Lazy Sunday Giveaway!

I'm not being very lazy today...

I'm actually working my butt off cleaning and getting everything rearranged, but who cares?

It's time for Lazy Sunday Giveaway!

This week I'm giving away a quilt kit to one lucky commenter!

The kit will include:

*enough fabric squares from my stash to make a small quilt

(think baby size)

*coordinating backing fabric

*warm and natural batting

*coordinating thread

*fabric for scrappy binding

Awesome right?

This is perfect for those of you who want to try your hand at quilting for the first time

OR

for those who want somebody else to do all the work so you can just do the fun part!

There will be a 'girly' version:

or

a 'boy' version:

I know, colors aren't gender specific, don't yell at me.

It's just the easiest way to explain...

So, there will be ONE winner and they get to choose their color combo, gotcha?

Just leave a comment to win!

Oh, and if you blog about the giveaway, tweet about it, facebook it, or something like that

(including the link)

just leave an extra comment (w/the link) for another chance to win!

Make sense?

Ok, have fun!

*Happy Sunday*

(winner will be announced Wednesday)

Newest Completion...

I love this latest nursery set.

Love. Love. Love.

It kind of makes we want a little boy.

Kinda.

Let's see.

There's mostly Anna Maria Horner Garden Party and Good Folks, some Joel Dewberry Modern Meadow...

... and a little bit of Amy Butler and Laura Gunn in the quilt.

Just a simple patchwork design with a larger outside border.

And then a bright orange binding (JD Nap sack in sunset) to accent everything.

The back of the quilt is also one of my favorites:

I just love those trees.

This back just makes me want to make a quilt front like this!

And here's the hand-stitched label:

Isn't that a cute quote?

The momma picked that one out.

I had a little bit of fun with the colors...

And a quilt roll for good measure!

Quilt stats:

40x50"

machine quilted 1/4" from either side of seams

I used a grey Gutermann thread for the quilting

machine stitched binding

pieced back

So, there you go!

Alli, I hope you love it.

(And if you want to send me a pic with your little man all wrapped up in it when he finally gets here, that would be fantastic.)

If anyone is interested in their own WillowBean Creations Custom Nursery Set

(for boys or girls or surprises)

please check out the nursery set listings in my Etsy Store!

Or email me directly at willowbeanmama@gmail.com.

Happy Friday!

A Very Special Baby Quilt and Belated Happy Valentine's Day.

I have finished my little girl's baby quilt.

And I am IN LOVE with it.

IN.

LOVE.

It's tied for my favorite with this quilt...the very first quilt I ever made for Willow.

This pretty little number is a string quilt using all the scraps I used to make the Dresden Plates for Willow's new quilt.

I used the paper-piecing method, and there's a pretty good tutorial here.

I modified mine a bit, but who doesn't?

There were 24 string blocks (7" unfinished) and then I used some stashed fabric to make borders around the outside.

(Anna Maria Horner Garden Party, Valori Wells, and some more Anna Maria Horner)

And, as per usual over here lately, I only used scraps and stash fabrics.

I used the same fabric (Ta Dot in Sea) for the center strip in each string block that I am going to use as the background for Willow's twin-size Dresden Plate quilt, so that there will be some similarity between the two quilts since they'll be sharing a room.

And because there's SO many different kinds of fabrics in each one...

I LOVE IT!

And for the back I just used some stashed Anna Maria Horner Garden Party, some Heather Bailey Tiled Primrose from the Pop Garden/Bijoux collection, which I also used for the binding, and some Amy Butler Sandlewood from her Love collection.

As for the quilting, I really wanted to highlight the 'squares' or 'diamonds' that the string blocks made once all put together... I really didn't want to chop them up in any way with quilting lines.

So, I decided to quilt 1/4" on the inside of the center strips that made up each square.

And then the same 1/4" inside for the triangles on the sides and corners.

