Baby Lily Family Quilt

My cousin, Earl, and his wife, Rebecca, found out just before their first anniversary that they were pregnant. Well, in June or July (sorry don't remember which), Rebecca gave birth to Baby Lily. I had been planning on just making a regular quilt to send down to them. Well, my Aunt Naomi thought that I should have each family member sign a block and put them all into a quilt. I thought it was a great idea! So I sent squares out to everyone in our family from NY to SC and they all sent them back in so they could be sewn together. Earl and Rebecca really enjoyed the quilt and I'm hoping to get a picture of Lily and her quilt.

The pattern is Around the World and each square is about 8". There are 24 blocks that have a personal message written to the baby on them. Some people used markers, puffy paint, sewing of their own and iron-on pictures.

Sushi Time!

So my husband and I LOVE sushi! And it was getting close to Valentine's Day and I needed to find him a present that wouldn't be too expensive. (Expensive presents are saved for more important dates.)

I had found this material and knew it would be perfect. The squares are about 5" a piece. I forget what the pattern is called now but I thought it looked really nice. In fact, I think I'm going to do that for a quilt that I have to make now. It's about a twin or full size quilt so it fits nicely on our bed (yes, we desperately need a bigger bed lol) or on our couch to wrap up in.

Nursery Rhyme Roads

I made this quilt for Stacy, Justin's cousin. She is expecting her first child with her husband Jim. In fact, she's due any day now and we're all anxiously awaiting to see if she will have a son or a daughter. :-)

My mother-in-law (Robin) suggested that I make a quilt for the baby shower they were throwing for her. I went with Robin as she picked out all of the fabrics. The squares were about 4"-5". Then I cute the primary colors (and green) into triangles and sewed them all together in a diagnol pattern. The light brown ties into the road that the nursery rhyme characters travel upon.

(Sorry that it's turned but you can still get the idea.)

Travis' Quilt

This is the fourth quilt that I did for my aunt. My cousin Travis got married to Leah in May and so my aunt wanted to give them a quilt for their anniversary as well. Travis is involved in the Westfield Fire Dept. so once again, I used the firefighter print that I had used for my dad's present as well as for his sister, Kimmy. It's a queen size, like the rest. I believe that I used a black binding and black backing for it. If the backing wasn't black then it was red at least. The pattern is an Around the World one.

Kimmy's Quilt

I believe this quilt went to my cousin Kimmy and her husband Clyde. Kimmy's mom wanted me to make quilts for her four children. Kimmy is having her first anniversary at the end of May and my aunt thought a firefighting quilt would be a nice fit. Kimmy is involved with the Westfield Dept. (along with her husband?) so we put on a firefighting print that I had used for my dad in his Christmas present. I came up with this floating block pattern. It was the first time I had ever done this pattern and I'm thinking that I may not do it again unless requested.

Steven's Quilt

My aunt wanted me to make a quilt for each of her children. Her youngest is in college and had a love of horses. He's always been around them and now even has a couple of his own. It was easy to pick out which print we would use. I found a maroon one with mostly tan horses, surrounded by ropes. I used a tan, black and maroon color to put it together. Justin came up with this Mountain Range pattern that we decided to use. I used a black binding and backing to use around the quilt.

Jayne's Quilt

I sent out a Christmas letter this past year and mentioned how I had been working on making quilts for a year. My aunt asked me to make four quilts ~ one for each of her children. She had an idea for each child, except for her youngest daughter. Well, we had our family Christmas and low and behold, my cousin (the one we had no idea about) asked if she could buy a quilt from me! She told me everything she wanted! I had to keep it a secret that her mom was going to buy it for her. She tried to send me a pic of her and her husbands' bedroom but it never went through. Her mom gave it to her this past weekend and she loved it!

Princess Dreams

I Love this quilt! I made this with one of the girls at the preschool in my mind. She's an absolute princess and what does a princess need to curl up with at night? A sparkly princess blanket of course!

This is done in a diagnol pattern with purple and pink squares. Each purple square has one of four Disney princesses on it (Cinderella, Belle, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty). There are also light purple swirls throughout the background. The pink squares are plain except for the small white magic stars on it. Both pink and purple, along with the princesses, have a pronounced shine to them when viewing them. The cost is about $70*. If you're interested then please let me know.

