Branching Out!

As you may remember a few years ago I made a Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt for a friend of mine who was having a baby. Well, that started a frenzy and I ended up making over a dozen of them. The quilt is so cute and great for either gender but I got sick of making them.

Fast forward to much more recently. Using some scrapes of fabric I made myself a little square quilt to put in the car seat for my daughter when we traveled. I loved it so much that I made one for a friend of mine who had a baby right after me.  She also got a lot of use out of it and suggested that I list one for sale in my shop....so I made a small Very Hungry Caterpillar for the shop.

It's a two sided quilt and is currently for sale in my etsy shop.

Etsy

The Very Series

I made one last quilt from Eric Carle prints and the line of fabric was called the Very Series.  It included fabric with prints of some of Eric Carle's books that had "very" in the title.  So, there is the "very hungry caterpillar", the "very busy spider" and "the very quite cricket".  Because I was making this quilt after I had made the other quilts my version of the quilt also had some brown bear, brown bear in it.

This quilt is unique for two reasons. The first: this is the only quilt I have made (to date) using this fabric.  The second: this is one of the only quilts I have made that I have not followed a pattern.  I don't have a very good eye for patterns so I usually make quilts based on patterns I have found on the internet or in a magazine.  But this one I made up all on my own! Simple but mine.

with of course Prime making a guest appearance...again.

Eric Carle Continued....

So after I made about a thousand VHC quilts I decided to continue with the Eric Carle theme and make a Brown Bear, Brown Bear quilt.  I originally made this quilt for a friend who wanted two quilts and wanted them to be similar yet different.  This way both quilts had a story book theme but they were two different tales.

Front

Back

 Have I mentioned that my cat loves to quilt with me! He thinks he is being helpful and it is often difficult for me to get a picture without him in it....but more on the quilting kitty later.

At the time these were the only two sets of fabric available in the Eric Carle collection.  Since this time some of the Eric Carle lines have been expanded and there is a new line out called the "very series".  More on that quilt tomorrow!

Story Books

As a true elementary school teacher I love children's books.  I collect them, read them, and quilt them!  When I found out that a good friend of my mine was going to have a baby I started to research what type of children's fabric was available. I searched high and low and I couldn't quite find the perfect thing.  Until one day the perfect quilt came creeping into my browser....

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The "Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle is a must have book for every teacher and I knew that this quilt would make the perfect gift for my friend.  The pattern is made by Carolina Patchworks and since discovering this blog I have made many more quilts from this talented artist.

I gave this quilt to my friend just in time, as her baby came a number of weeks ahead of schedule and the quilt started a frenzy! I have since made over a dozen VHC quilts and one hangs proudly in my school's library.