Ohio State Quilt

A good friend of mine asked me to make a baby quilt for a baby shower that she was attending May 1st. She told me that they were having a little boy and decorating his nursery in red, black and gray for Ohio State.  She gave me free reign on the design and here is what I came up with:

The back

Close ups of the quilting

Thanks to my helper Jared....there is always either a child or animal in the way when I take photos inside :)

With all of the rain lately I haven't been able to take too many photos outside!

 

I hope they like their quilt and I can't wait to see a picture of it with a cute little baby on top!



More quilts and my cutie!

I wanted to share two more quilts that I've been working on.  The first on was a quilt I made for a craft fair back in November.  It was a simple quilt so I decided to do a lot of fun quilting on it! I'm pretty sure it took me longer to quilt it than piece it!

 

close up of quilting

 

backing

 

The second quilt was very special for me to make.  My husband's best friend's Aunt (still with me?) was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  I'm on the board with MD Anderson quilt auction and we raise money/auction quilts for women's cancer research.  Until now, it never touched me so close to home!  She's started her treatments and during those two hour treatments at the hospital she gets cold.  What better way to stay warm than a new quilt!  I whipped this one up for her and gave it to her last weekend! We love you P, and continually pray for you everyday; your strength is inspiring!

 

close up of the quilting

 

backing

 

On a brighter note, my not so little boy turned one last month!!! I can't believe how much he's changed since those first photos of him!  Top photo he was 5 days old and bottom photo he was one year old!

 

Happy Monday, and have a great week!

brother quilts!

Back in August 2011,  a good friend of mine asked me to make a quilt for her cousin who was having a little boy.  She told me the colors where lime green and bright blues with an animal theme.  This is what I came up with for Ezekiel William:

 

Now skip to January 2013 and she asked me to make a new quilt with the same colors and theme for that little boy's new baby brother!  How fun! Here is what I came up with for Elijah Wayne:

 

What do ya'll think, do they look like quilts for brothers?  I love how they turned out and had tons of fun making them!!

 

Oh yes, and if the mother of these boys reads this, I wouldn't mind a cute photo emailed to me of the cute boys and their quilts ;) wink wink!



 

Hope ya'll have a great Friday!

Quilt, Birds and a Nursing Cover

I've been pretty busy around here with Memorial Weekend, Father's Day, and a bunch of projects I'm working on! 
First up, a local high school girl contacted me and asked if I would quilt her first quilt.  I was so excited for her and said of course!  She brought me her quilt and I was so amazed that she did a log cabin quilt and that it's a long twin sized quilt.  She made it over the course of this past school year as part of her home ec class, how awesome is that?!?!  That's so exciting to hear that home ec is still happening and that she chose to do a quilt!! Emily, you're awesome!  Hopefully she'll read this so if she does leave her a comment telling her how AWESOME her first quilt is!!!

While I was outside taking photos of Emily's quilt, I noticed baby sparrows poking their heads out of their bird house!! They are so cute and I was able to get a couple shots of them before they hid back inside!

And last but not least, my mom made me a nursing cover that you can see HERE back when Jared was born.  My sister-in-law Rachel liked it so much that she asked if I would make her one for their upcoming trip to California. Rachel picked this pretty batik fabric for it and I think it turned out great; hope you like it Rachel!

 Let me just say, for those of you who nurse or are going to nurse your children, nursing covers are a MUST!  Especially now that Jared is older and grabs EVERYTHING, the nursing cover is great because even if he grabs it he can't pull it off with the strap around my neck!  I highly recommend getting/making one if you plan to nurse your children!  ***It also makes a great gift for a baby shower*** If you want to make one for yourself or a friend, I used this tutorial and it worked great!



Cathedral Windows Turtle Stuffed Animal

Cathedral Windows Turtle Stuffed Animal or Large Pincushion

Supplies:

1 FQ of solid fabric (used for 1- 18"solid square and head, tail, & feet pieces)

1- 9" inner peak-a-boo square

2-7" window squares

1-18" backing square

stuffing

Coordinating thread

Hand sewing needle

Directions:

Follow the Cathedral Windows Basics Tutorial HERE  including the sewing embellishment (peak-a-boo) using the size requirements listed below:
*Size Requirements for Cathedral Windows Turtle:
18"solid square
7 " window square
9" inner square
You will only need one folded square.

Assembling the Turtle:

1.  Cut 10 pieces for feet and tail and 2 pieces for head.

2. Take two pieces and with right sides together sew all the way around leaving the bottom open for stuffing.  Stuff. Repeat until you have one head, four feet and one tail.

3. Pin head, feet and tail in place.
 4. With backing square and CW square (with head, feet and tail pinned in place) right sides together (RST) sew all the way around the squares leaving about a 2" opening for turning. 
5. Trim off corners being careful not to cut stitching.

6. Turn turtle right side out and stuff as desired. Hand sew the opening closed. Need help sewing your turtle closed? Check out my Mom's Ladder Stitch Video Tutorial over on her blog! It's a great, detailed tutorial and you won't see your stitches afterwards!

Now your Turtle is finished!  Enjoy

Don't forget to add photos to the Flickr Group or Link up below!!

