Wrenn’s Baby Quilt

I got started on Wrenn girl’s baby quilt over the weekend. I was able to get the whole thing cut out and a design created, and then I ran out of steam and needed a nap. But at least it’s a start! 10.5 weeks to go ’til she gets here and I need it done.

Of course I went with chevron, because it’s my favorite. And honestly, because that’s what this fabric called for. I tried a few other options, but this was just too pretty not to stick with this tried and true friend of a pattern.

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Don’t forget, I have another little chevron quilt available in the shop.

Chevron Baby Stroller Quilt

I know I’ve told several people I wouldn’t be making any more baby quilts for the time being (except for Wrenn girl’s quilt, which I started on Saturday), but a few weeks ago I had a burst of energy and some leftover scraps from my mom’s mullet quilt. And so I whipped up this little guy in just a few hours.
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It’s a 29 inch x 29 inch stroller or car seat quilt – no batting so that it’s nice and thin and folds up to fit in your baby bag

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And of course, since gray and yellow are some of my very favorite colors, I had to go with the yellow backing. I just love all of these fabrics together – modern and sleek but also playful.

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This beautiful little quilt is available in the shop now – I hope she finds a good home! And, unless I get another wild hair, this will probably be the last baby quilt in the shop until after baby girl gets here. Probably.

Look at us, we started the nursery!

Folks, we have a nursery! After a few months of putting it off, then brainstorming, then putting it off some more, we finally cleaned out Mr. Right’s office/guest room (what a great guy), taped everything off, and got the thing painted, all in 24 hours.

A special thanks to my awesome sister who came over and painted the nursery for us! Talk about a servant’s heart. She knew that my doctor said no painting for me, and Mr. Right is crazy swamped with finals (oh, how we’re all counting down the minutes until grad school is OVER), so she just decided to do it for us. It was such a blessing.

You should have seen Mr. Right and I prepping the night before she came to get the room ready. I was in my work dress (because dresses are so much more comfortable than anything else right now), on my hands and knees taping off the baseboards while Mr. Right was on a ladder caulking holes and removing blinds. I’m not very graceful under typical circumstances, but I’m like a clumsy beast at this point, so I’m sure the neighbors got an eye full through our blind-less windows at 9:30 at night. And I’m just pregnant enough to not really care.

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The next morning Mr. Right assembled our crib, and suddenly the room felt like a nursery. He has since moved in other furniture (an armoire for storage and a dresser that we’ll use as a changing table – pics to come), and slowly but surely we’re moving closer to being baby-ready.

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The nursery will be mostly neutrals – grays and whites – with pops of color in our accents. This fabric, which is part of the quilt I’m making for her, is the inspiration for those pops of color – lot’s of tangerine-oranges, turquoises, and a few other random colors here and there.

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And here’s the rest of the fabric for her quilt. We’ll be using the leftovers for pillows, possibly a bedskirt, etc. You know, whatever I get inspired to sew. Don’t be surprised if you don’t find some leftovers in my Etsy shop in the form of baby quilts or pillows.

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And, finally, we’re thinking about using this picture for above the crib. Mr. Right and I have a real love for internationals (especially our ESL students!), and we also love to travel, so we think this is the perfect picture to go above our tiny sleeping baby. Plus, it reminds me of a quilt.

Stay tuned for more pictures as we make progress on the nursery. I’m 29 weeks along, so not too much longer until she’s here with us napping in this very room!

The Pregnant Girl Patchwork Quilt

Have I mentioned that I’m feeling better? To all of you dear friends and readers who have prayed for me and encouraged me through SIX LONG MONTHS OF ROUND THE CLOCK MORNING SICKNESS (bleh), I am pleased to announce that I have been (almost) completely nausea free FOR FOUR WHOLE WEEKS!

This is me doing a happy dance. Which is actually pretty disturbing considering the giant belly bouncing around.

So anyway, now that I’m feeling like a normal person these days (a ginormous normal person with a bowling ball sitting on her lap and a baby whose favorite position is bear hugging her bladder), I have been back to doing things I love. Like quilting. And eating. Lot’s and lot’s of eating, to the shagrin of my OB who all but wagged her finger when she saw that the scale reflected my newfound love of food (did you know food actually TASTES GOOD? I had forgotten.).

But enough of this rambling… I have quilt pictures to share. So back to the point, now that I’m feeling better I was able to reunite with my beloved sewing machine and whip out a new quilt top – not for any specific purpose other than it made me happy and I’ve been hankering to try this pattern.

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This is called a 9-patch pattern – if you look closely, you can see that even though all the scraps run together, they’re sewn into blocks of nine, and then those blocks are combined to make bigger blocks. I used a moda jelly roll so cutting the squares was super fast (you can also do this pattern by sewing strips and then cutting them, but I was feeling all organic and wanted to do the entire thing from scratch).

