OLIVER'S BIG BOY BED BLANKET

We recently had the pleasure of a visit with almost two year old grandson Oliver who lives in Nashville. He is cute, smart, kind, a great eater and sleeper and just FUN to be around. The  two older grandkids, 10 year old Stella and 7 year old Sam got to come for dinner and a visit, we are always happy to see them--they are busy kids and even though they live 30 minutes from us, we don't get to see them very often.  Facetime is a blessing for grandparents and grandkids. Having them all together was a good time for all:

Because I will be traveling when his 2nd birthday party happens, I decided to get his gift ready early. This is Oliver's Big Boy Bed Blanket:

 

I saw an ad either on Facebook or Instagram and wondered if it was really as good as it looks. You never know. But after seeing it for a couple weeks I bit the bullet and ordered it. 

It's about 58" x 68", minky fabric both top and bottom, and really cute. It is called the ABC HIDDEN PICTURES QUILT PANEL from Block Party Quilt Company. I ordered their minky for the back as well. It came fairly quickly. 

Find the information here: Block Party Quilt Co.

I simply cut the top and back the same size, placed them right sides together, stitched a half inch wide seam all around the "sandwich", leaving a 10" opening for turning. There is no batting inside, just two layers of minky, so soft and cuddly. 

After turning the "blanket" right sides out, I hand stitched the opening closed. Then I quilted inside the outer edge about 1/2" to make it look like a binding. I quilted around the border separating the pictures from the words. Then I simply quilted a line between each long vertical row of pictures. This was enough. Minky is slippery and there are a few puckers on the back. I decided against going across each horizontal row too as that would only create more puckers.

It washed and dried great, no problems with that. All in all, I was satisfied with it. And the whole thing was done in less than two hours.

Oliver loved it. Did I say he's smart? He quickly picked out the tractors, dump trucks, cats, boots, etc. I hope he enjoys using it on his big boy bed. 

Giving gifts like this is what quilting grandparents do. It was fun to make and I can recommend this product so far. I don't think the colors will fade very much over time. It's not an heirloom meant to last forever, just a gift of love I hope Oliver will enjoy for a few years.

Let's quilt.

Barbara

FANFARE 2026

 Heritage Quilters of Huntsville (HQH) had its bi-annual quilt show recently. As always, it was wonderful.

Here are just some of the more than 200 quilts in the show, in no particular order:

                                                    

                                                      

            

                                                         

                                                    

                                                    

    

    

                                                        


                                                    

BEST MACHINE QUILTING ON A STATIONARY MACHINE, BEN DARBY: 

        

                                                    

My only entry, OH MY STARS!, quilted by Patty Wilson:

We are so fortunate to have an amazing longarm quilter in our guild. PATTY WILSON quilted about 45 of the 200 quilts in the show. It is so good she got to enter her own work as well as so many customer quilts. ALL THAT GLITTERS was entered in the category ONE MAKER --PIECED SMALL. As it is a whole cloth quilt, not pieced, it was moved to the category ART/INNOVATIVE ANY SIZE.. Occasionally quilts are found to be in the wrong category during judging and have to be moved. 

Patty is incredibly talented, smart and too humble for words. This is true TALENT--anyone who thinks machine quilting is easy hasn't tried it. I salute you, Patty!

VIEWER'S CHOICE: FLORA AND FAUNA, by Audra Kennedy. The pattern is by Collage Quilter, Emily Taylor, called LONGWOOD GARDEN:

BEST MACHINE QUILTING ON A TRACK MACHINE: BUTTERMOLD SAMPLER by Karen Measels, quilted by Patty Wilson:

BEST USE OF COLOR AND JUDGE'S CHOICE:  MIAMI MEETS MANHATTAN, by Ben Darby:

And finally, BEST OF SHOW: MORNING GLORY by Karen Measels, quilted by Patty Wilson:

Remember, this is just a few of the glorious quilts in this show. Two years from now there will be even more incredible work from this very talented guild. I hope to see you there!

Let's quilt.

Barbara