This is not a completed quilt as of yet. This is only the top. I still need to put a back and binding on it. However, if you want it then it can quickly be put together.

*Prices are subject to change without written notice on this page.

Jungle Fever

Rawr! That's right. It's Jungle Fever Baby! This is another one that I'm selling. The design is called a Novelty Block. It's really fun to do this kind. Anyway, the four patterns are a zebra, cheetah, leopard and tiger. The four corners are done in the zebra print. I think that print is my favorite since it really sets the oranges off. I did this in alternating rows going down. The binding is black and so is the backing. This one is selling for around $55-60*. If you're interested in this then please let me know.

*Prices are subject to change without written notice on this page.

The Glory of the 4th

This is one of the ones that I have made to sell. I really wanted to do it since I think that our American soldiers are some of our greatest heros. They are fighting whether they agree with the war or not and I respect that. Many men of my family have either fought overseas or at least has been involved in the military overseas.

So anyway, this is obviously done with red, white and blue colors. It is set in a diagnol pattern. The blue has small white stars and tiny red circles on it. There is a blue border that sets this piece. A red backing and a white binding sets off the patriotic flair. The cost for this is around $75*. If you're interested in it, please don't hesitate to ask.

*Price is subject to change without written notice on this page.

Dee's Baby Quilt

Dee liked my wallhanging so much that she wanted to order a baby quilt. It was for her niece or something like that. She was having a baby shower and Dee wanted to surprise her with a quilt. Instead of the light baby colors, Dee likes the darker colors and in the end they looked really nice. The only thing that Dee said as far as the design is that the room theme was done in teddy bears so I found a maroon color with lots of brown bears. Then I cut the other colors into rectangles and placed them around the 9 bigger squares. It was the first time I had done one with the rectangles and I really like how it turned out. I also had it embroidered with the baby's name and the light blue on the dark blue center really made it pop out.

Grandma's Picture Quilt

(Sorry, don't know why it's on its side like this. I'll try to fix it but at least this gives you an idea.)

This is my favorite quilt that I've done so far. I made this for my Grandmother, the same one I gave the bird one to. Her husband died into their 11th or 12th year of marriage and she had to raise a small son and daughter on her own. As I've grown up I never saw too many pictures of Grandpa. It wasn't that she didn't love him or was too hurt to see his picture. I just think that she never really had a lot taken and since he passed on so early there wasn't the chance. (Maybe subconsciously that's why I take so many pictures?) I felt really bad for her so I decided to get some of her old pictures and put them into a quilt.

This was the first time that I had made a memory quilt. I used special paper/fabric that could be used to print out pics from the computer right onto the fabric. The pictures at the top were: in her graduation gown with her brother, a large pic of grandpa, them at their wedding, them cutting their cake, walking with my dad, my dad and aunt as a toddler and baby and the kids a little later in life (maybe around when grandpa passed on?). The pictures at the bottom are more recent: working with me on my first quilt, my whole family at the wedding, my grandma and I at my wedding, a family picture taken at Christmas, the two of us at the 4th of July party, one of her at the party and then the picture here is of her holding a rose, but I changed it with one of my aunt and her children. The fabric I used all came from pieces that Grandma had given tno me. I also had her full name embroidered in the very center to separate the timelines.

This was the last gift I gave on Christmas day. It brought tears to her eyes as her blue eyes scanned over the pictures from long ago. Tears filled them and she began to cry. It was probably the most emotional and wonderful moment I ever shared with her and I will cherish it forever.

Dad's Christmas Quilt

My dad has been a part of the Middlebury Fire Dept for over 25 years and for that I'm very proud of him. In fact, I'm also proud of his father as well seeing that he and his brother-in-law started the deptartment. In honor of my father, for Christmas I decided to make him a fireman's quilt. The pattern is called "Irish Eyes" although I'm not really sure why, but oh well...it's pretty none the less. I used a black piece of fabric with a fireman design mixed with two different shades of red to give a nice contrast. He was very impresed with it and uses it to sleep with every night now.

