Birdie Blanket for Quill Girl #2

Posted by Mirm in Miriam, Sewing

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Maya has a favorite blanket, lovingly known as "Polka Dot," that she has had since birth. She still sleeps with it at age 4. It was time to make a blanket for Little Sister to have for her arrival day.
I loved this little birdie pattern, and thought it would be perfect for our little Quill girl-to-be. This was the first time for me working with fleece and the super sweet satin edging. See below for the step-by-step process.

Cut out your fabric to desired size, place wrong-sides facing each other. Pin all sides.

Sew all 4 sides at about 1/4 inch. Then stitch again about 3/4 inches from edge.

This is what it should look like once you are done stitching.


Here comes the tricky part...adding the trim. Open up the satin edge, fold over 1 inch from the end, and iron.
Tuck the edge of fleece in little front or back pocket made by fold of trim.

Pin the trim on, keeping the fleece tucked in as close to the trim center as you can.
Sew trim on, all the way to the next corner.

When you come to your first corner...you need to form a mitered corner.
Open up the satin trim,to turn the corner. A diagonal is formed when you do this, press lightly and pin.
Pin the rest of trim to upcoming side of blanket.
(Don't forget to miter the corner on the back side as well, being careful to make sure the diagonals match up)

Your corner should look like this, before you stitch.
Begin stitching at the outer corner, up the diagonal, and then up the side of the blanket, to the next corner. Repeat.
Catching top and bottom edges of trim can be tricky, so check your work.
See finished product above.

PS: I could have made another blanket, in the time that it took me to upload this post. What...what?

Creative Pen & Quill

Posted by Mirm in

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I brought my pen and ink back out, for the first time in a couple years. I put my calligraphy skills to work on this Quaker wedding certificate. It included the really sweet vows of the bride and groom, and spaces for 120 witnesses to sign.

Overall, I was really happy with the final product. While there are usually moments of cursing in projects this detailed, all in all, it was great to get creative and it feels really good to put something in the "done" pile. I have discovered that in life as a stay-at-home-mom, there are few things that are ever completely done. Most things are just done...for a time or moment...dishes, meals, laundry, etc.

So here's to you done pile...

Worm Hunting

Posted by Quillen in Adventure, Drawings, Maya

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This picture was made by Me. This is me and Poppa and we were hunting for worms today. There was a bird up in the sky with the sun and clouds. We looked for worms under logs.  When we found some we put them in a bucket. We caught seven. (In the picture) There is Me with a bucket, Poppa with a water bottle, grass, worms, rocks, a mushroom, a flower and a big centipede. - Maya

I thoroughly enjoy Maya's fascination with and love for all God's creatures (except spiders). She not only loves cute fuzzy animals, but also the not so cute creepy crawlers and slimy slithers that hide under rocks, logs and even in your basement. So, now that spring is here Maya is having a blast playing and exploring on our property.

Yesterday, Maya came up with the great idea of starting a worm farm. So today, we went worm hunting. As Maya says "It was a great adventure!" I was so proud of her. During our hunt, I lifted up a big decaying log and there was this big worm inching back into the dirt. Maya, without hesitation, grabbed it, held it up to her eyes as if to inspect it and said "here's a fat one Poppa!" Above is a picture of our big adventure.

Dinosaurs & Chipmunks

Posted by Quillen in Digital Art, Drawings, Jason, Maya

2 comments

Maya asked me the other day why I never color my drawings, so I had her pick one of my sketches and I would color it. I decided to color it digitally though, that way I could use textures and filters. I think it turned out pretty good.
 

One of my favorite cartoons growing up as a kid was "The Alvin Show". Recently Maya and I watched a few episodes on the Youtube. They don't make cartoons like this anymore. I love the cartooning style, background art and humor, not to mention the Clyde Crashcup segments. Anyhow, Maya really enjoyed it and drew my this picture...The Chipmunks and Stanely the Eagle. I think Stanely is waving.

Heart Felt Toons

Posted by Quillen in Cartoons, Felt, Jason, Miriam

1 comments

Ok, the title is extremely cheesy...but here are some characters I came up with recently while drawing w/ Maya. Then Mirm got the craft-bug and made felt versions of them to put on some kids clothing.

Drawn Together.

Posted by Quillen in Cartoons, Drawings, Jason, Maya

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Maya is growing so fast. Sometimes I want her to slow down, but as she gets bigger, so does her interests and talents and I love that! Maya's new favorite thing to do (the past 3-4 months) is draw and that couldn't make me happier! As long as I can remember I've been drawing and as a kid growing up I loved to draw superheros and cartoons. I quit drawing both of those once I went to college. Now 14 years later...at work I was able to draw old school superhero versions of our management team and now Maya has rekindled my love for cartoons. So, our new favorite thing to do together is sit down at our dining room table, listen to music and draw together. Here are a few of those drawings.

This is Maya's drawing of a "Caccoon" (Raccoon), a flying bird and the sun. She has just recently started adding details to her creations (hair, stripes, feathers, ears, etc.) I love the way she draws birds. On the right is my drawing of a Raccoon.

This is Maya's drawing of a dinosaur, I'm not sure what dinosaur, but it's definitely a carnivore...look at those teeth. Again, on the right is my dinosaur, if you couldn't tell.

This is one of my favorite drawings of Maya's and I love that she called him "Tinny the Robot". In this one she decided to add knee caps, fingers and an apple tree (I drew the worm though). My robot... no as cool as Tinny.

Hello World!

Posted by Quillen in Jason, Maya, Miriam

1 comments

I know, I know...not another blog. That's right, the Quillen's have decided to join the other 133 million blogs floating around in the ever-expanding blogosphere. With an estimated 900,000 blog posts being puplished in a 24 hour period (look at me throwing around the tech numbers), we figured why not! Actually, we wanted a way to share our creations with friends and family while also keeping a personal journal/record. Therefore, a blog seemed like the logical thing to do.

So, from time to time, hopefully at least once a week, we'll be posting images of creative stuff we like do, whether it be a drawing of Maya's, an outfit Mirm sewed, something I sketched, a food recipe we love, some home renovation we completed...you get the picture. Pretty much anything that ends up coming from the right side of our brains...we'll most likely post.