Triangle Trees Quilt

Making a quilt out of this tree fabric has been one of my goals for the past two years, since I've had it for awhile. This quilt went through so many variations of the layout, and this one is definitely the most visually interesting. Most of my quilts don't have borders like this one. I was inspired to use this half-square triangle design by an image I saw at work. I made a quick sketch only to discover when I got home that I didn't have as much of the tree print as I thought, and I didn't want the size to be limited my that. I had exactly enough tree fabric to make 80 blocks. Then one of my cuts went off the rails, ruining one of the blocks. Fortunately I had this swirly orange to substitute in, and I made 4 substitutions for the sake of symmetry. Blue would have been a logical substitution as well, but when I got to the back, I was glad I hadn't done that.

I had two green fabrics I was debating between, then I used a completely different one, since this one was a much better match. I bought this green swirl fabric thinking I would need it for the back of the Bright Birds quilt, but I didn't end up needing it, so fortunately it found the perfect home in this quilt.

Close up of the front fabrics

Pink Doll Quilt

I knew when I made the owl doll quilt that Claire did not have enough quilts for all of her dolls. However, this did not occur to her until she received the owl quilt. I decided to use the same fabric I used for the doll clothes I made for her for the this doll quilt. Then I gave her a choice between two sets of pink and green fabrics and she chose this swirly pink fabric over pink polka dots. I think it was a good choice! Unfortunately, I did not have enough of any of the three main fabrics for the back. Instead of plain solid pink, I opted for this chevron print, since it mimics the design on the front of the quilt.

Finished size: 17" x 21"

Doll Skirts

When my sister sent me a photo of Claire's new doll bunk beds, I noticed Gerber Baby was wearing a white eyelet skirt that we had dressed our dolls in, and I knew the Velcro was coming off of it. When Julie asked her if she needed new skirts for her dolls, Claire said "I do need more." The skirt in question was too big for her new doll, Echo, and a bit snug on Gerber.

Echo has a white body, so Claire wanted a white skirt for her, and, because it's too big, the old skirt is long enough that it looks like a ball gown on Echo, so she wanted the new one to be long as well. I found this very convenient trim at Joann's that was the perfect length to turn into a skirt.

Claire wanted a blue skirt with hearts for Gerber. Conveniently, my machine has a heart stitch. Inconveniently, I couldn't get it to sew more than one heart before bunching up. All my plan Bs for adding hearts involved considerably more effort than having my machine stitch them on. I didn't see any blue fabrics with hearts, I ruled out applique, and iron on patches were too big. Fortunately, I found this set of tiny heart buttons that matched the fabric I had. Despite having different size waists, both skirts are about the same length, but this meant Claire thought the blue skirt was too short for Gerber, since Gerber is a bigger doll. I didn't realize she wanted Gerber's skirt to be really long as well!

A Bevy of Batik Bags

I loved the purse I made for Claire so much that I made four more! It's a great pattern! After the owl doll quilt, this was the perfect way to use up the rest of this batik fabric! These are lined with solid pale pink fabric. Two will be going to the girls my mom babysits, and two to our twin nieces. Since they are going to sisters, I chose light and dark pink heart buttons so you can tell them apart.