Dee's Wallhanging

I work with a woman named Dee. Her boyfriend's son has a girlfriend and so for Christmas, Dee thought she would get the girl something. Dee decided to have me make her (Haley) a wallhanging and since Haley loves frogs that's where I started. I had seen pink fabric with frogs on it that i thought was cute so that's where it started. It ended up being a pastel colored, fun wallhanging with her name embroidered in the center of it. I made fabric hooks and found a wooden dowel to place through it.

Rachel's Steelers Quilt

Rachel at Pizza Hut had already ordered a pink and orange quilt from me that actually looked really pretty. She liked it so much that she decided to order another quilt for her boyfriend. He was out in California and his favorite team is the Pittsburgh Steelers (who also won the Super Bowl this year!) so it was obvious what she was going to choose. I did an "Around the World" pattern again and placed a Steelers pattern in the center of the world.

A Hawaiian Baby

Justin's dad was in the army while Justin was growing up. This caused the family to move from Georgia, Virginia, Germany and Hawaii. While they were in Hawaii they became friends with a musician named Willie K. I guess he and his wife had a new baby the last year and Robin (Justin's mom) wanted to send them a quilt. She picked out all of the fabric and had me make it to send. This was the farthest that I have ever sent a quilt. It's kind of fun to think that something I made is now in Hawaii. This last picture is a picture of the back which we used just a piece of material without cutting it or anything.

Rachel's Quilt

Justin, my husband, works with a girl named Rachel. She was interested in buying a quilt but all of the ones around here were way too expensive for her so she asked Justin if I could do it. I was excited that it was my very first quilt that I was going to sell. I was excited that was until I heard her colors ~ pink and orange. What?! Um, yeah, that didn't sound as pretty as I would hope for, but I agreed to do it and hey, it wasn't going to end up on my bed so what's it matter, right? Well, I went looking for the fabric and found a great maroonish color with bright pink flowers on it and it all began. Finally, I finished with the garish quilt and came to a realization. I discovered that I actually loved the look of it! In fact, today I have a large portion of it as my computer wallpaper and I even was able to track down the flowered fabric and bought it for myself in hopes of one day having my own pink and orange quilt on my own bed!

Stacy and Jim Wedding

April/May of 2008 was the month of weddings. You see, my little, Kelsey, got married in April. Then at the end of May Justin's cousin, Stacy, got married to a man named Jim. I figured that the two of them might like a small quilt to put on the back of their couch or chairs or something. Their wedding colors were a wine and pink which looked really nice at their event.

Kelsey and Dane Wedding

In college I was in a Christian group/sorority called Kappa Phi Alpha Zeta. In the group each girl gets what is known as a "little sister." This is basically where the girls of the group each get to have a new girl who has decided to join the group. The older girl then becomes like a mentor to the new girl. Well, I was pledge mom and got to pick my own little ~ Kelsey. (And she's the best one ever! lol) In April of 2008, she got married to her fiance, Dane. Her favorite color is purple so when it was coming to pick out the perfect present it was easy for me to see that I was going to make the happy couple a purple and white quilt. To add a special touch, I took it up to an embroidery shop in Painted Post (yeah, that was an experience) and got their names embroidered in the middle of the "Around the World" pattern. I think they really liked it :-)

Stepping Stones Preschool

I did this for the place where I work. I'm a preschool teacher at Stepping Stones Preschool in Mansfield. Anyway, we were working on the letter "Q" and thought it would be neat to have the children put their handprints in paint and then sew them all together. Each of our five teachers did it as well. You can see that at the bottom I wrote the name of the school. I have since added a picture I drew of a small schoolhouse. We didn't do it this year but I think it would've been a lot of fun if we had.

Picture from previous post

So this is the quilt that I made for my grandma for her 89th birthday. It was the first "big" quilt I had made and as you can tell not all of my blocks were as straight as they should have been haha. But of course, Grandma LOVED it and cried because we all know that grandmas love anything their grandchild does. That's the power of a grandmothers love :-D Anyway, I couldn't figure out how to go back and post the picture with it so here it is.

Grandma B.

So I really need to get a picture of this. I guess you'll just have to go by my descriptions.

It was a large lap quilt. It was a diagnol pattern with white squares and blue squares with a lot of different kinds of birds on it. There was a white binding with a blue backing. It was an early birthday present for her.

