in a world full of dots

My HST quilt is finally all done....wheeew! This one was a doozy. I have never named a quilt before, but after the amount of time I spent with this one I felt it was only appropriate to name it: In a World of Dots.

I know this isn't the best picture, due to all that shade, but I think it shows the quilting lines nicely. I did all the quilting in the white using lines spread out 1/2 inch apart, framing all those beautiful dots.

Now I have to be honest in telling you that this quilt almost didn't come to be. I found that even though I love seeing all the beautiful HST quilts in blog land...assembling one myself was quite tedious. There were times where I just wanted to throw in the towel...but all those dots, I couldn't just let them go to waste. So, thankfully, I pushed through it...and now have one of my favorite quilts ever!!

Here is some sun on the subject. I tried to get a shot of it laying on the ground, but my sweet little girl was not having it today. As soon as it hit the ground she was all over it, which means that like her Momma, she just can't get enough of this one. I will try again tomorrow. Now I must mention that this quilt was completely inspired by my favorite HST quilt (shown here) made by Cathy of Cabbage Quilts. If you haven't stopped by her blog before, you are in a treat...she is truly amazing!

wordless wednesday

couldn't resist

Izzy and I were in desperate need of an outing today...something that would excite her enough to ease her into a nap, but mellow enough to not require a lot of preperation on my part. The logical resolution, shopping of course. We packed a baby doll, a snack and headed off to Target to check out all the new Liberty of London clothes I keep reading about. Now, I will be honest in saying that I am not much of a floral pattern buff...but my baby girl on the other hand cannot get enough of them. I was always known as somewhat of a tom-boy (nothing makes me happier than an oversized tee shirt and a good pair of sweats) my sweet baby girl on the other hand is as girly as girls go. It took her one glance at that rack to know that she was in love. Sadly, most of the dresses in her size were sold out, so she didn't get to go too wild. We walked out with one skirt, a swimsuit, a purse and a dress that she couldn't bear to take off after trying it on (seriously, they rung it up while it was on her). All and all a successful outing...she got excited, and happily fell asleep on the way home...and I didn't have to do much!!

Doesn't she look so peacefully cute sleeping in her new dress?! I couldn't resist sharing with all of you. The bad news is, now I think I might be hooked on the idea of making a quilt for her out of all Liberty of London fabrics.

Oh...and like icing on the cake, we also got a copy of The Princess and the Pea!!

purple dots

I tend to take my daughter with me when I go fabric shopping. Now usually she is napping on these adventures....but on one of our trips she decided to stay awake for the event. As I was taking my time browsing fabric (looking for nothing in particular) my sweet baby girl decided to do some shopping of her own. She became very enamored with this purple dot fabric. Purple is a color that for some reason I do not ever pick up....but that cute face combined with her excitement of finding something she liked, gave me no choice but to buy it. With that said, after finishing my quilt the other day, I was really itching to do some more sewing, but not really ready to start another big project.....so....

another doll quilt was born. My daughter anxiously awaited her new quilt, coming over to check on it's progress periodically. As soon as I finished it, she snatched it up, ran to her bedroom and put it into her doll's cradle. I couldn't persuade her to let me take it back out to photograph....so I had to make do and take pictures of it in the cradle (although she did let me adjust it a bit so that is wasn't so crinkled up).

To my surprise, I love the way the purple dots look combined with all the other fabrics. I also have to admit that I love the pillow even more than the quilt!! I think my daughter feels the same way since she has been carrying the pillow around the house for the last few days.

Baby also seems to be quite happy with her new quilt! It didn't take Izzy long to find baby and snuggle her into her new quilt for a nap.

it's really done....

My sister came over today to play with my daughter, so I took the opportunity to get some long awaited sewing done. I can't even express to you how excited I am to finally have this quilt finished. I started it way back in November of last year, and put it aside to get all my holiday sewing done, and never got back around to it. Sadly, my pictures aren't too great due to the grey clouds lingering over my yard....but I wasn't willing to wait any longer to share this one.

I have been wanting to do a larger quilt with Heather Ross Mermaids in dresden ever since I made my daughter this doll quilt.

I went with a bit of a different concept with the bigger one, but tried to give it the same feel as my daughters quilt. Originally I wanted to do a full dresden circle, but at the last minute decided to split it with the grey trim.... I am so glad that I did!

Besides the HR fabric, I used a Kona grey and a white, along with Kei dots in grey. The binding is a combo of Kei orange dots and brown dots. The center of the flower is done with a Denise Schmidt heavy weight fabric, and makes for a good contrast to all the other fabrics.

I adore the way it turned out and surprisingly love the brown/grey combo that I did in this quilt. It was one of those things that wasn't planned, but just turned out that way. I also love the little quarter dresden flower down in the right hand corner of the Kei grey dots square...another unplanned detail. Maybe this will break my sewing block and open up the door for more quilts.....well at least I will keep my fingers crossed that it will.