Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry # 1

My blogging mojo has been seriously lacking lately, so I thought I'd get it back into gear by entering the 2014 Spring Blogger's Quilt Festival. This is my first time entering, so I'm pretty excited!

Today's entry is in the Scrappy Quilts category:

I made this mustache quilt as a Christmas gift for my daughter, and it has definitely become her favorite quilt! (The template for the mustaches can be found HERE).

She loves blue and orange, so I had fun digging through my stash for some fun, modern prints in those colors. Most of the fabrics I used are by Anna Maria Horner, Joel Dewberry, and Denyse Schmidt.

Grey is one of my favorite neutrals (plus it holds up better to dirt than white!) so I used Kona medium grey to set off the mustaches (which are appliquéd by machine).

For the final touch, I added a minky backing so it's extra snuggly!

I had a chance to remake the quilt this year for an Etsy customer who had seen it on my blog, and it was just as much fun to make the second time around!

Head on over to Amy's Creative Side to see the other entries!

 

Mustache Quilt

Thank you to everyone for your lovely comments on my kids' Christmas quilts! As promised, here are some more details! For today's post, I'll focus on the mustache quilt:

My twelve year old daughter has been obsessed with mustaches this year, so I thought it would be fun to make her a quilt. I had planned to make my kids quilts as presents in 2011, but ran out of time, so I was determined to make it work in 2012! I originally purchased this pattern, which was really cute. However, when I actually sat down to work on it (December 23rd!) I couldn't decide what fabrics to use. I really wanted to use my daughter's favorite color combo of blue and orange, but it didn't seem to gel with the pattern. So, I went to the web for inspiration and found this tutorial by I'm A Ginger Monkey. I really loved the simplicity of the design, and the look of the mustaches in bright colors and bold prints. Since I was running low on time, and because I had some dark grey minky fabric for the backing that I wanted to tie in, I decided to appliqué the mustaches on a charcoal Kona cotton solid, and add in alternate fabric squares.

I started with some Anna Maria Horner Innocent Crush fabrics that I had been hoarding saving for something special. I dug through all of my fabric collections for additional blue and orange fabrics, adding in some Joel Dewberry (Heirloom), some Denyse Schmidt (Flea Market Fancy), and other Anna Maria Horner fabrics (Field Study and Loulouthi).

I was able to trace, cut and fuse all of the mustaches in the morning, and then I did a LOT of blanket stitch appliqué after my daughter went to bed that night. (The blocks were cut at 10 inches square, and the blocks were set in a 6 x 7 grid). By midnight, the top was put together.

I was able to do the quilting the next day on my Viking Mega Quilter (my daughter was banned from the sewing room!). I decided to be brave and use orange thread, which actually turned out to be a nice blend with both the prints and the grey. I also decided to quilt right through the mustaches, and I'm very happy with the overall look.

I used minky on the back, but I did include Warm and Natural batting, too. I wanted the quilt to be super warm and cuddly.

The recipient was very happy. She knew a quilt was in the works, but she was very surprised by the mustaches and favorite colors!

I'll blog about my son's quilt later this week!