yes, i really did make 4 quilts before christmas...

as further evidence that i am completely unable to balance myself, at the beginning of the month i decided to make 3 quilts for a christmas bureau family. i know, i'm crazy i obviously wasn't being practical at all. but i got all inspired, and it seemed like a good idea at the time!

the family had 4 kids, 12, 15, 17 and 19, but they asked that we focus on the three youngest children.

i had already started a quilt for myself, just because i really wanted to make a quilt out of elizabeth hartman's new book, the practical guide to patchwork: new basics for the modern quiltmaker. while there were a few patterns in the book that i wasn't so keen on (too traditional for me), i absolutely adored the rest, and went out and bought fabric to make the batch of brownies quilt as soon as i got my copy of the book. since the fabrics were polka dots, i thought they'd be perfect for a 12 yr old girl who likes girly stuff.

frankly, these pictures are embarrassing. i can't remember the last time i took photos that were this bad! but i literally dropped these off 2 minutes after the deadline, and the photos were taken about 15 minutes before that!



i used a cotton/poly blend batting, and that was the last time i'll do that! i do like that it was a bit poufier, but it destroyed my hands, they were so incredibly dry after touching it.



i did a small amount of quilting, just around each square. i would have liked to have done more, but i really didn't have the time for it.



the other kids in the family were all boys, which are so much harder to sew for, especially generic boys! (we really weren't given much info about the kids) i had these great fleece blankets from mec, and i decided to use them as the backing/batting on the simpler quilts for the boys and tie them instead of quilting.

this one was done completely out of stash fabrics - the stripe is actually more of a decor weight fabric. i really love how this turned out, and i think it's an awesome pattern to use when you have a focal fabric that you really love and want to emphasize.





this quilt has a nylony type fabric, but very soft, not slippery, and the solid is a brushed cotton. the plaid matched the backing fleece so perfectly that i had to use it. i like the diamond design of the patchwork - it's based on a much smaller scale quilt pattern, but it really pops on the large scale. i cut 12.5" squares, and after the half square triangles were sewn and pressed, i trimmed them down to 11.5".





so that's 3 quilts.... and then right before the deadline, i found out that someone else was making the parents a quilt, which left one family member without a quilt... so i made a quilt for the 19 year old as well!

this quilt is made with cottons, and again, the patchwork is a larger scale design based on a smaller scale quilts. i love the zigzag.