I chose birds because my grandmother loves looking outside the window to see her birds. Most mornings, especially during the winter, she will take out the birdseed and then set on the front porch watching them come and go. When we were little she would tell us of the bird, Jenny Ren, who lived in the backyard in the house by the train tracks. And now, each spring, she sets and anxiously awaits the bluebird that lands in the tree outside of her window.

Kristina B.

This is yet another baby blanket but I had to start somewhere ya know? This pattern, with the cross in the center, is known as Around the World. This has light purple complimenting a yellow gingham. There is a purple border and backing with a bright yellow binding connecting the two sides.

This was for friends of ours. Eric and Melissa B. were friends with Justin before I even knew him. When we got married, they were our photographer and videographer. Melissa was dead set against pink (as quite a few of my friends seem to be) so the entire room was done in purple. Hhhmmm, we should go see them sometime...

Sheena C.

I made this quilt for Sheena C. It is a picture taken before I sewed any of the pieces together. I was just seeing how the finished product would look. The heart is done in a Southwest Indian pattern surrounded in a sea of turquoise. There is a black border with purple squares at each corner. I put a black binding around and also a black backing to tie it all together. This is small enough that it could be used as a wallhanging or as a decor piece to be placed upon the back of a chair or couch .

Sheena was another one of my pledge sisters in Kappa back in 04! Wow, I can't believe it's been so long! Sheena was an education major and for her student teaching she packed her bags and headed out west to a Navajo reservation in Arizonia. Finally she came home to the woods of PA letting us all know that she would be heading back out for a full-time teaching position once she graduated. So as a going away present, I gave this quilt to her at our last Chinese date. The pattern on the heart is there for obvious reasons. The purple squares, which I know kinda clash, are more for sentimental reasons. They came off of a float that we did for Kappa when I was up for homecoming queen (the last year we were in it together). I know they don't go but I wanted to give her a heart of her future with a few little reminders of her past.

Rebekah G.

This was the first quilt that I ever made. It was for 1 1/2 year old Rebekah G. I was in Kappa Phi with her mom, Andrea, and in the different plays in college with her dad, Andrew. You can see writing in the corners. The left side says "Kappa Phi" and the right side says "Littlest Rosebud." The binding was white with a pink backing.

I wanted to do it for them because I've always really enjoyed what time I had with these two friends. Then they moved up to NY so I really don't get to see them anymore but I do wish that I could. Andrew was so much help in all of the plays and drama group. He's was always so helpful. And then there's Andrea. She's so awesome! I was lucky enough to have her not only as a sister but even more importantly as a pledge sister! That's right, we went through it all together. Even though we don't really get to hang out anymore I feel so blessed that I got to cross paths with these wonderful people and even better parents.

Sleepy Time Quilts

Welcome to my new blog! I found out today that I am now an official businesswoman who owns the quilting business called Sleepy Time Quilts. Since I love to write, I figured that this would be a fun way to keep track of my quilts. Let me tell you a little about me and this new venture.

My grandma has always made quilts for as long as I can remember. I've always enjoyed cuddling up in the blankets that she would make for me. She put up 4 long pieces of wood as her frame in the livingroom, having before moved the table out. My sister and I would have to crawl on our hands and knees across the tan carpet to go from one part of the house to another. It was like one giant fort! And even at that early of an age, we were helping out. When she did the tying off (the way I do mine as well), she would put the needle down through the fabric and we were anxiously awaiting to take it and push it back up through. It was always fun dodging the tiny needle.

When I was high school I decided I wanted to try it for myself. Needless to say, I did not have the patience, or the talent, for this and quickly gave up though my grandma did her best with me.

Then last year I was thinking how much fun it would be to make my own creations. My mother-in-law, Robin, gave me a sewing machine for Christmas and it all started. My mom has also been a huge inspiration as my grandma has. She's always there to help and does her best not to break my machine lol. How the whole process goes is that I create the top of the quilt and take it to mom. She then puts the batting and binding on. Grandma helps when she can but at 89 there's only so much she can do. At least I've made her proud though and that's really important to me.

As of right now, I have made about 20 quilts. Now these are tied instead of quilted so it is a bit different and a quicker way to do it. I also have about 16 quilts ordered/gifted so I'm definately busy but can always take more! The purpose of this blog will be to tell the story of each quilt that I make and who I make it for. I'm really excited for this new part of my life and am excited to share it with all of you!