Quiet books....round 4....Ding!

I always wanted to have a quiet book when my kids were little. I made one...on pellon and drew on the pellon with magic markers.... that weren't permanent.... and the kids put the pieces in their mouths... :(

It wasn't a good experience.

 

 

But oddly enough, the kids still had fun with the book.

 

Fast Forward about 20 years, and I've learned a lot. I also have more patience...and time. And less kids to take care of. So I decided that I'd try it again.

 

 I made my cute new little Grandkids and myself (they need one when they come to Grandma's house...) quiet books. This time I sewed them and I used a pattern. They turned out cute. I tweaked the patterns and customized the books. They got all fancy because now we had t-shirt iron-ons to use. :) Yeah baby. I put Grandma and Grandpa's pictures under flaps and a title that says "who loves me".  I sewed them with the cutest material, and they turned out great.

 

Who Loves Me? page with flaps

 

Who Loves Me? page with flaps opened.

I used t-shirt transfers for the pictures and ironed them onto muslin.

clockwise: Grandpa, Great Grandparents, Grandma, Great Grandparents. (this is my book. 

The kids' personal books have mom and dad in the great grandparents slot, with Brad and myself under one flap, and the other grandparents under the other flap.) 

 

sheep (texture) and jingle bells in bow.

 

dog in a dog house. they like to eat the dog.

 

"Family Tree" - under each flap is a picture of each person in our family up to that date.

(This was the page that was overwhelming me... We're going to have so many people that this page was going to cause some real problems! But of course, it's one of the more favorite pages!)

 

"Brook and Aiden" (the two grandkids that got the quiet books)

 in sleeping bags with Velcro and zippers. You can play with the dolls.

 

Butterfly with crunchy wings. (use cellophane wrap for the crunch between two pieces of fabric!)

 

 

Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, tall.

This page was NOT fun. Cute, but not fun.

 

Color matching balloons.

(used my sizzix die-cut machine for the balloons!)

 

"I spy" Quilt page

 

 

"Bee" Humble, grateful, Prayerful, clean, smart and true page.

Bees with Velcro.

FYI - Velcro doesn't do well if you just glue it on. :(

I had to go back and sew it on felt, then sew the felt pieces together. That was a pain!

 

Farm page with t-shirt transfer animals in barn, and finger-puppet pig, cow and chick.

 

Gotta have that "peek-a-boo" page.

 

 

By the time I got done I had decided that they were way to much work for what they looked like. The only problem was that by the time I finished them.... I had another grandchild...in a different family...And mom knew that I sewed these quiet books, because "mom" was my daughter that I had bragged too. Dang! Her only response to my bragging? "When do we get ours?" Shoot!

 

So my quick response was, "Don't worry, I'll have it by Pee-baby's 1st Birthday." (Her nickname for her son, not mine. But in all respects, it'll protect his identity.)

 

Fast forward again to one month ago. I am back to making quiet books. Pinterest has a lot of ideas and some really neat ways to do things! There's even a page on there that has circuits so that you can light up your robot! Amazing! The dang thread has wire in it! This mom is a genius! And apparently has WAY MORE time and patience than I do! But her pages are AWESOME!

http://www.imagineourlife.com/2012/04/22/led-robot-quiet-book/

 

Well, I didn't want to get THAT creative, so I kept mine on the down-low, reduced the size just a bit, and I used felt this time. Felt doesn't fray. Yay felt! My oldest daughter called up while I was busily working on the book and asked, "What are you doing?"

 

As I dropped my head in shame, I admitted I was working on a quiet book. She was so excited! Pee-Baby was FINALLY going to get his quiet book! (Pee baby is now 2 1/2 years old). Then I had to admit that I wasn't actually making this particular quiet book for him. I was making it for a shower for his soon-to-be-born cousin, and that he was going to have to wait, yet again, to get his quiet book.

Let's just say that daughter #1 wasn't that happy. :/

 

Well, the pages turned out really cute, were pretty easy thanks to the felt and the reduced size, and I got the book done in my spare time in about a week. I was quite pleased with myself. And daughter #2 loved the quiet book and has it safe at home, waiting for our new little grandson to grow up a bit.

 

Quiet Book Cover. Letters cut out by a cricut machine. I thought that was pretty creative.

 

Page one is felt squares with button shapes.

Fun for when he's 2-3, and nice to look at and touch as a baby.

 

Pinterest idea. I thought this was quite clever.

buttonholes with ribbon. Tie a knot in the end. Ta da!

 

Families are Forever flap.

 

Pocket made of vinyl behind the temple for a family picture.

Instead of the temple (if you're not LDS) you could put a place that your family likes to go

or "who loves me" etc.

 

This is a mirror on paper! Perfect for little kids. This one still has

the protective sheet on it. (I got all the "extras" at JoAnns).

 

Lion with Ribbon Tags for mane

 

Bug Jar. You can take the bugs out.

 

 

Under the Sea Counting page. Not finished at this point!

 

 

Textile page. Babies love to touch stuff!

 

Whoops! I guess I didn't get a picture of the next page that is half showing!

It's like a water globe made of vinyl. Inside is glitter, beads, and anything small and shiny.

I just sewed around the edge of the clear vinyl (with a "roller foot" on my machine), left a small opening and inserted the glitter,etc. then finished sewing it up. The stuff moves around and is shiny.

 

Rainbow colored beads + black and white.

 

I wanted something different besides hands for Peek-a-boo. Elephants are fun and they work!

 

 

Meanwhile, Daughter #1 called up again, and asked, "When do we get our quiet book?"

How do you put off cute little pee-baby any more? So I got to thinking....

