I knew that!

Quarter Moon Bay for Doll Quilt Swap 4

Yay, my doll quilt arrived in Colorado, and I can finally post about it. My partner is Wendy of Wee Toes and Noggins. She was a great swap mama in a previous round of the doll quilt swap, and I was thrilled to make something for her.

Wendy’d posted that she loved a certain quilt called Half Moon Bay by Lynn of Craftstew, another DQS alum. Well, I happened to have a charm pack of the exact fabric (April Cornell’s Sonnet collection by Moda from a year or two back), and – AND! – also the pattern she used. It’s the cover quilt from last summer’s Quilts and More mag, a design by Monica of Happy Zombie.

I shared a couple of sneaky e-mails with my inspiration Lynn, who was tickled to be in on the secret and very encouraging of my half-scale version of her lovely quilt. I called mine “Quarter Moon Bay.” Get it?

It’s about 20″ square. I have a hard time with “random” placement of colors in quilts because I rearrange and rearrange and rearrange, so I sorted the colors into the corners and put the lighter cream patterns toward the middle of the quilt.

The back….ah, the back. It’s piece-y, and the label I intended as a main feature was almost my downfall. I made this groovy design and traced it onto fabric with a Pigma marker. Which ran in the wash. Oh. No. In retrospect, I think I didn’t prewash the cream fabric because, hey, who washes cream? So I was really marker-ing on the finish of the fabric, not on the fabric itself. After 3 washings, it’s much lighter, but still legible, so all’s well that ends well. It’s just a little broken in :o)

Anyway, Wendy loves the quilt and wrote me the nicest of thank you e-mails! Whew!

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And if you’ve read alllllll the way to the end of this, here’s a bonus. Some of you may know that I miscarried our first baby on Mother’s Day of this year. God is looking out for us because we’re expecting again. On Mother’s Day, 2009. Please send good baby vibes this way.

Green!

I wasn’t sure what to make for Lauren’s birthday, so I called her mom:

Me: Hi, Erin. What’s Lauren’s favorite animal?

Erin: Lauren? What’s your favorite animal?

Lauren: Green! [She’s going to be two years old]

Erin: No, what’s your favorite animal?

Lauren: AN-i-mal!

Erin: No, your favorite animal, like a duck, or cow, or chicken, or dog…

Lauren: Dog!

Erin: Definitely dog.

Me: Great! Does she have a favorite food?

Erin: What’s your favorite food, Lauren?

Lauren: Milk!

Well, dogs are much harder to draw than a glass of milk, so this is what I made:

milk dress front

It’s done in green seersucker (hmm…does that mean she can only wear it for another week until Labor Day?) and lined with white cotton. I bound the hem instead of sewing it because I like the look and! I hate to iron up hems. So fiddly!

The straps are fastened with snaps. I attached the bottom set first, but then the top edge flipped down, so I added another set above. They have an added and unintentional benefit of letting Lauren’s mom lengthen the straps, so theoretically she could wear it in the spring again. She’s a tiny thing!

Here’s a closeup of the glass of milk. I fused the applique and then added some of the binding as the straw, stitching stripes with perle cotton.

milk dress applique

The pattern is Simplicity #3662 (5 for $5 at Jo-Ann last week). I threw the fabric in the wash when I woke up this morning and cut the pieces out at about 9:00. It was only two pattern pieces, cut one each from fabric and lining, so it went together very quickly. The whole project was done by one, so I call that completed in plenty of time for the party this afternoon at 4:00. Last-minute Lisa strikes again.