sweetwater

To date, I think this is my favorite quilt. I made it for my son's birthday last year. It was also my first quilt using my new Brother PQ1500S. It took me about a month of weekends to complete it, including the quilting.

I love the colors. When I picked out the fabrics, I thought of circuity colors. My son is a fellow technology geek and likes the color black. I choose the green to compliment it. I really like the black with the words written on it. It's just random words in different languages. I found it at Joann Fabric.

I choose the pattern sweetwater listed in the quilt pattern book by Fons and Porter. The pattern was designed by Debbie Outlaw who works for Moda Fabric, and it was easy to follow along.

I always embroider the name of the person the quilt was meant for.

I completed the quilt well before his birthday and thought I would paint something to go with it.

So I choose a misty forest type of scene. Acrylics painting - Green and black. If you look close, you'll see slender man behind one of the trees. Also, is the heart of some poor animal hanging from a branch. Holly and Jason talked me into doing that.

I also had enough scraps left over so I made the little throw pillow to match. It's zippered so it can be removed and washed.

I think you can see the quilting here. I just did loops. The quilting alone took me about a weekend. It was fun doing free motion quilting for the first time. Getting used to the movement of the needle. I was able to do a Queen size quilt on my Brother with no trouble.

Happy 24th birthday son!

Elsa!

I believe I mentioned in previous posts that Aunt Dottie made doll clothes are most of us girls. With Christmas coming up, I was thinking about what to make my adorable nieces Abby and Avery for Christmas. They love, love, love Frozen and I thought ..... Frozen doll clothes. But first ... the doll.

So I got online and looked at reviews for 18" dolls. Of course, American Girl dolls are all the rage, but I didn't want to spend several hundred dollars on each doll. The reviews I saw lead me to hunt for Madame Alexander dolls. The Madame Alexander dolls are very close to the quality of the American Girl dolls. Going to the Madame Alexander official website showed these dolls sell for roughly $75.00 - still too expensive.

Amazon was my next stop and I found a couple of dolls, last year models selling for $30.00/each. Sold! I found a blonde and a red head doll and received them the next week.

Keeping in the spirit of Aunt Dottie, I wanted to make the dresses for the dolls. I began my research for what was already out there. There were a couple patterns you could download ranging from $5-$20. Hmmmmmm......... Or ....

I really wanted to make this pattern from scratch. I failed in my Olaf design, so I set out using an 18" doll pattern as a base. After several attempts with my muslin, I finally came up with this design.

I love the cape material - it is beautiful! I paid a pretty penny for it at Joann's. Holly did Elsa's hair - she's getting real good at french braids....

I wanted to also mention that my cousin Cindy recently sent me a barbie dress that Aunt Dottie had made for her.

I was so touched by that gesture. So thank you Cindy .... from the bottom of my heart. I will treasure it.

Next up! Anna .... the dress pattern is pretty much the same and the cape should be fairly easy.