The Twin Twin Quilts: Broken Herringbone and Jungle Path

It's time to share with you the quilts I made for my boys' third birthday back in December.  We got the boys their first big boy beds - twin size - and of course I had to make some quilts to go on them!  I finished these just under the wire, but finally just now went outside to take some pictures of them.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of process pictures along the way.  Although I did blog about their beginning HERE (a long time ago...).

To make these two quilts I bought a fat quarter bundle of the entire Cruiser Blvd line by Sheri McCulley for Riley Blake (which we love because the Hubby is a transportation engineer and this fabric is full of road signs and vehicles and stuff).  Then I split it into two colorways.  Green for Jaxson and Blue for Bronx.  So their quilts ended up looking pretty different, but most of the actual print designs are the same.  I narrowed the quilt designs down to 7 or 8 and the Hubby picked his favorite two.

Here they are!

First up, Jaxson's Green Broken Herringbone quilt.  Inspired by this quilt, block tutorial found HERE.

These are pretty much the only "process" photos I took.  I finished Jaxson's quilt top and he wanted to test it out.  I think it will be big enough!

Of course, Bronx had to get in on the action too!  Both boys really loved watching their quilts come together.  Luckily, the each claimed one of them and attached to it right away.  :)

This particular block yields LOTS and LOTS of funky shaped trimmings.  Not one to waste fabric, I pieced all the funky pieces into four rows and used them to make the quilt a little longer at the top and bottom.

Finished!

Close up:

For the quilting, I decided to honor the Hubby's wishes and went with really simple straight line quilting.  Basically I just stitched 1/4" from the edge on the inside of each sashing strip.  The back looks kinda cool.

I had a TON of sewing machine issues (and ended up taking it to the shop the day after finishing) with this quilt, but I had to push through them because I was on such a tight deadline at the end there.  The wonky, wrinkly sashing quilting bugs me but I'm pretty sure Jaxson doesn't care.  ;) 

My FAVORITE part of the whole quilt!  I traced the boys' hands onto a corner and quilted around them, then stitched their names inside.  My original plan was to do the hand prints Trapunto style, but - well, I forgot.  And this picture is super fuzzy, but it's the only one I have of Jaxson's hand print right now.  I love that I have something to document how big they were at the time this quilt was made! 

And I very belatedly remembered to add the labels, but I did!  Those yellow pieces are literally the last pieces I have left from the bundle!  I'm ALL about using every last piece of fabric if I can!  Sometimes it just takes a little bit of planning.  
Also, Jaxson's quilt is bound with this little hexagon print.  Hand sewn to the back, of course.  :)

The back is a mixture of large cuts I picked up at Joanns.

And now Bronx's Quilt:

The pattern for this one is called Jungle Path and can be found at the Moda Bakeshop HERE.

A close up.  I just love those arrows and road signs and little cars!

Here is Bronx's little hand.  So sweet!

Bronx's quilt is bound in this striped/road print.  I love it!  I actually made both bindings completely on the bias using THIS awesome tutorial.  

I was able to find a bigger cut of this blue fabric, so less piecing for the back!  Win!

It's hard to see it here, but for the quilting on Bronx's quilt I once again kept things straight and simple.  I stitched down the middle of all the white sashing and added a little extra quilting to the center four patches.  

And here they are on their big boy beds!  The boys did an amazing job transitioning from cribs to beds and they love their quilts!  Whew!

Quilt stats:

Started: January 2014 (cutting started June 2014)

Finished: December 5, 2014

Fabrics: Cruiser Blvd by Sheri McCulley for Riley Blake

Batting:  Warm N White

Finished size: 

Jaxson's Green Broken Herringbone: 61" x 91"

Bronx's Blue Jungle Path:  57" x 89"

Recipient: Jaxson and Bronx

Methods used:  Piecing, Free Motion Straight Line Quilting (on my home machine)

Binding:  Machine stitched to front, hand stitched to back 

Previous Posts: HERE 

Linking up:

New Quiet Book: ABCs!

This quiet book has been in the works for a REALLY long time.  I probably started sketching ideas for it a year ago.  I love making these, and since we already have a Shapes and Colors one, it was time to make a Letters one too!  I wanted one page for each letter of the alphabet, with a coordinating and interactive item on each page.  What do you think?

With 26 pages, it turned out SUPER FAT, so I added a little strap to keep the thing closed.

Here are all of the pages before they were sewn up into the book:

And these are a few of my favorites:

I even made this pocket for the back using some faux leather I acquired.  :)

 So.  Another reason for creating this ABC book was so that I could list some personalized name books in my shop.  I took all the appropriate letters from the ABC book to make a little book for my boys.  As it happens, most of the letters in their name ended up red or blue and I didn't really want to make them all over again...

Luckily, their little cousin just turned two so I got to make a new one with more color variety.  ;)

I had to get a little creative, because Connor has two repeated letters in his name.  In fact, while I was at it I came up with alternate ideas for nearly every letter and included them in my shop listing - just in case I run into this problem again.  ;)

N is an especially hard letter to come up with ideas for, believe me.  But I think the numbers turned out pretty cute.

The octopus turned out ADORABLE!  So much cuter in person.

Whew!
You can find all of my quiet books in my shop HERE.  I think now I need to work on a numbers book, or maybe just some fun pages for custom books like the one I did for Henrik.  So many ideas!!!!

BONUS.  This project was #11 on my Quarter 3 Finish-Along list.  Linking up here:

New Quiet Books: COLORS!

I made some new quiet books a couple weeks ago and thought it might be time to share them!

This time I wanted to make a Colors themed book, and this is the one I came up with originally:

I drew my inspiration from THIS cute design, but decided I wanted more variety in my shapes.

The first time I made it, I only used quilting cotton from my scrap drawers.  When I took it to my mom one day to show her, she mentioned that it might be fun if there were fabrics with cool textures.  That was all it took, and that week I made a few trips to various fabric stores and bought about 3 inches of a bunch of different types of fabrics in different colors.  And then I proceeded to sew a few of the new fabrics on top of a few of the old ones in the book.  Now they are fun.  :)

Of course, once the first book (with buttons) was finished, I realized that the buttons were way too hard for my already color savvy toddlers to navigate, so I made a new, slightly smaller version with velcro dots (and lots of textures):

Complete with a baggie at the back for storing all the shapes (hopefully they won't get lost!)

And THEN I had to make one more.  See, the main purpose for making these books (aside from having something for the boys to do during church) was to have samples to list in my Etsy shop.  I thought maybe I could make a smaller version for cheaper, and hopefully bring in more buyers.  So I made a mini version with even smaller pages.  Luckily, it didn't take quite as long as the first two.  Whew!

And there you have it!  I was happy to have these finished so my boys could have something new to play with during church.  They are already masters at their colors, but they seem to like them anyway.  Surprisingly, the button version is their favorite even though they have to have one of us help them with the buttons. 

Next up: Letters!  I'm excited about this one, although don't expect to see it for awhile...

P.S.  All three of these quiet books are available for purchase in my Etsy Shop HERE.