twin quilts

At the end of April, I became a proud, first-time aunt to beautiful twin boys. One of the best things about being an aunt, is having the chance to make lots of handmade things for my nephews; however, since they live in Japan, I have to spoil them from afar.

To celebrate their arrival, I made each of them a quilt. For the first quilt, I made yellow and gray half-square triangles using some of my favorite prints, and laid them out in a manner similar to my Prismatic quilt.

For the second quilt, I did scattered green plus signs, using Jeni's tutorial as a starting point. I included lots of fun prints, including some Alexander Henry cars, Ed Emberley elephants, and Heather Ross horses.

I loved making these quilts and can not wait to meet the boys they were made for---hopefully that will happen this fall!

the mermaid quilt

Is three years too long to wait to blog about a quilt? I hope not.

I came across these photos of one of my first and favorite quilts this weekend, and thought now would be as good a time as any to share them. The top is made up of 10" squares of fabrics from Heather Ross's Mendocino line (lots of mermaids and octopi), which I picked up from a quilt shop in NH years ago, and the back is an Anna Maria Horner fabric I found in the clearance tub at Nido.

I finished the quilt in 2010, while we were still living in Maryland, and it has been a constant on our couch ever since.

Fellow bloggers, what's the longest you've waited to blog about a project? Do you have project photos languishing unshared in your computer folders, too?

LMP+QG april challenge: peanut, the wee elephant

Each month, my friend Kait and I are making a project from the book, Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts ("LMP+QG" for short). You can see previous projects here. 

For this month's challenge, Kait and I made little elephants. While this project was a bit of a challenge for me (and some of the directions were a bit vague), I'm happy to report that Peanut turned out to be pretty darn cute.

For Peanut's body and ears, I used two fabrics from Heather Ross's latest line for Spoonflower, and I found a coordinating blue gingham in my stash for Peanut's blanket.

I especially love the little details, including the snout, felt eyes, and perle cotton tail.

See Kait's adorable elephant here.

Coming up next month: Summer Breeze quilt

quilting project: heather ross travel pillow

Soon after moving to North Carolina, I joined the Triangle Modern Quilt Guild (which has been a lot of fun to be a part of). For this past month's meeting, I participated in a travel pillow swap and created a pillow for my swap partner, John, of Quilt Dad fame. 

Using Ashley's quilt block tutorial as a starting point, I created the pillow from limited-edition Heather Ross for Spoonflower fabric and coordinating solids. I opted for an envelope-style back and straight-line quilting for the front. All in all, I was pleased with how it turned out.

P.S. Have you seen Heather's newest line, Far Far Away III? Love!