Play Trains!

I would like to interrupt the normal quilting/sewing blog posts with some cuteness and trains! My 2 1/2 year old son, Jared LOVES to play trains!!!  Yesterday I decided to make some fun scenes for his wooden train tracks to make them even more fun!  I didn't glue the track pieces to the cardboard because I wanted to reuse them if needed. With his help this is what we came up with.  I left him help with a lot except of course the hot glue gun!  He painted, put glitter on the wet paint, put stickers and animals in their places, etc...

If you want to make your own, here is what you need:

Cardboard Boxes (I got mine from Aldi's but you could also get some at Sam's Club)

Paint

Hot Glue

Paint Brushes

Craft Supplies

Craft Supplies we used: pipe cleaners, foam stickers, glass rocks, rocks, fake leaves and plants, sticks from our yard, glitter, poms, etc…

I traced the wooden track pieces on the cardboard before I did anything to the cardboard.  That way I knew where the tracks were going and left enough room for them.

The Scenes:

A zoo! 

There are LOTS of different animals in our zoo and Jared had fun picking out all of the animals. We painted different sections to make it seem like a real zoo.  I hot glued fake leaves and plants all around as well as real sand in the wet paint by the water. Jared had fun putting all the stickers around the zoo.

 My favorite might be the monkeys hanging from the stick.

Next we have an Ocean! We put glitter in the wet paint to make the water sparkle, as well as real sand in the beach area.  I hot glued some real sea shells that we collected at Galveston Island last summer! 

Look at the cute shells!!

The farm!  I painted a barn, pond and plenty of pasture. 

Jared added lots of cow, horse, pig and chicken foam stickers all around the farm.

Lastly, we have a Dr. Seuss/colors & shapes land.  I had some flash cards from the dollar bin at Target so we decided to use those for this one.

We used LOTS of brightly colored paint, poms and pipe cleaners.

Another shot of the set up.  Daddy got in on the fun too and built Jared this awesome track with the boxes!  

I'd love to see your boxes if you make one and have fun!!! Great summer activity with the kiddos!

Granny Square Quilt

I finished quilting this Granny Square quilt this week and I'm in LOVE with it! My mom pieced this quilt probably a year ago when the Granny Square Quilt Along was happening.  Google Granny Square quilt and you can find all sorts of different tutorials.  I wanted to share some photos of the quilt and all of the quilting I did.  I chose to FMQ very densely and create all sorts of texture. 

I love that she did a pieced border on this quilt, it ties in the quilt beautifully!!

I quilted straight lines in between the granny square blocks to create a secondary pattern.

I quilted flower petals inside of the granny square blocks.

I quilted tear drop shapes to fill in everything in between.

I just love how this turned out and how bright and cheery it is! Hopefully it will bring some warmth throughout the country with ALL of this cold weather everyone is having!!!

If you're interested in my quilting services, feel free to email me at Jamie@sunflower-quilts.com

Robyn's Quilt

Here are a bunch of photos of a quilt I quilted for Robyn.  She sent me this lovely top and told me to go for it.  I love this pattern and it left a lot of room for creative quilting.  I quilted feathers in the border and loops in the inner border. On the insides I did three different designs.  What do ya'll think? I LOVE how this turned out!

If you're interested in my quilting services feel free to email me at Jamie@sunflower-quilts.com! Have a great weekend!

RJR Quilt

RJR Fabrics contacted us to design a new quilt using a new line coming soon by JacquelineDecker called "Purrfect Notions".  My mom designed and pieced the top and I quilted it.  I quilted a large all over feather motif and absolutely LOVE how it turned out!! I  

love a good feather and it was fun quilting this!

If you are interested in my quilting services, please contact me at jamie@sunflower-quilts.com and also follow me @jamiemueller0522 on Instagram

Meet Lucie, our niece!

Our newest niece Lucie was born January 15th (one day after Jared's 2nd bday). Between Christmas, and Jared's birthday I almost forgot to finish this quilt!  If you remember I made the top back in October and I just needed to quilt it. I got it finished and Miss Lucie was born a few days later!! Here are pictures of the quilt and the sweet girl.  I longarm FMQ flowers all over it and I love the texture it created!

