Quilty

This is a project that was finished at the end of June, but I've just now gotten the pictures. I realized lately that a lot of my crafty endeavors of late have involved these nephews of mine. I don't know what to say - people having babies brings out my crafty side, I guess. Anyways, Auntie and I planned these quilts for Robbie and Charlie months before they were born as a way to get more practice on the long arm quilting machine. We were sailing right along, planning to get the quilts finished long before the twins' due date. Obviously they had other plans. We *did* finish and present the quilts per the original target, however. I believe we made it out to see the kids within a few days of the original due date.

Auntie made Charlie's quilt. Her reasoning behind that was because Charlie is named after her father. And my father. But who's counting?

I made Robbie's quilt because he's named after, uh, my brother. We devised the pattern first, then found the turquoise fabric in Auntie's stash. It's a batik with little baby footprints all over it, and we figured it was pretty perfect for this. We kind of realized halfway through the planning that it would be neat to reverse the colors of the sashing and borders to make the quilts alike-but-different. We were going to keep the turquoise and yellow squares in the same pattern but we couldn't quite squeeze another block out of the turquoise fabric, so necessity made us change up the colors there, too.

The babies seem to like their quilts...I was over there the other weekend and one was laid out and both kids were laying on it, gurgling away.

That's my Auntie's beautiful yard and garden in the background, BTW. She works really hard on it and it really is as lush as it looks.

And now...for some shirts!

Bobbi called me the other day because she couldn't stop laughing...about something that happened like 5 years ago. We were playing CatchPhrase in her bedroom and something funny happened...and I fell backwards right off the bed!

I made some shirts and onesies for the nieces and nephews...here are a matching pair that I did with iron-on inkjet transfers. Notice the 1337-ness of these!


The rest I did with freezer paper stencils. Which are, to say the least, the shit. I had good luck finding images on stock photo sites to base my designs off of. While this takes some skill with an x-acto knife, the designs come out crisp, clear, and soft (if you use fabric paint, which I highly recommend.)

I washed all the shirts inside-out in cold water and nothing came off. The best part? Rob and Ally seemed to like everything a lot.



I made the four kids a coordinating set of shirts. Dorky, but cute...


I'm currently working on my portion of the twins' baby quilts, a surprise quilt for an ADL member, and designing a birth announcement. Uh, and studying for the GMAT. And trying to find a house with Jeremy that we both want to buy. And, you know, working and stuff ;)

Gratuitous nephew pictures:
Robbie looks nearly identical to Rob did when he was a newborn...

Charlie chillaxin'...with a Grammie-knit blanket!

Here you can really see the differences and similarities in their features. Also: holy cow, there are two of them!

As an aside, I seem to have lost my break-the-baby fear in the years since Brianna was born. Must've been from working at the Portrait Studio. I had absolutely no fear about scooping 'em up. Weird.