Holly Jolly Camper

For someone who is decidedly NOT a camping sort of girl, I sure have made a lot of these camper quilts. Let me be clear...my idea of roughing it would be something akin to a Red Roof Inn. I don't need the Four Seasons (though I wouldn't turn it down!), but I am far too appealing to mosquitos to consider sleeping in a tent.

However, I just can't get enough of this camper idea! In September I will be teaching my latest design, the Holly Jolly Camper, at Stewart's Sewing Machines in Mt. Zion, IL and I can't wait! The pattern will be available soon in my Etsy shop - as soon as I force myself to sit down and edit the thing. Let's be honest here - that is WAY less fun than making a quilt. This pattern, like The Happy Camper, uses a simplified raw edge appliqué technique using a glue stick instead of fusible web and is so fun to do!

If you or any quilters you know happen to live in central IL and would be interested in taking the class, follow the link to Stewart's and give them a call for more details. I'd love to see you there!!

Red Robots

I recently got a request from a client for a quilt for a baby boy. Her only stipulation was that I feature the color red. Naturally, red would be one of the colors that doesn't come into play much in my fabric stash!

I remembered that I had a cute robot print leftover from a quilt I made last year and knew it would lend itself nicely to various red prints. I pulled together the ones I had but ended up buying a red fat quarter and 1.5 yards of a simple red print. It was on sale so I figured I'd better stock up!

Since most of my reds were remnants, I opted for the two rows of 5" squares and wider strips of everything else. It is a very simple design, but I think it lets the reds shine.

Alice for Alice

A friend of mine is expecting her first baby this month. It's a girl and her parents have decided her name will be Alice. As it turns out, Alice's mom is crazy about Alice in Wonderland and has used it as the theme for the nursery. When I heard that, I was on a mission to find just the right fabric for a baby quilt!

I found a few small pieces of Alice in Wonderland fabric on eBay, but even if there had been enough, they just weren't prints that interested me. Then late one night, after Google had yielded nothing that would work, I decided to check Etsy. I don't know why, but I never think to look there for fabric. Never again will I make that mistake!! I stumbled upon the Beautiful Work shop, based in Japan, and knew I had hit the jackpot. There were multiple Alice in Wonderland prints to choose from! Actually, I would have liked to order several of the fabrics they have! My only suggestion if you are looking for fabric on Etsy is to look carefully at the yardage specified in the listing. Many of them are smaller cuts of fabric, so you may have to hunt a bit to see if the length you need is available.

Once I found the Alice print, I knew I would use it for the quilt back and keep the front simple and sweet. The new nursery has been done in pink and gray and the traditional rail fence quilt pattern is classic, not to mention very fast to make.

I knew I would have to piece the quilt back to make it a bit longer, so I just inserted a panel of a pink print. I thought it would be a nice finishing touch to appliqué Alice's name onto that panel as well.

I know Alice's mom was thrilled with her new quilt and I hope she enjoys it for many years to come!

Modern Affection

As I mentioned in my first post, I make quilts. A lot of quilts, actually. Many of them are for one particular client who loves to give quilts as a baby gift. Fortunately for me, she seems to know the most fertile women in the United States! She contacted me a few weeks ago and requested a new baby quilt for a baby boy. This time, though, she was able to provide a mock-up image of the nursery this quilt would be going to. When I saw the very modern design, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I already had a Kona charm pack in the New Classic Palette and I knew that I wanted to use Carolyn Friedlander's Architextures fabric for the main portion of the quilt top. My first thought was to do an offset column of tiny squares, like pixels, but to reduce waste and ensure that I had enough fabric in the charm pack, I decided to go with our old friend, the half-square triangle (HST). The wonderful thing about using a charm pack in this small quilt (approximately 35"x41") is that the only waste in the HST's was the tiny points that get clipped off. All together, I think I had 11 squares left over - mostly because they were colors that I didn't want to use.

The biggest challenge in designing this was deciding on the arrangement of the panel. After three different arrangements, I settled on this one - using the lighter shades to make a diamond shape and alternating their placement.

While I really do love how the quilt top turned out, it's the back of the quilt that I truly ADORE! I found this fantastic fabric at Missouri Star Quilt Company. It's Collage - Newspaper Stripe Bruhaus by Carrie Bloomston for Windham Fabrics.

I hope the new baby and his parents love it as much as I do!

Newly Hatched

Hello friends - at least that's what I hope we will become! I'm Julie, the obsessive crafty person creative force here at Knitpickin' Chicken. Allow me to tell you a little bit about myself!

I am a wife and a mom. 

I homeschool my kids and manage my son's Type 1 diabetes.

I quilt. A lot. I used to knit a lot too. I still knit, just not as much!

I have recently started designing and creating my own patterns, which you can find in my Etsy shop.

I am a "blanketeer" for Project Linus and just had the privilege of teaching a class on my Happy Camper quilt at the national Project Linus conference.

My motivation for starting this blog stems from knowing what I like to see from other creative types. I love to get a glimpse of who the person is and seeing how their creative process works!

So stay tuned - I have two patterns in progress that will soon be available and lots of pictures to share of projects that I have been working on.

Now...go make something!