I may not have been blogging, but I’ve been busy making lots of different things from fabric…perhaps too many.  Like many quilters, I have have lost count of how many projects I have in-progress. My first goal ought to be completing a bunch of things, and I will do that, but today I needed to photographed six already-finished doll quilts.  I have been reading about ways to improve the photographing of quilts, and this was the day to put some ideas into practice.  I consider myself an adequate photographer, but I’m hoping for better lighting and more interest by inserting a few focused props.  Let me know how you think I did with trying to step up my game!

The Banana Rainbow Quilt below is one of my absolute favorites!!  It’s paper-pieced, a scrap buster and it was from a magazine!!  While I love looking at quilt and sewing magazines, for some reason, I seldom select patterns from them.  Not this time!! This pattern is from Make it! Patchwork, special issue, Summer 2016 and is “Radiance Baby Quilt” by Amy Garro.  I love finding a baby quilt pattern that is fresh, versatile and fun.  To make the pattern work in a miniature, doll-size, I reduced the paper piece patterns from 10″ to 8″.  I used a Bella solid in Butterscotch for the background, but otherwise, the sample quilt is pretty much the same color-scheme as mine.  My kids, who often critique my quilts, felt that I should have stuck with the original background, but I am very fond of this barely-yellow banana-like color.

Banana Rainbow Quilt, 22.5 x 27.5″

What a bonus that I found the perfect backing with this gorgeous flame-stripe yellow Kaffe Fassett fabric.  A log-cabin-inspired my label on the back, and I can’t imagine any other fabric to pull it together so perfectly.   When free-motion quilting, I took advantage of the plain border to add a curvy swirl with a heart in each corner.  As a little surprise, I wrote in a few words as well.  I think this is a really cheerful and simple quilt that has lots of possibilities.

Can you see the words “A Doll Like Me” that I free-motion quilted in the triangle above?

Purple Floppy Ear Dog Quilt 16.5″ x 22.5″ 

The favorite quilt above is another in a series of dogs with floppy ears that move. I posted about another dog quilt a few months ago in Snow days equal sew days . That red, blue and brown quilt was a hit by everyone who saw it, so a redo was in order. I didn’t have our puppy Annie to pose with this newer quilt, but I did borrow a few of her bones for effect.  For this version of the Fons and Porter pattern by Kimberly Rado, I went with a more feminine style quilt, thus the main purple color and pink-lined ears.  I found a way to use up lots of scraps  for the border of this one, which made the piecing more difficult, but fun.  I will probably keep making this beloved quilt over and over, but there is a cat version which I need to try one of these days.  The link for the pattern is below

http://www.fonsandporter.com/wp-content/uploads/FP-A-2860_Bonus_DF.pdf

This bright quilt below, which many of you have seen before, is called, Mango and Celery.  The first photos were simply lousy, so I am posted it again.   This is an original design by me and the blog post was from a few months ago Summer challenge quilt. Since the first photos seemed faded and dull, I snapped it again to do the colors more justice.   The solid bright tangerine gives the quilt a nice counter-balance to the pale celery color.  I made this to be summery, but today the colors remind me of autumn.. Redoing this photograph is a great reminder that good pictures go a long way to helping elevate your work.