• I am just getting started in this grandbaby business.
• I am a seamstress after all...
• I have 7 children... I'm going to have A LOT of grandkids.
• I'm going to have to make all these grandkids a quiet book. (Be careful what you start!!!)
• that's a lot of sewing...
• how can I make my life easier?
• Squirrel!
• Wait! I have an embroidery machine, and I now have the ability to digitize and make appliques.
• hmmmmm.
• I am now digitizing quiet book pages for Pee Baby's Christmas present.

I must admit that these pages are FUN! They are turning out very professional looking, and there are so many possibilities! My brain just keeps thinking up so many ideas to do that I've started writing them down in a book so I don't lose the ideas!

 

I'M SO EXCITED!!!

 

My first page is done. It's a "Monster Truck". Grandpa got Pee Baby hooked on Monster Trucks at his last visit in October when he took him for a ride in the Razr and watched you-tube videos of Razr crashes. Pee Baby LOVES it! So of course the first page HAD to be a Monster Truck.

 

 

There's also a Mr. Potato Head Dress up doll, a Drive the Cars page, a Save Your Money Piggy Bank, and other ideas are coming!

 

 

 

 

(Potato head pieces are going to Velcro on Potato head...embroidery is without the black outlines at this point.)

 

 I'm SEW EXCITED!

 

Pee Baby is FINALLY going to get his quiet book, Grandma has embroidery files for future grandkids that all I have to do is define colors and sew out age appropriate pages, and Quiet books aren't the drudgery that they used to be! The pages can also be taken out and updated on holidays and birthdays to age appropriate activities! YAY!

 

(I must admit though, that I bought a "music" button [at Hobby Lobby in the Doll section] that plays Twinkle, Twinkle. I'm waiting for him to go to church with that one! :) )

 

I guess Quiet Book Stress can be a good thing. It forced me to get creative!

 Thanks cute little Pee-Baby! I Love you! Even if you murder BUGS!

 - this video inspired the Bug Jar!

 

http://www.dearpersonreadingthis.blogspot.com/2013/05/bug-murder.html

 

 

If you have an embroidery machine and would like FREE copies of my patterns, please comment below, or send me an email at shaggymountainquilts@gmail.com

 

Daniel and Erika and the Adam and Eve Wedding Quilt

This cute couple are my Son Daniel and his new Wife Erika.
They got married last June.
 

 

Before they got married, Daniel had a great idea for his Wedding Quilt. He wanted it to be Adam and Eve.  Much discussion was made over this quilt, from what should be in it to how it should be constructed. My kids thought it would be funny to do it 3D, and be able to lift up the leaves. However, since I am the quilter, I voted for 2D. Not that I can't do 3D, I can, but .... well.... Lets just say I'm more comfortable with 2D.

 

We started with Daniel and Erika laying down on butcher paper, and I drew a very loose sketch of them, just like you'd draw around your own hand. The quilt is life size! Then we pulled out the camera and took some pictures of them laying down. After that, 3 months of painting started!

 

I painted the quilt with Tsukineko Inks, then thread painted as I quilted. This is only the 5th quilt I've quilted with my long arm, so it was interesting to do the thread painting! One thing I learned was that you can't start at the top and work to the bottom when you thread paint. I didn't baste the layers together before I started, so the back was puckered when I got done, but the front looked AWESOME!

(next time I'll use wash-away thread to baste the quilt!)

 

I wanted to enter the quilt into the HMQS quilt contest, but wasn't quite finished by the time the entry deadline came. I was sad, but accepted it. Much to my surprise, they extended the deadline by one week, which allowed me to finish the quilt, enter it, and drop it off! I figured that was a sign that this quilt should be in this show!

 

This is me in front of the quilt.
YES! that is a RIBBON on the Quilt!!!!

This is a couple members of my family that came to look at the quilt! My oldest grandchild is standing by Brad, and my oldest son is by me.



My quilt took "BEST OF SHOW - ROOKIE"

Can you believe it!?! I was totally shocked! I got a phone call three days before the show opened, from someone who was judging the contest to see if I really was a rookie quilter. I told them I had been long-arm quilting less than a year, and that this was the fifth quilt I had quilted. (All the others had just been overall quilting).

I got another phone call two days before the awards ceremony and they told me that I should come to the Awards Ceremony. That I "should really be there". I wasn't planning on going, but I decided that I should go. So I went with my mom, Daniel and Erika, and my youngest daughter Sara. We sat through the whole awards ceremony, and my name hadn't been called. My kids actually leaned over to me and said that if they called me just to have people at the ceremony and were wasting their time, that they would be mad. I was starting to wonder myself!  Finally, they got to the last page, and as they announced "best of show - rookie" they said my name. Wow!
As I got up, I started crying because of shock/disbelief/gratitude. Then I walked up to the stage, and as I passed in front of the stage, my youngest daughter stands up and yells while pointing, "That's my Mom!" It made me laugh. (Is this how they feel when I do the same thing to them at their performances????)

I never expected to win something like this! I was even more shocked to find that it came with a $1000.00 check. I am still amazed that I won. But grateful to Daniel for his idea. I shared the money with Daniel and Erika and gave them a "modeling fee", then used the rest of the money on some new accessories for a new Bernina 830. Brad bought it for me when he found out I had won. I didn't expect that either! But again, was very grateful. Grateful for his generosity, and grateful that I had a machine that I could embroider on again. (My current machine at that time was a Bernina 180E (7 generations older) and I was fighting with my computer that I had to keep on windows 98, so that the software would run! )

I think I'll be doing more painting of quilts! It was a great experience!

As soon as I find my close-ups, I'll give more details on the quilt and the symbolism that it contains! There is a lot!