suddenly encountered a quilt store in the wild. It wasn't my neck of the city, so I kinda sorta dragged three young boys into a quilt shop. (For the record, they were extremely well behaved.) We saw these pups stitched up, and the oldest boy suggested I make the pink one for Vanilla and the blue one for his baby bro. It was a most excellent plan, so of course I agreed.