I know she is crying, but I love this picture!! She is just so cute!!

Welcome to our family Lucie, we love you!

Christmas Quilts

I promised that I would blog about some quilts that I've recently done.

The two quilts I'm going to share today were quilts I made 100% for two different people for Christmas.  They both came to me with quilt ideas for their spouses for Christmas and I couldn't be more please with how they turned out!

The first one is for a couple at my church who also happens to be my sister-in-laws grandparents.  If I lost you, long story short, my husband's younger sister is adopted and her grandparents go to our church. Grandpa asked me to make a quilt for Grandma with all of the grandkids names and birthdays on it.  I have free reign over the entire thing.  Her favorite colors are red and purple so I went with it.  I embroidered all of the names inside of the stars and I just love how bright and cheery it is! This was the first actual quilt that I quilted on my new longarm. I stuck with a simple all over pattern since the quilt had a lot going on itself. 

The second quilt is a Cardinals baseball quilt I made 100% for my friend Marilyn's husband.  Marilyn's husband is the Dean of Education at the college I graduated from and Marilyn was a counselor whom I because close with!  Their daughter also teaches with my husband, so I love this family!  She told me that her husband loves the Cardinals and that they were redoing their guest room in a Cardinals theme! PERFECT!  I did an all over swirl with a little extra at the top to resemble a cardinal bird's head. Here is what I came up with:

If you're interested in my longarm quilting services please email me at jamie@sunflower-quilts.com 

and make sure you follow me on Instagram; jamiemueller0522

Customer Quilting

WOW, it's been too long since I've blogged!!! I am going to try and do better, but I am constantly posting on Instagram and Facebook, so find me on there!

INSTAGRAM: jamiemueller0522

FACEBOOK: Sunflower Quilts 

My newest news is that in December I bought a longarm!!! I am so excited to begin this journey! I've been quilting on my domestic machine for years and feel as though I've been able to master FMQ on it. It was getting harder to quilt big quilts and didn't allow me to quilt them effectively and timely.  I spoke with my husband and he agreed that the longarm was the way to go! WOO HOO (that was the hardest part).  I was talking with my good friend Angela, and she joked that I should buy her old machine since she got a fancy new one.  One month later I'm driving across the state in a UHaul to pick up her machine!  

Angela and I, her first machine is now my first machine! 

Here she is all set up in my sewing room! In case ya'll are wondering, it's a Gammill Premier.

I have been quilting like CRAZY since I set her up!  Between the old shop and my mother and I, we had a lot of quilt tops laying around for me to practice on! 

I thought I'd show you some photos of a few quilts I've quilted for customers.  The first two quilts are quilts that I made 100% for customer gifts for Christmas, I will post more photos of these later in a new post, but I'll show you the quilting for now.

Next, this is a quilt I quilted for RJR Fabrics, my mother designed and pieced it and then I quilted it. I'll also do a new post for this quilt with more photos later this week!

Finally, for now, I just finished quilting this quilt for Robyn. Again, I'll post later this week about Robyn's gorgeous quilt with more photos.

Like I said before, make sure you follow me on Instagram because I post daily on there and I'm always sharing what I'm working on!

If you're interested in my quilting services, please email me at jamie@sunflower-quilts.com

Ovarian Cancer Online Quilt Auction

The online auction starts in less than a week!!! Its time to start the countdown! 6 days and counting! In the meantime-------------------

PLEASE VOTE for your favorite Cherrywood quilt at http://on.fb.me/1fCSTqJ 

Cherrywood Hand-Dyed Fabric donated 24 packets of fat eighths from their "Minnesota Bundle", which includes colors from lake blue to forest green to golden brown to barn red.

We invited 24 fiber artists to design and create a quilt specifically for the MD Anderson Ovarian Cancer Quilt Project. It's been amazing to see what beautiful, unique quilts were created from the same packet. Thank you to all of our quilters.

Giveaway winner!

Oops, I totally forgot to pick a winner of the Grandmas Lawn Chair pattern!! I asked my hubby to pick a number and he picked 17, so Cecilia is our winner! I've already emailed you a copy of the pattern! Thanks to everyone for stopping by!