Eleanor's Gingham Quilt

    It all started with a picture on Instagram.  I mean, isn't that how all good stories start?  Miss Andrea Quilts posted a picture of a gingham baby quilt that she made.  And it was stunning! 

    Fast forward a few months and I made a whole cloth quilt for baby Harris (Harris is Eleanor's baby brother).  I have also recently (in the last couple of years) finished Krystle's wedding quilt.  So, it was time to make Eleanor a quilt.

    They came to visit for Thanksgiving.  Miss Eleanor is a little bit opinionated (but she comes by it honestly) and I'm not the greatest at matching fabric so I wanted both her and her mom's input on the fabric selection.

I found this free pattern and used it.  I still have 2 pillowcases to quilt.  Don't judge me.  

I knew the quilt was going to be gingham in design and that E wanted pinks or purples.  In my research, I had found some beautiful quilts where the medium was a print - and I really, wanted that look.  So we started with a dark solid purple and white.  Then found the tiny purple print.  The backing and binding were no brainers - we just pulled them from the same fabric line as the print fabric.  Easy peasy!  

Fast forward to January 12th.  Fifth birthday party is coming up in 13 days and I still have just a stack of fabrics.  Fortunately, I was busy with running Carriage Corner and didn't even start cutting the fabric strips until Friday, January 14th.  I was determined and had the entire top put together by the end of Sunday!  

Whew!  On track to make it to the birthday party with gift in hand!  Except when I put it on our queen size quest bed - it looked huge!  Do I take some rows off?  

The next Thursday, I was able to pin baste the backing, batting and top together and start quilting.  I quilted the entire quilt on my home machine using a walking foot, cotton quilting thread in pale pink on the front and a bluish green on the back.  The quilting lines are 1/4" on either side of every seam line!  Really play up the gingham effect!  

By Friday night (2 days before the party) I had sewn the binding on.  I stitched the binding on the back by hand with big stitch binding.  I used pink perle cotton thread and did a large running stitch to hold the binding in place.  I literally carried the quilt with me all day Saturday, stitching in the car when I had a chance!

Around 9p Saturday, I finished the quilt!  Yeah!!  And I threw it in the washer.  First thing Sunday morning it went into the dryer.  I took it out, folded it up and promptly forgot it when we left for the party!  

Eleanor got her birthday quilt

about 2 weeks later in February when they came to visit.  If you ask her she had a great weekend!  She came to visit Gigi & Gramps, went to an ice festival and Gigi made her a pink quilt that's so cozy and she sleeps better!  All worth it in the end.

And as you can see from the photos - it fits her twin bed perfectly!  She already has the pillow case that matches the backing.  She'll get the other two soon - just as soon as I make her Easter dress.

Felt Food Fun

    My daughter has always done 'themed' holidays since she became a mom.  They generally pick the main gift based on what Eleanor asks Santa for and then she asks everyone else to 'fill in' around it.  

Eleanor's Second Christmas

    For Eleanor's second Christmas, Krystle got a 'play kitchen' off facebook market place for nothing and then did her designer remodel on it.  

    Gramps built a fridge, because what kitchen is complete without one?  

Gigi Went Nuts

    I was asked if I could make felt food for the kitchen.  Honestly, I could have bought an entire house full of play food for the amount of time and money I spent.  {And I petered out halfway through the project.}

    I found Sweet Emma Jean on Etsy and I bought 6 patterns:  Pizza;  Summer Cookout (the burgers have grill marks!)); Cookies; Deluxe Lunch; French Toast Breakfast & Taco Dinner!  I then printed out all of my patterns and created a spreadsheet to figure out how much felt to buy and in which colors.  Let me tell you - I way over bought and a friends child might also have a complete set of felt food.  Also, for the Summer Cookout and Deluxe Lunch sets, I doubled everything because if you're playing kitchen you want to be able to have a sandwich with your friend, not make her one and be out of bread! 

 

 

   These patterns use layers of 'stiff felt' to give depth and dimension to the different foods.  If I remember correctly, the bread has 3 layers of stiff felt between the 2 layers of white bread colored wool felt,  The outside is a darker colored felt - to resemble the crust and then the whole thing is sewn together by hand using embroidery floss.  

    

This food was so much fun to make and incredibly realistic.  The strips of bacon have a small piece of pipe cleaner in them so they are flexible like bacon!  Both sides are the same with 'meat' and 'fat' areas on the strip of bacon!  There was even an incredible slice of olive loaf for sandwiches (of course I forgot to take a picture).

Pizza

    The best part of the pizza set was the pizza cutter!  It actually spins!  Gramps cut the pizza peel from thin, hard wood.  The felt food set came with all the toppings!  Olives, mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, pepperoni and cheese sticks with a marinara dipping sauce!  Let's not forget the 6 slices with tomato sauce and cheese!

Back Yard Cookout

    I'm pretty bad at taking photos - but these things were so much fun!  The doritos have a layer of tin foil in them so they bend!  I did sew them with my sewing machine and they are fine.

    Grilled onion on your burger anyone?  There was also lettuce leaves, tomato slices, top & bottom buns with sesame seeds.  But those onion slices were ridiculous!  

    What's a cookout without watermelon?  Can you see how the stiff felt came into play to give this slice of watermelon dimension?  The stiff felt was very hard to stitch through neatly and on the edges you are just sewing around it.  I learned to add any decorative elements first before putting it all together. 

    Finally - have you ever seen such a good looking deviled egg?  This was fun, if a little bit fidly to make.  

Cookies

    I had to learn some new embroidery stitches to really make these look like the store bought version.  

    I don't think I finished all of the cookies!  

Let's Wrap This Up!

    I had to pull all of my supplies out to figure out what was what.  Little H will turn 2 in a few months so it might be time to finish what I started.  If I gift him the French Toast Breakfast - which ham slice & fried egg and the Taco Dinner then Big Sis can't be mad if he plays with her kitchen, right?  

   

    Also, the next time we are there, I need to ask to see the felt food just to see how it's held up to play.

Is It Possible?

     Is it possible to just start blogging again like you never stopped?  

    I miss this home, this record of creating, the connections that have been made and I'm ready, really ready, to give it the time it deserves again.  

    I found seven (7!!) draft blog posts almost ready to go.  I'll have to take a look at them and see if any are still relevant. Or maybe just finesse them and post them anyway. I mean, they are a record of things I've made and at this point, I can comment on how they stood up.

    I have been sewing.  And doing a little knitting, very little.  And buying fabric - not such a little amount of that.  

    I hope you are all well my friends and I look forward to chatting with you again in this space.