Madison's Snoopy Quilt

My seven year old granddaughter, Madison, is a HUGE Snoopy lover. Snoopy was her bedtime stuffed animal of choice from a very young age. She owns multiple Snoopys now and is rarely seen without one under her arm. He goes to the movies with her (she covers his eyes during scenes she feels are inappropriate for him), sits in her chair with her at meals, and even "waits" for her in the car while she is in school all day. 

Madison wears a Snoopy T-shirt every chance she gets-and she has quite a collection of them too. She's all about the Snoopy. 

This cute picture sits on the dresser in Madison's room.

So, when my daughter and son-in-law decided to build a new home I told their three girls that I would make them a quilt or curtains or whatever new that they might like to have for their new room. Madison thought about it for a while and then asked me to make her a Snoopy quilt for her bed. That request came as no surprise to anyone.

But finding Snoopy fabric was not as easy as I thought it would be. I ended up buying most of it from eBay and Etsy. And then when I put all the fabric together I discovered that everything I bought was pinks, reds and blues. That was going to coordinate nicely-happy accident.  :-)

My dilemma was how to use all of these prints in a quilt and make it work, without being overwhelming. There was not a variety in scale, color or subject matter! I decided that the quilt was going to need some white in it to break up the Snoopy and give the eye a place to rest. I found a quilt on Pinterest that was my inspiration. I decided on the finished quilt size, the block and sashing size and I was ready!

On Sept 11 I posted a teaser about a Snoopy quilt. I did great cutting it out and getting all the blocks made in quick order.

I fussy cut some of the fabrics to center Snoopy in the block. 

A narrow sashing of all of the prints tied the blocks together and gave the quilt the cohesion it needed.

I even got all the rows together and the borders on. I mopped the floor, laid out the quilt and got the whole thing layered and pinned. Yes, I was going to have this quilt made in record time..........

Then things came to a screeching halt! My friend Tisha arrived from England for a two week visit. Pam and Anne came to see Tisha too. We went to not one, but two, quilt shows. We visited many quilt shops. We went to Jekyll Island. We were busy every minute of every day.

By the time Tisha left I had a sinus infection, had lost my voice and was coughing like crazy-I was totally worn out!! I spent several days pampering myself (read-I did nothing!!) trying to get well. Then I cleaned house, caught up on laundry and welcomed my mom for a visit. By the time she left that quilt top had been sitting for four weeks. It was time to get quilting!

I decided on a large meandering pattern. Every time I start to meander on a quilt I make it so small that it looks more like I am working on a wallhanging or a table runner. So this time I concentrated on making the pattern larger. I was able to keep a pretty consistent size throughout the quilt-and I was pleased with the results. 

I used this multicolor fabric from a Project Linus line for the backing and I sewed strips of all the fabrics together to use for the binding.

I worked two days straight finishing the quilt. On the first day I quilted for five hours. It was all my back and shoulders could take. On the second day I quilted for three more hours and completed the top. I then trimmed away the excess batting and backing, sewed on the binding (which I had made when I completed the top) and then spent the next six hours that day hand stitching the binding down. I finished at 11:40 that night-but I was determined to be done with it before I went to bed.

The next day I went over to the house when no one was home and I put Madison's new quilt on her bed. 

I confess that I found a new Snoopy for Madison too-he is dressed for Halloween and I just couldn't resist. So there were two surprises waiting for her. 

The family arrived home about 10 minutes later, right after I finished taking a few pictures. 

Madison was over the moon when she saw her new quilt (and new Snoopy). Her sisters were just as excited for her as she was. She happily reported to me the next day that her quilt "slept good".

THIS is the reason I quilt.

Jacksonville Quilt Fest

While Tisha was here for her annual Fall visit we decided we needed to attend at least one other quilt show. And Jacksonville fit the bill-right time, not too far away, great show with beautiful quilts and wonderful vendors.

It only took us three days to make it to Jacksonville because we had to stop in Savannah and Jekyll Island on the way. I wanted to show Tisha the beauty of old Savannah and the beach at Jekyll. It was the perfect time of year to be at the beach-we had the entire stretch of sand all to ourselves when we took our morning walk. Beautiful.............

The Jacksonville quilt show was a new one for me. And it proved to be worth the drive. Here is a taste of the quilts we saw.

And the miniatures were fabulous! I love to see traditional quilts in such tiny proportions!

I just had to take a close up picture of the details in this miniature! Look how many teeny, tiny pieces are in each of those blocks! I know they are paper pieced-but who cares? That is little bitty detail at it's finest!! I'm impressed. 

I managed to spend quite a bit of money at the show too-and we stopped at several quilt shops on our way home, too. The fun just never ends when you are doing quilty things with quilting friends.

Quilt Expo

WOW! I can't believe it's been a month already since I blogged last. And I can't believe how much has happened in that month! 

First, Tisha, my good friend and quilting buddy from England came for a two week visit. She arrived on Thursday, September 19 and we hit the ground running. Pam and Anne were also here (from South Carolina) and the three of us were at the airport to greet Tisha. On Friday, the four of us were joined by Judy and we headed north to the Quilt Expo in Marietta. My daughter, Melissa met us there and we all had a great time looking at the quilts and shopping :)

Here we are outside the Expo! Pam, me, Tisha, Judy and Anne-we're ready to head in and start having quilty fun.

The quilts were an unusual mixture. There was definitely something there for everyone. From the most traditional......

To traditional with a twist.....

Some were small, but the time that went into them was evident....

Some were definitely for those that enjoy art quilts.....

But, the quilt that fascinated me the most was this one!

I took a close up shot of it so that you can see why it intrigued me so much. It's made up of thousands of tiny squares!! I can't even begin to imagine the time and energy that went into this piece of art! Gorgeous!

When we left the show we made a stop for Starbucks and then headed to our favorite quilt shop in the area. It was a fun day and we hated to see it end.