Chloe's Cupcake Quilt

My niece Chloe was born right around when I became pregnant last year...and then we moved, and then I had my baby...and now Chloe is turning one so I am done with her quilt in time for her 1st birthday! To get inspiration for this, I called my sister in law and asked what Chloe liked. She said Chloe loved food. Well, I love cupcake prints. I think they are adorable. And so my design became life and I was able to get this sweet little number to my sweet little niece!Here's my baby girl on her cousin's quilt. Doesn't it just look soft and luscious? Almost good enough to eat, right? I used brown minky dot and a creamy white minky, with a pink soft swirl fabric that reminded me of swirling frosting. I found some darling prints to coordinate with the pink cupcake print that is the anchor fabric for the piece. Did I ever mention I like ruffles? Scratch that, LoVe ruffles! And a ruffle border was the perfect accent to this cute number. (Although the ruffle did take more time than I thought it would.) I am thrilled with how this project turned out, because from design conception to completion, it took one and a half weeks. I think that's a record for me!

Birdies in a Tree Whimsical Quilt

Ta da! Announcing my newest creation, a sweet strip quilt with whimsical applique birds in a tree. All a custom one-of-a-kind design for someone very dear to my heart, my sister. My sister is having her first baby, and I wanted her to have something to cherish from me. I showed her a few quilt ideas and she showed me a few of her favorites...and using the bird fabric I found as my inspiration springboard, this quilt was born.

I was very excited to use the whimsical tree. I love applique and the compilation seemed so exicting, that I neglected several other things so I could finish this to take to my sister last month! (We live four states away.)

While working on another quilt, I had a "happy accident," as my high school art teacher would say. I sewed some ribbon to the backside and it formed loops in and out of the quilting stitching. While I had to unpick that quilt, I gave me a fabulous idea to do a ribbon ruffle and ricrac around the applique tree boughs. I love how it turned out. 3-D things on quilts are so much fun! Here is a closeup of the sweet daddy bird flying home to his nest.I love the quilt's color combination of raspberry, dark chocolate, cream, and lime green. It's almost good enough to eat! I used soft raspberry-colored minkie fabric for the backing and stop border. I love minkie! I hope the baby will snuggle up in it and know it is a hug from her aunt.

I had a lot of fun quilting it, too. That's a very creative process for me as well. I quilted butterflies, spirals, trees, stripes, flowers, and puzzle patterns all over. And I am getting so much faster at quilting, too! It only took me two days to quilt this one.

You can see the quilting stitching details better here. Really, this sounds like I am bragging, but is it bad to love something you made so much?! I am already tossing ideas around in my head for my brother's baby-on-the-way...stay tuned for a new design in a couple of months!