There ended up being no intersecting quilting lines, which is exactly what I wanted.

I tried to show you what I'm talking about... if you even really care, that is.

I ALMOST FORGOT...

Yesterday was Valentine's Day!

My hubby and I don't really do anything for Valentine's Day.

I know it sounds weird, but I like it like that.

Ok, it's not like we do nothing.

I always make him his mom's recipe no-bake cookies and a super-cheesy, way over the top valentine.

I think he secretly loves them. I really do.

He stares at them for a really long time with silly grin on his face... and that's how I know :)

I decided to put them all in a scrapbook this year so they don't get lost...

I mean, we're talking like 7 years worth of some serious Valentines.

I think they're worth saving... now I just have to find that 'spot' where I put them so that they could be found again.

So far I have found the one from 2009.

That's it.

The search is on.

I liked making Drew's Valentine even more this year because Willow wanted to make one too:

...and it is AWESOME.

I love that she loves to do "projits" with me.

It's like the best thing ever.

And she thinks she's the bomb when I let her use her own glue stick and her own scissors.

All she wanted to do yesterday was make Daddy's "Balentine", ride her bike to the movie store to pick out "Pickle Me" (aka 'Despicable Me'), and then wait for Daddy to get home from work so we could watch the movie in our jammies, with popcorn and macaroni and cheese.

So, that's exactly what we did!

Dust Ruffle!

Here's the coordinating dust ruffle for the nursery set below...

Another Nursery Set

I've been suuuper busy this weekend/week (whatever, they all run together anyway) with quilting and sewing and cutting and measuring and pinning and shipping and cleaning and playing with my cutie. But, I love it. I do. It's busy, chaotic, a little stressful sometimes, but I get to spend my whole days doing what I like! I'm so lucky... Anywho, I shipped off my last nursery set to Arizona, and I'm just finishing up this adorable one to send to a customer in Maryland. Fun, huh? This quilt is so adorable. I absolutely love it. I used lots of Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry mostly. There's some scraps in there from JoAnn's I'm sure. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. I just have to finish that tiny bit of binding before I call it good!

One of my favorite parts of the quilt however is the back...I turned out so great. I just cut different sized widths (like from 1-6 inches) sewed them together, and voila! A supersweet quilt back. I think this has inspired me to make a quilt top like this, and maybe some stripes running the other way for the back....oooh! Uh-oh. I need to do one thing at a time! (Or maybe 4...tops!)

I tried a new quilting method, too. I usually "stitch the ditch", but this time I decided to try stitching 1/4" from the seam on either side. Red Pepper Quilts inspired me. I love her beautiful quilts, they're just... beautiful. So, that's the story on that....

I just want to toot my own horn and say again how proud I am of myself for finishing up so much stuff these past few days. If only I could be that productive everyday. I think if I had a cape that would help. Yup, that would definitely help....

Dust Ruffles, Crib Quilts, and Sheets, Oh My!

A shot of the dust ruffle:

Close-up:

The front of the quilt:

And the back of the quilt:

There! Now I think everything has been photographed and (b)logged :) All I need to do now is put a bow on it and get it out to Arizona! Thanks Katie!

Aaaalllmooost!

This is finally sandwiched and quilted and the binding is sewn on the front. The only thing left to do is hand stitching the back binding and a label and then this girl is off to Virginia to keep my little niece warm! Love you Gabi!

Pretty Things...

I made this one for my mom to give as a gift. I love the colors. She wants this to have teal backing fabric and binding...I think that's a great idea. I'll get right on that :)

The One That Started it All!

So....this quilt is near and dear to my heart because it is the absolute very first quilt I ever made AND it was for my daughter. I love it. It's so soft and cuddly (and cute!) I was very impressed with myself, I'm not gonna lie. Go me. If you look really closely you can see my mitred corners and my hand-sewn, blind stitched binding.

This quilt is pretty big...big enough for me to use too!

...and the back.