BLOGGERS QUILT FESTIVAL--OLIVIA'S QUILT

Cutie pie Olivia on her quilt today!!

Oh, Gramma! Sure do love my quilt says little girlie girl!

This is Olivia's quilt and it's my entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival going on at Amy's Creative Side blog: http://amyscreativeside.com/2010/10/29/bloggers-quilt-festival-fall-2010/ (I know someone told me how to do that correctly, but can't for the life of me remember!!) It's a very vibrant quilt, but doesn't show up as well in this picture that was taken on a rather dreary day.

Olivia is my newest girlie girl (it was Seahawks game day) and was the inspiration for the quilt. Wendy at Ivory Spring (http://ivoryspring.wordpress.com/) had her Marabella quilt in the spring festival and I just loved it, so was ecstatic when Olivia was born and I had a super excuse to get the pattern. I fell in love with several quilts that featured owls during the spring festival also, and got a couple pink owlie fabrics to use in it.
About had a heart attack when hubby sent the picture of Starsky (grandpuppy) and his claws on the quilt! Like the picture of Olivia and Gavin enjoying the quilt together a lot better! Randy was visiting my son and family when the quilt arrived at their home in New York a couple months ago.

This is my first effort to really do free motion quilting and am happy with how it turned out. There are different kinds of things in each section...sort of meandering wiggles in the owlie triangles, outlining in the square owlie blocks and a different design around each of those--stars in one, words in another, etc. It's so far from perfect, but it was a lot of fun. The pattern was great to work on and came together quite easily. Last picture is my oldest girlie girl showing off the back of the quilt with lots of different fabrics in the "coins" that are from quilts made over the last year or so. I've posted about the quilt before and showed some of the process pictures that I could without showing too much before it got to Olivia. (just added the three photos on the top after ddil sent a bunch to me today)

Olivia's Marabella Quilt

Here's my littlest girlie girl, Olivia, wrapped in her quilt--cute little SeaGal!!. They're living in NY for four or five years.
My hubby took the pictures with Olivia, Adam and Gavin, while visiting them last week. My daughter, Diannalynn (DL) took the close up above and the ones on the deck. You're seeing mainly the back of the quilt in the first picture. It's a flannel with two coin strips of mostly fabrics from the quilt, but also a lot of fabrics that were used in the comfy quilts made for the rest of my family and/or fabrics much loved by me. Which means they have ladybugs and/or hearts on them, but also one with flamingoes for a little inside joke between hubby and I that I'll explain in a future post.

On the right is my son, Adam, with big brother Gavin and little Olivia in their SeaHawks shirts they all wear on game days. Go, Hawks!!

Quilt on the deck and quilt back shown by my eldest girlie girl, Sage with her cute new hair cut (she donated her long hair to locks of love) and her sparkly sneakers!!

So glad it's in NY--would like her family to be in WA, but that'll come to pass when daddy's finished his anesthesia residency in a couple more years. I had a lot of fun and angst making the quilt. The top was not the easiest thing in the world but the directions and inspiration were great. It's Marabella by Wendy at http://ivoryspring.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/marabella-in-the-quilter-july-2010/...go see her blog as it's got so much wonderful inspiration. Love this pattern a lot! The applique block was not my favorite to do, but happy with it...would use a brighter ribbon next time--the one I picked really doesn't show up in the picture with Olivia enjoying tummy time.

I'm very pleased with how this all finished up. My first official free motion quilt, so it's got some "interesting" places on it, but all-in-all very happy to have accomplished it. Good to stretch the old (OLD!!) gray cells. Quilting is like puzzling, which I love doing, only with quilting you have something fun and/or wonderful as a result.

Olivia's Quilt Is Done!

These are the last few inches of hand sewing the binding down. I did go over the binding with a serpentine stitch--want it to wash well! Still can't show the whole quilt--it has to be wrapped around my littlest girlie girl first. Waiting for DL to get here with her kiddos so they can see it before it flies off to their little cousin's home in New York. I'm so excited that it's done. Well...I still have to figure out what ribbons to sew on the applique blocks, but the hard work is done and what was once so daunting--the free motion quilting, is finished. Not the prettiest sight in the universe but ok with it. I finally got brave enough to try free motion quilting it from the info at A Few Scraps quilt along. (thanks to Joanne for telling me how to make that a hot link!!) Love how the label turned out, but just realized it was meant to be sewn on as a circle--oh, well!! It was the last thing done on my machine before it went in for a much needed spa treatment--the noises coming from it were startling, especially with the embroidery attachment! The right hand picture is one of what I call the owlie corners. Isn't that fabric just adorable? I have a charm pack of Love U and when I saw that fabric I knew I had to have it for this quilt.

I love how the fabric bunches up when it's washed and dried--used Warm and Natural for the batting and the backing fabric is a flannel. It and the binding fabric have ladybugs.

This is one of the fussy cut owlie blocks. It's got a weird perspective because picture was at my sewing machine and upside down!! Makes me a bit dizzy looking at it. I am in love with owlie fabrics--have them in several colors by several different designers...so cute!! And, of course, perfect for my cute, cute little granddaughter.