Baby Gifts

A bunch of my friends are having babies soon and I've been expanding my repertoire of homemade gifts. The Amy Butler changing pad is still a favorite and the taggy blanket is great, but I wanted variety. My latest is embellishing onesies or shirts for the newborn.

(before, after)

These Gerber kimono-style shirts are great for bringing baby home from the hospital because they don't cover the umbilical cord stub. Onesies are out for a few days and shirts are in. Plus, these have the fold-over mitten cuffs so the baby won't cut himself with his razor-sharp nails.

I added some stitching to the edges of the shirt and I really like how it turned out.

My collection of embroidery floss from middle school is really coming in handy lately!

What I'm working on

     I started this quilt about 5 years ago.  I had cleaned up my sewing room and I couldn't close my blue and green fabric drawers.  So I cut up some of the older stuff into strips for a log cabin quilt and worked on it through the years whenever I felt like it.  This is how it turned out.  Considering how ugly the fabrics were, I think it looks kind of nice.  I laid out the blocks asymmetrically hoping for a more modern look, but I'm not sure that was a good idea.

The placemat idea came from Stitch Magazine, which is one of my favorite sources of inspiration. The hexagons are done with paper piecing and appliqued to the linen.

I made the purse for Susan for her birthday.  The fabric is one I bought last year in Cincinnati.  I thought I'd better start using what I bought last year before I go this year!

     The boxes are from Zakka Style, a book by Rashida Coleman-Hale.  I used linen for the boxes and little pieces from my scrap basket for the applique and patchwork.

Stairway update

The quilt with baby Desmond (and dad Ryder).

Baby Quilt: Denise Schmidt stairway

Even with the iPhone, I am bad at documenting the few things I actually get around to making these days. Sorry for the imperfect picture.

This is my latest quilt made for Desmond Henry, the one-month-old son of one of my best and oldest friends, Maya. The pattern is from Quilts, Baby! which I borrowed from my mom. They recommended making every-other row white but I wanted to use all of the DS Quilts patterns that I've bought from JoAnn Fabrics. I know this line is controversial, but I love it. We don't have a good fabric store around here, which I consider a major travesty, so finding great patterns at JoAnn has been wonderful. This is the second quilt I've made with these fabrics, so I'll try to photograph the earlier one.

This pattern was great. It was really fun to get everything cut out and then laid out in piles in order. Putting it together was addictive. I would finish one row and then think, "Ok, just one more." I was working on it while another friend was in labor and I was anxiously awaiting updates, so I was happy to have something to occupy my mind and my time. Anyway, it's a great pattern and I love the way it turned out. I can't wait to send it to Maya.

My Round Robin Blocks

My Wednesday sewing circle recently got together to reveal our round-robin blocks that we made for each other.  We started this project in March.  Each of us put together guidelines for a 12-inch finished block, made one block ourselves to start our quilts, then passed the boxes along.  There were 11 of us in the exchange, so we each ended up with 11 blocks.  We all got our boxes back this week at our holiday get-together, and we all got to see all the block sets.

Everyone had unique guidelines - some people chose a fabric or two, some chose a theme or color scheme, and some chose the same block to be made in different fabrics.

My blocks were designed around this focus fabric, the bird print on the left. I found this in Peapod Fabrics and just fell in love with the colors and designs of the birds. I asked everyone to use at least one piece of the bird fabric in their block. Then I made this simple block, with the birds framed in the black, pink and gray fabrics.

Here are the blocks I got back from my talented and imaginative friends!  Two people made birdhouse blocks, framing the birds, and two used flying geese motifs...

 ...the beautiful Ohio star is from a friend who is also from Ohio and there are blocks with names like "Darting Birds" and "Hovering Hawks", and  one block was an intricate paper-pieced block (upper right).

 Some people used mostly the fabrics I provided, and others incorporated new fabrics, like these Australian fabrics forming the points of this star below.  And the bottom block is a color variation of my original one, to round out the cycle.

Everyone was really pleased with their blocks and we all agreed that it was fun to follow the guidelines for each block and try different things.  Now I will make another block (or maybe more) and figure out how to put them together into a quilt top.  Our goal is to have our quilt tops done by Easter 2012.

I won!

I'm getting hooked on browsing quilting and sewing blogs lately, and it's paid off!  I entered a giveaway on the blog of "Quilt Dad", aka John Adams, and I won a fat quarter bundle of these fabrics.   All I had to do was comment on a post. I think I'll be entering more giveaways now!

So, what should I make with these fabrics??

Design Inspiration from LA

 The last time Zac was in San Francisco, he said he'd like me to make him a quilt!  So we were talking about possible designs, and then Dan and I were in LA to visit him a couple weeks ago, and we all went to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) to see the exhibit "California Design, 1930-1965".  It had all kinds of cool things from the time period, from the first Airstream trailer to clothes, furniture, and a full mock-up of an Eames design house.  Several of the textiles made us think about possible quilt designs.

This one is an Eames textile that we liked.  I could imagine making quilt squares with the Xs and dots and uneven borders.  Zac suggested using large blocks and making the quilt just 20 big squares - we're working on that idea.

This is the book on the exhibit that was for sale in the gift shop.  Zac likes the solid-color stripes.  I don't remember seeing this in the exhibit, but apparently it was the cover of a Frank Sinatra album!  It could make a nice quilt, just using the strips of solid color fabrics.

Wouldn't both of these make great quilts?  And I don't even have a picture of Zac's other favorite item -  the bathing suit with the giant lobster on it!