Floppy eared puppy quilt

While I was Black Friday shopping with my mom last week we were checking out a used bookstore. We found this book:The only quilt I liked in it was the one pictured on the cover and I think I can figure it out on my own (without spending $10 for a used book!). It looks super simple. Anyway, while I was trying to sketch out the dimensions I also came up with my own pattern. What do you think?
So be totally honest with me, which type of dog do you like better? My husband doesn't like mine, but my daughter does. The quilt will be for my 2 year old son and he couldn't care less which one I use.

Or, if you know of any better patterns, that would be great too. I did a little search on the web and wasn't too impressed with anything I've found. I want something simple yet cute. I already have some fabric and I'm excited to start another quilt!

Hearts and Butterflies Revisited:

I guess I kind of gave up on this blog. It seems like right after I started it I started to hate sewing! Well, I'm back to quilting again so we'll see how long I last this time.

A long time ago I started working on a scrappy heart and butterfly quilt to make for someone's baby. I can't even remember who. Anyhow, I got so sick of it I packed it up in a box and put it away never wanting to see it again. I had a little change of heart recently when my friend was complaining about how some people don't finish what they start and I decided to pull it back out and finish it. I also decided to stretch it out and make it into a twin size quilt for my three year old girl who desperately needs a big enough blanket for her bed.

So, I'm still not quite done yet but I will finish putting the borders on this week and then I will be setting it up at my friends house to hand quilt it. So, anyone who wants to claim a couple hand stitches in this quilt, come on over and have a little quilting party with us! It will be fun. You can meet my old lady friends!

Alright, enough talking , here's what we've got so far:

The lighting isn't the best in this picture but I'll take a better one after I get the borders on. I have gone through ups and downs with my feelings on this blanket, but as of right now I like it. I don't really love it, but I like it. I know it will change even more with the borders and and being all done though so I'll tell you what I think when we get there!

Really almost done now!

My Mom just sent me some pictures of the quilt being quilted. I got to go with her to take it to her friend who has a quilting machine while I was visiting and I got to pick out the designs to be quilted onto it. Basically just hearts and loop-di-loops. Here's how it's coming along:

I love it! And btw Wendy, I have done some handquilting before. Not much, but sometimes I get together with my old lady friends and help them handquilt baby blankets for grandkids. I still have yet to do one of my own though. I think I will try it next with my hearts and butterfly's, and you'll have to come help me! Otherwise it may never get done...

OOOPS!!!

I accidentaly just posted about the quilt on my family blog and it's supposed to be a surprise for my sister and she gets the emails from my family blog. Argh. Oh well. So here's what I posted and deleted over there:
I probably shouldn't be posting about this quite yet as I still need to add the final border. I'm just so excited about how far I've come though so here you go. You get two pictures because I could not decide which to post:
After I finish sewing the final border on tonight, it's off to my Mom's to finish the rest. She and I will pick out some backing fabric, get it machine quilted, bind it, then ship it off to the happy couple. It has been a fun and bumpy ride getting this thing sewn. I have enjoyed it for the most part and it has been especially nice to have my friend working with me and helping me all along the way. It helps it go faster and be funner when you have someone to work with. This quilt wouldn't win any ribbons at a fair, but I'm proud of it and I think my sister will like it.

Square'n em up!

Can you believe it?! I have finished all of the blocks. Last night I was so frustrated because everything seemed to be going wrong and nothing was matching up. Of course this was after I had been up with sick kids all night, sewing all day, and it was 10 pm. I was so mad I went to bed thinking how I was going to pack up this quilt, and put my sewing machine in the closet out of sight for a few months and not even think about sewing for awhile!

Ok, that was the exhausted me last night. Today I started squaring out (is that even how you refer to it) the blocks I already had done. That was going so well and was even kind of fun. After I did that for a bit I went to unpicking and resewing my squares that needed resewing. I actually finished them all! Now I just need to finish squaring them and then sew the borders on. Then I can sew them together and send it to my mom to finish and I'm done!

Anyway, it pays to live next to a quilter. My friend loans me her nifty tools that I can't afford to buy yet. This is a square that you can line up on top of your blocks and cut them all down to the exact right size. See the diagonal line from corner to corner? That helps you get it exactly strait. I find that when I put it on and think I have it right, then check the diagonal line I might be way off, so it's nice to have something exact. Our eyes can be decieving.

This is my lovely stack of perfectly sized blocks that I can now begin sewing borders onto!Don't they look perfect?

Quilt Sprint

For the past three days I have been neglecting every thing. House, health, husband, and maybe the kids to a degree, but at least I remember to feed them. Did I mention I just want to get this quilt done?! I am ready to move onto something else and I keep thinking I might work on the quilt in my spare time, but that isn't happening so I've dropped everything non-essential to just concentrate on the quilt. I've been sewing instead of exercising, and eating ice cream instead of drinking my green smoothies. Did I mention I need to get this quilt done?
Ok, so I am getting there. I finished all the blocks for it, but there are six blocks that I have to unpick completely and re size. That's what you get when you use the scraps from someone elses quilt instead of just starting fresh. It shouldn't be too hard though and I hope to have all the unpicking and resewing done by tomorrow. Then I just need to trim all the blocks and sew a border on each one. Sewing the individual borders on should go really fast because we already have the strips cut out and ready to go. Then I just need to sew all the blocks together and see about adding a big border around the edge to make it queen size. It sounds like a lot, but I think I can finish it within the next week. I'm excited that I'm working on it again and that it's almost done.
Thank you for all the input about the design of it. As it turns out I don't have enough light squares to do option A anyway, so I guess that decides for me. Option B it will be. Hopefully you will get a picture of the finished top within the next couple days!

Please advise me!!!

Really, I want anyone and everyone's opinion on this. I would really like to get all the blocks for this quilt finished this week but how I pattern it will determine how many and what kind of blocks I need to finish.
So here is option A: You may remember it from a previous post (and remember that the dark sqare on the bottom left is in the wrong place). We don't have enough fabric to alternate all the darks and lights so the picture above is a pattern we came up with but I'm not sure if it looks too split-down-the-middleish if you know what I mean.
And here is option B:

Sorry the lighting is so bad on this one and my camera is literally dying. This way it would alternate and there would be a distinct border top or bottom as you can see. Then if you look very closely you will see that there are three different kinds of blocks. There is a light light, a dark light, and a dark dark. So on option B the light squares alternate by rows. Then on the top row I can either alternate or have them all be light lights since that's what I have the most of.

If that all makes any sense. Anyway, please tell me which you like better and if you have any ideas for me. I am so close and I'm ready to be done with this quilt! We decided that we will just do 6 blocks by 7 blocks and then do a couple of borders to make up the rest around the edges and make it a queen size quilt.