300th post giveaway!

So I just realized that my last post was my 300th post and I have over 300 followers!  WOW, ya'll are awesome and thank you for following my blog!  Sorry it's been a lot slower around here since Jared has been born (and a little before).  I promise that I will start blogging more, especially now since my little man sleeps through the night and I feel like an actual human being again!

So in honor of my 300th post and over 300 of ya'll being my super rad followers, I thought I'd do a little giveaway!  What's up for grabs?  Your choice of a PDF version of one of our patterns!!!YEAH! Go HERE to check all of our patterns out!   Which one will you choose?

Baby Chains?

Baby Blocks?

Hello Baby?

Can you tell that I have baby on the brain?  The examples of patterns I picked all have baby in the name (hehe oops). We have more than just baby quilt patterns...check them out!

Anywho, how do you win? I'm having a really good day and Jared is napping so I will give ya'll a bunch of ways/chances to win! 

1. Leave a comment telling me what kind of tutorials you would be interested seeing on my blog.  I'm in the process of updating my blog and I've got a few tutorials in the works but I would love to know what ya'll want to see/learn!

2. Become a follower of my blog and let me know you do!

3. Follow SunFlower Quilts on facebook!

4. Follow my Mom's blog!

5. Join my Flickr Group

6. Join the NEW SunFlower Quilts Flickr Group

Okay that's six chances for ya'll to win! Make sure you leave a separate comment for each one and that I have a way to contact you if you win!  It's Spring Break at our house next week so I will leave this open until next Thursday!  I will announce a winner on Friday March 23rd after noon. Good luck!

Oh and because I just can't resist and it's March Madness here is a photo of Jared being really excited about basketball!

New Pattern!

Introducing our newest baby quilt, "Kitties 9 Lives"! The quilt is 50" square and has 9 appliqued Kittie blocks. Choose your favorite method of hand or machine applique. Kittie applique template is provided along with all instructions. Click here to order a PDF Download or paper version today!

Here is Jared on his quilt today at two months old! He is getting so big!

 

PDF Patterns!

Hey y'all!

I am so excited to share with you that all of SunFlower Quilts and SunFlower Seeds patterns are available in PDF form! That means for $5 you can purchase our patterns and a copy will be sent to your email for instant sewing fun! There is no shipping charge and the cost for a PDF pattern is only $5.00 each! That’s right a quilt pattern for only $5.00. You can save it on your computer to keep it safe and have it forever. We love this new way to purchase patterns because it is so easy and fast! Try ordering one today, you won’t be disappointed! Check them out!!  If you make something from one of our patterns, please add a photo to my Flickr Group, I'd LOVE to see it!

Click HERE to go directly to our PDF Patterns!

And since it's Rodeo time in Houston and I can't be there this year (insert super sad face here) I thought that the next best thing was a cute cowboy picture of Jared!! Enjoy!

Thank You!

HUGE SURPRISE AND THANK YOU!!

This past Saturday was my annual STLMQG meeting!  I love this guild, it's so much fun and everyone is awesome! If you live in the St. Louis area and love to quilt and sew, or you're interested in learning please come!  Find out all the info on the STLMQG Blog!

Anywho...there are 9 of us girls that go out to eat for lunch after every meeting and this month (which would have been last month if I wouldn't have given birth on the day of our meeting) they gave Jared a baby shower!  Which was probably more fun this month anyway because then he actually got to be there! How sweet is that? To my surprise, they gave Jared this AMAZING quilt!  I was soooo shocked! It is a double sided Swoon quilt and it's gorgeous!! Thank you so much Cara, Kristy, Mary Claire, Grace, Lynne, JuliAnn, Laura and Jessica, WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!

Look at how GREAT it looks in his nursery!  I can't stop looking at it!  Thanks so much, ya'll are beyond amazing and talented!



Jared's Dresser

So I found this dresser at a thrift store for like $15!  It looked a little scary, but I figured that for $15 I could totally fix it! Here is what is started out looking like!

Gross stains all over it.

Gold handles.

And here is what it ended up looking like after lots of sanding and painting!! My awesome hubby said I should paint the drawers different colors and I'm so glad I took is advice! Those gross gold handles....NO MORE...a little spray paint does wonders!

Here it is in all it's glory in Jared's room!! I'll post photos in the next day or so of Jared's entire nursery! I love his nursery so much and he seems to have fun it in too! Have a happy Monday!

Cuteness

Sometime this week I will update my blog with all of the sewing I did for Christmas and the month before Jared was born.  For now I will just share a couple photos!

Jared will be three weeks old tomorrow (WOW that went by fast) and I finally got back into my sewing room today! YEAH!! It felt so good to sew again, and I was very thankful that he likes being in there with me! I embroidered this for my mom right before he was born and I finally finished making the block and framing it today!  So I thought I'd take a photo with my cute little man in it!

I also thought that I would share a couple more photos of my little boy just because I can :)

Here he is sitting up during tummy time, he was a little over one week old here...this boy is super strong!



And here is Jared looking at how handsome he is in the mirror in his crib!  Love him!

Hope ya'll have a great weekend!