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Blogger’s Quilt Festival – Dr. Seuss Quilt

I am so excited to be participating in the Blogger’s Quilt Festival again this year. Twice a year Amy, from Amy’s Creative Side, hosts a quilt festival to coincide with Quilt Market. It’s a wonderfully fun way to see all sorts of quilts across the blogsphere.

Today I will be showing off one of my more popular quilts using Dr. Seuss fabrics, but first I wanted to remind everyone about the Virtual Sew Day I will be hosting this Sunday, May 20th. I hosted one last month as well and it was a lot of fun! I would love to see more people join us this time though. There are no rules!! We just post our goals for the day (you can do so on your blog or in the comments of my post on Sunday if you don’t have a blog), then check in every so often through out the day. It’s a great way to get some sewing done and have support while you are doing it! If you are interested, be sure to check back here on Sunday for my official post. You can follow my blog’s RSS by your own feed reader, or I have a way to follow by email on the right there. You can also sign up for my newsletter over there. This way you can get updates and be reminded to sew with us … virtually!

Okay so now on to my quilt …

This quilt was made for a pregnant co-worker/friend that was moving back to Australia. At the time we didn’t know the sex of the baby, so I decided to use my stash of Dr. Seuss fabrics to make her something special.

These Dr. Seuss fabrics were the first time I had bought every single fabric in a line. I have been in love with Dr. Seuss for a long, long time. In high school I actually joined one of those subscription book clubs just to start collecting Dr. Seuss books for my future children. I dragged them around with me for 4 years through college before that baby was born! So when I saw these fabrics, I knew I had to have them. They have made some wonderful quilts for me so far.

The backing is a dot fabric that I had intended for another project, but it fit so well for this quilt that I decided to abandon the other project. It was going to be a purse, but I probably never would have made it anyway. LOL

I did a simple meander on the quilt to tie everything together. I love the look of a good all over quilting design.

And I bound the quilt in the same grey that is used on the front. I think it really ties everything together and frames the whole quilt.

This is one of my most popular quilts on my site, and I am happy to say that my friend’s son is now old enough to be getting loads of tummy time on this quilt. Recently I turned this quilt design into a pattern, if you are interested in seeing that I have it available in my Craftsy shop or on Etsy.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I can’t wait to get more inspiration for Amy’s Quilt Festival!

Happy quilting!
Rachel

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Dr. Seuss Quilt Pattern Reviewers Needed

I have decided to take a foray into pattern writing and I was hoping I could get some help. I have made a pattern from my Dr. Seuss quilt:

This is my first attempt at pattern writing, so I would love it if someone could try it out to see if it makes sense. Even if you don’t have time to actually make the quilt, I would be happy even for a read through to make sure the wording makes sense and that there are no spelling errors. I am hoping to get some feedback within the next week as I would like to make this pattern for sale soon.

If you can help me, just leave me a comment here and I will email the pattern out to you. Or you can email me directly at athenagwis at hotmail dot com. I really appreciate any help I can get.

Update: I now have this pattern for sale! You can buy it in my Craftsy shop here or on Etsy.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Craft Buds Giveaway

Craft Buds is a wonderful website that has a lot of information for the business side of crafting. Many of us have thought about making our favorite hobbies into a viable business, Craft Buds is there to help us with that. I love reading their blog posts as they provide so much useful information.

Craft Buds is having a linky party on their site for the month of September. They are celebrating craft books.

Throughout the month, they will have loads of information on getting your own craft book out there for the public to see. They are also encouraging crafters to link up to their projects that they have made from craft books. If you do link up one of your projects, you will be entered to win one of many prizes.

Dewberry Lane has donated a prize, The Practical Guide to Patchwork.

This book is written by Elizabeth Hartman. I have been following Elizabeth’s blog for some time, and I am in love with all her patterns and this book.

To be entered for a chance to win this book, all you have to do is link up to a project you have made from any craft book. Just head on over to Craft Buds (here).

I am going to try and make a quilt top from Elizabeth’s book this month. I am going to be out of town for a week, so I am not sure if I will be able to complete the project before the end of the month, but we will see. I have picked the project and the fabrics I am going to be working on.

And I started cutting the strips of fabric I need.

I don’t have the second, lighter solid fabric that is needed for the pattern yet, but my plan is to make the blocks to the black borders, and then pick up the other fabric when I can. I will update the blog as I finish more steps!!

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Dr. Seuss Baby Quilt

I haven’t had a whole lot of time to work on personal projects lately, but recently I found out that a friend of mine was pregnant! Not only that, but she and her husband decided to quit their jobs and travel Europe for 2 months. Then they would be moving to New Zealand. She is from New Zealand, so I figured she would go back one day, but it was sad to see her go. I wanted to make her a little something before she left, so I decided a baby blanket would be fitting. Even though I still owe two very special people baby blankets, I was on a time crunch with her, so I whipped this one up in a day a few weekends ago.

I used my stash of Dr. Seuss fabrics, since the sex of the baby is still unknown. I figured Dr. Seuss is a pretty gender neutral theme.

The other fabrics in the quilt were what I had in my stash from other projects that never went anywhere. The grey on the front was supposed to be the backing to a quilt that will never get made. And the backing fabric is a lovely dot pattern. I had originally picked this fabric up to make a hand bag, but that project never panned out either. This piece of fabric was just the right fit for the quilt too. I didn’t have to seam it at all, which made the whole process so much quicker.

I meander quilted this on my longarm, and I think it turned out just lovely. I have always loved the look of a nice all over meander as it really ties everything together once the quilt is done. I really didn’t like the grey before quilting, but after, it just blends in so well.

I wasn’t sure what to do for the binding, so I decided to play it safe and went with the same grey I used in the top.

If you think you have seen this quilt before, it’s because I used the pictures of it as the example for my longarm quilting services, which you can read more about here. If you are interested in having one of your tops finished up this way, contact me about getting a 25% discount. Another bonus for getting the longarm services done with me, if you buy batting at the same time you will get a 10% discount on your batting. I can be reached at HappyQuilting at DewberryLane dot com.

I am very pleased with this little quilt, I even remembered to put a label on it!! That way all the New Zealanders will know that this quilt was handmade by someone in the US.

My friend seemed very pleased with the quilt, and I hope her new baby enjoys it as well. Now I must get my behind in gear and get to finishing up two more promised baby quilts.

Update: I now have this pattern for sale! You can buy it in my Craftsy shop here or on Etsy.

Happy Quilting!
Rachel

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Dr. Seuss Fabric

There have not been very many fabrics that I am so excited about, but the new Robert Kaufman line featuring Dr. Seuss characters has totally and utterly caught my fancy. The fabric will not ship until September, but it is on pre-order at Fabric.com. Here are a few designs:

I am not sure what kind of quilt I will make with this fabric yet, but I will probably make a lap quilt as that is my favorite size to make!

Happy Quilting!
Rachel