Custom Order Craziness!

I promised earlier this week that I would share some photos of recent custom orders.  It has been a crazy month of custom orders, and I'm still headed toward the finish line on the last few!  In the past month, I've actually booked a total of 15 orders, which is definitely a record for me!  Luckily, August is the perfect month to be overbooked, as I was able to get most of them done and shipped before school started this week. 

Three of the orders were for Central Park quilts.  This is one of my all-time favorite fabric collections, and I will absolutely admit to hoarding it! (By the way, next week, I'm going to do a series of posts on the top five fabric collections I love to hoard!)  The first order was for a Flying Geese lap quilt.  I did share some pics of this one on an earlier post, but here it is again:

I do often get requests to recreate quilts I have sold, and the only challenge is to source fabrics if the collection is out of print.  I was lucky to find a couple of online stores that still had a good selection (you can often find bits and pieces of an out-of-print fabric grouping here and there, but purchasing from multiple sources adds a lot of extra shipping and handling charges to the expense).  Although I already had some Central Park on hand (from previous hoarding!) I did buy a little extra, which turned out to be a good omen, since I received an order for 2 matching zig zag quilts shortly thereafter!

 

I wish I had thought to take a picture of both of these together so you could see the difference in size.  Although the layout is similiar, I scaled down the size of the zig zag pieces in the smaller version, so it really looks like a "mini" version.

By far, my most "popular" custom order request this month was for Patty Slongier's adorable line for Michael Miller called "Backyard Baby".  When I first saw this collection, I knew it would be a great one for boy quilts (always more difficult to find good fabric collections for boys). Even though I usually order new collections shortly after their release, I often don't get around to making the projects until much later!  However, this collection impressed me so much with its soft hand and adorable designs that I had to make one right away.  I sold the original quilt earlier this year, but when I listed it as a made to order version this summer, I ended up selling 5 custom quilts, all different sizes!  In total, I made close to 300 blocks to create those 5 quilts!

 

Speaking of great "boy" fabrics, I also had a request for a Riley Blake Wheels quilt.  This is one of those collections that makes me want to go back in time so I can purchase all the yardage I could have bought at clearance prices before it sold out!  My most popular pattern, Hip to Be Square, has a Wheels quilt shown as a sample in the listing, so I do get questions from time to time asking where to find it.  When I received a custom order request in August, I really wasn't sure I could accomodate it, because I had only a few pieces left, and didn't think I could find enough online.  After some searching, I did manage to accumulate a nice variety of some of the basics in the line (although several of the "anchor" prints in the collection are nowhere to be found).   Since I purchased from multiple sources, I picked up a few other fabrics at the same time to make the most of the shipping and handling, and when my packages started arrriving, I was surprised to see that some of my other choices just happened to coordinate with Wheels, such as Amy Butler's Sunspots from her Love collection, and one of the popular Pez fabrics from American Jane for Moda fabrics.  I happily included these in the quilt, and I love how it turned out.

Another long-out of print collection is Dandelion Girl by Fig Tree Quilts  I already had some of this on hand, and since I really wasn't able to find any signficant amounts online, I decided to cut into my stash(after all, I can't hoard everything, can I?)  For this custom quilt, I scaled down the block size of my newest pattern When the Stars Align to create a 3 foot square version.  I love the way the smaller blocks came out!  I have enough Dandelion Girl leftover to make a lap quilt, so I think its time to stop storing this collection -- I'll put it to good use!

 This weekend, I'm working on a few of the remaining custom orders to see if I can have them on their way to new homes by the end of the week!