This is the perfect pregnant girl quilt pattern, because there IS no pattern. I wanted the overall look to be scrappy and cluttered looking – there’s something comforting in the craziness and unpredictability. Plus, since there’s no pattern, there wasn’t a lot of that obligatory getting up and down off the floor to lay out my pattern over and over as I sew. The only time I laid it out was at the very beginning to figure out how many patches I needed, and at the very end to pin on the border.

9patch2 I love this picture because you can see my new view as Wrenn girl grows.9patch1And there’s the final version. It still needs to be quilted, but since it’s for me, it’s going to have to wait until after sweet Wrenn’s quilt is finished. Which I have 11 weeks left to complete (assuming she’s on time). Oh my word, where has the time gone?

Stay tuned for more on her quilt – and her nursery – this week. And pics of our first baby shower. And baby bump pics. It’s going to be a busy week.

The Mullet Quilt

For my mama’s birthday I just knew I wanted to make her a quilt. It was a big milestone birthday and it deserved to be marked with an extra-special gift.

And then I got that pesky morning sickness that is STILL lingering, and all of my quilting dreams went out the window. I haven’t even turned on my sewing machine since November. I would have gone through withdrawals if I had had the energy to care… but you and I know that when you’re too sick to care about taking a shower, you don’t give two thoughts to things like crafts. (PS – I’m showering again, in case you were worried.)

But God came through in his perfect timing, just like he always does, and granted me a nausea-free day (and a day off!) just a few days before the party. So after a marathon session in my beloved but lately neglected sewing studio, I was able to whip out this little beauty. I call her my Mullet Quilt. You know why? Becuase it’s neutral in the front…

And a party in the back.

I was determined to branch out from my regular chevron pattern, but (1) I found these two gray fabrics and fell in love, and (2) it’s already getting hard for me to get up and down off the floor, and I’m getting pretty fast at whipping out chevron patterns and don’t have to do as much work on my hands and knees laying out patterns. I have a feeling the more pregnant I get, the less time I’ll be spending crawling around on the floor. Which means Baby Girl may be getting a chevron quilt too (which would be fitting, because it’s my favorite pattern).

I quilted a straight line along the zig-zags to make the pattern pop. I bought the fabric at my new favorite quilting store, Cabbage Rose in Fort Worth, and it’s so unbelievably soft. And gorgeous. Mr. Right talked me into buying the crazy floral backing, and I’m now so in love with it that I may use some of it for the nursery. He’s good at making me branch out of my comfort zone like that.

Later this week I’ll post about the party we threw my mama for her big birthday. In the meantime, happy birthday mom – I love you! And I can’t wait to get back to my sewing machine for the next project.

Etsy Shop Update – Thanksgiving & Christmas lovelies!

I’m trying hard not to just pimp my shop on my blog. That wasn’t the purpose of this blog and never will be. But it’s also a big part of my life right now (and with launching Mr. Right’s real estate business, a huge help financially), so I want to be sure to remind you that it’s there.

I only have a few Thankful prints left. Once they’re sold out, I probably won’t print any more until next fall. So if you’ve had your eye on this for a little while, be sure to pick it up before it sells out!

I can’t believe it, but we’re going to blink and it will be Christmas. I’ve still got some hand-sewn Christmas cards available in the shop (only available through Nov. 15, then I’m discontinuing them), but I also have these new photo cards if you prefer something a little more economical. Just click on the picture to link to the shop listing.

With these photo cards, you can either purchase the art file, ready to send to your printer, for just $20, or for an additional cost (and if you don’t want to mess with finding a printer and envelopes), I will be happy to print them for you (prices range from $1.20-$1.50 each, including envelopes, depending on quantity ordered). If you have questions, just leave me a message in the comments section of this blog post.

 Also, I am offering a limited number of custom Christmas card designs. Price will be $50 for the design, plus the cost of printing if you want me to print them for you. If you’re interested, just leave me a message in the comments section of this blog post.

And finally, I’m working on a Christmas quilt or two that will end up in the shop. Follow me on Instragram (@texas_lovely) to see sneak preview pictures. The last few quilts I made were “sold” before I ever listed them in the shop because folks saw it on Instagram and staked their claim. I’m perfectly happy to pre-sell again, so let me know if you’re interested in having a warm Texas Lovely Christmas quilt in your home!

Love you all, my friends!

The Story of My Strip & Flip Baby Quilt

Some of my friends may remember that for several years I was a Big Sister for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Since at the time I was terrified of young children (silly me), I signed up for a teenager, and I ended up getting the coolest teenager in town – Stephanie. We spent four years together, going through some pretty major life experiences and changes, and I got to watch her grow up to be a beautiful woman.

That was several years ago. When I found out that Stephanie was expecting a baby boy, I just had to make little Grayson a baby quilt. I used this tutorial, and was able to whip it up in just a few sittings.

 Again, I used a Moda jelly roll for the front, and then snagged this back fabric on sale from JoAnn’s. Mr. Right thinks it makes him dizzy, but I thought the colors and crazy pattern tie in well with the LOUD front. Sometimes I love stepping out of my muted color comfort zone and just “going for it.”

I quilted in the “ditch” on all the colored fabric, then did several vertical lines up the white sashing to add a little extra texture. I try not to over-quilt baby quilts because I want them to stay soft and squishy for the little ones using them.

Last night I got to give the quilt to sweet Stephanie, mama-to-be, and my forever friend. I can’t wait to hold that sweet baby boy of hers!

Strip & flip ombre baby quilt

By now you’re probably thinking, “All that crazy girl sews is yellow and gray triangle quilts.” And you would be right… almost. I have been in a weird phase lately, but I’ve also got dozens of quilt ideas swimming around in my head, just waiting to make it out onto my sewing studio floor. The only thing that’s stopping me is time and money. Those silly quilts require a lot of both!

One of the quilts I’ve been aching to make is the strip and flip quilt I found on Cluck Cluck Sew’s blog. She posted a great tutorial, and I had been jonesing to do some sort of strip quilt, so it was a match made in heaven.

This is just the unfinished quilt top, which I made with a Moda jelly roll I picked up at my local quilting store. I’d never sewn from a jelly roll before – they’re expensive (this one cost $41), and I typically only buy fabric on sale, but it saved me from having to cut much of anything, and the entire quilt took me less than two hours to piece. Plus, I love ombre rainbow effect – such a nice change from the muted colors I’ve been addicted to lately.

I picked up a brightly colored backing and am in the process of quilting it right now – I hope to have pictures of the finished quilt up on the blog next week!

This quilt will be going to a special someone at a later date – I’ll tell you more later, but for now, it’s a secret.

Yellow & gray diamond baby quilt

My wedding colors were yellow and gray. My shop branding is yellow and gray. My never-ending yo yo quilt I’m making myself is yellow and gray. My last baby quilt was yellow and gray. My “You are my Sunshine” print is designed in yellow and gray. (Come to think of it, so is this one and that one).

So I’m sure you’re totally surprised that I finished yet ANOTHER yellow and gray baby quilt. What can I say? Those colors make me happy! And quilting is supposed to make you happy, which is why I keep going back to it. There will probably be more gray and yellow quilts in my future.

Say hello to my yellow and gray diamond baby quilt.

I continued with my streak of triangle quilts. As you can see there are so many different ways to arrange them to make them look completely different.

I didn’t have enough of that gorgeous gray fabric to finish the back, so I added two rows of patchwork squares with the same fabric as the front. I bound it with a retro yellow and gray border featuring tiny tulips. I’ve got a little bit leftover and can’t wait to use it again, it’s one of my new favorites.

I love how well you can see the quilted design on the back – such pretty diamonds!

I hand-bound the whole thing, which took me more hours than I’d like to admit (okay, at least 10), but it was worth it because of the delicate, clean lines it created.

This quilt is going to one of my Baylor Theta sisters, Amy, who just had another baby girl. I love getting to see babies use my quilts, as that’s what they’re created for – to be loved on, cuddled with, drug all over the house, and otherwise USED. I hope Baby Lily Reese gets much enjoyment over the next few years out of her little yellow and gray piece of my heart.

Stay tuned for ANOTHER quilt post TOMORROW. Yea!

I heart my customers

Thanks to my sweet customers who are so good at sending me pictures of my prints displayed in their homes! You all know how to make a girl feel good!

My friend Chelsea displaying her ruffle pillow, and her Adventure and Sunshine prints.

Alli… one of my most faithful customers, showing off her Thankful print along with my fall free printable

Alli ordered a custom print of the verses she read at her wedding (1 Corinthians 13).

Kelly ordered a few prints, including my favorite verse that’s up in her office…

And my free printable that’s up in her friend’s office.

Thanks to everybody who has been such a huge support these past three months. If I could give you each a hug in person, I totally would. But instead, I’ll just send a hearty thank you.

A little shop talk – don’t forget that I’ve got hand-sewn Christmas cards listed. I’m only taking a few orders, and I won’t take orders on hand-sewn cards after November 15, so if it’s something you’ve got your eye on, be sure to place your order while there’s still time! Because the cards are very labor-intensive to make, please allow three weeks for me to professionally print the cards and then sew each one. Obviously the smaller the order, the faster you will receive them.

I am hoping to also add some Christmas photo cards to the shop – where you can purchase a design, I’ll drop your photo into the card, and then send you the high-res file for you to print at your local photo store. Or, for an extra cost I will happily print them professionally for you and include envelopes. As soon as I have them listed I will be sure to let you know.

PS–My goal for Saturday is to finish TWO new baby quilts! I can’t wait to post pictures of the new lovelies!