Since I can’t enter this week’s quilts for little girls contest, I wanted to share with you some of the quilts I’ve made for my nieces.

I have two nieces, Lucy just turned 4 last Saturday, and Alice is 1.5, she’ll be two on Halloween. While I don’t live close to them, my sister does a fabulous job sharing their lives with me via pictures, videos, daily chatting, and her blog.

Lucy and Alice showing off their Olympic gear

For Lucy’s fourth birthday, I made her an art portfolio from Geta Grama’s fabulous tutorial.

I filled it with sketch pads, markers, construction paper and STICKERS!

Since I mailed the package to Lucy, my sister let her open it before her birthday. Here’s the video. “I think it’s made out of fabric!”

Lucy had a princess/fairy/barbie birthday party on the weekend. Here’s the fabulously creative cake my sister made … and more pictures of little girl cuteness.

For Lucy’s third birthday, I made her this doll quilt and used another of Geta’s tutorials for the fabric baskets.

For Christmas 2008, Alice received an Elmo quilt:

And for Lucy I made a Dora quilt:

As the girls get older, I’ll start to make them more complex keepsake quilts. For now, I want to make them things they can use, love and enjoy.

What about you? What have you made for the little ones in your life? Do they have favourite colours? Lucy is definitely a pink and purple girl. We’ll have to wait until Alice can communicate her colour choices. I do think she’ll follow in her sister’s footsteps, at least initially.

Join us at the new Quilter’s Daily Blog Along. The idea is that each day a new prompt will be posted, to give you inspiration for your next blog post. On your blog, write a post using the daily prompt as a guide. Then head over to the blog along site and add a link to your post in the comments for the specific day.

Today’s prompt is Quilting for Kids.

P.S. Today (Thursday) is the last day to enter this week’s themed quilt contest: Quilts for Little Girls.

Here are the six baby quilts I submitted to my local quilt guild which will be donated to the children’s hospital,

The tops for these quilts were made using the charms received from quilters around the world in the Charms for Charity contest I held last year. Many thanks to my friend Gailene for donating the backing fleece used on three of the quilts.

These were great pieces to practice my free-motion skills. I’m amazed how much I’ve progressed this summer since I did these. Practice, practice, practice really is the key (and Patsy Thompson’s DVDs).

Check out this cutie …

Melissa, from Mel’s Own Place put together this fabulous Owl Plushie Tutorial. It’s just so cute!

The tutorial is very well written with lots of easy-to-understand photos. It’s sure to make some little one smile.

Miri has created this adorable Elephant Quilt Block.

How cute is this? Perfect for a kid’s quilt. The block finishes at 10″

Download the PDF pattern.

As promised in my post earlier today, presented below is the large fabric basket tutorial. It comes with a story that I wanted to share with you all.

I made quilts for both of my nieces for Christmas. With Lucy’s birthday so close, I wasn’t planning to make her anything. That is until I saw this fabulous post from Geta Grama.

I could tell by the photo that Geta’s basket is bigger than the one I did before using Ayumi’s great tutorial. Having featured Geta’s Stack and Whack Kaleidoscope tutorial in the past, I knew I had her email on file. So I sent her an email asking her for the dimensions of her basket, as I wanted to make it for my niece.

Geta was kind enough to send me this chart, and these measurements which helped tremendously.

Finished size: 14″ x 6″ x 4″
Cut 32 squares: 2.5″ x 2.5″
The middle part is: 10″ x 16.5″
Two strips on top and bottom: 2 x (2″ x 16.5″)
Handles: 2 x (3.5″ x 13″)

If you want one even bigger, you can add more squares (1 column- 4 squares, or 2 columns – 8 squares).

Then a couple of days later, Geta sends me this full tutorial, Quilted Basket. Complete with a new design option and lots of easy to understand photos.

I want to thank Geta for her generosity in making this tutorial, and for her inspiration and creativity. I loved the fabric baskets I made for Lucy, and they weren’t nearly as difficult as I thought they would be, because the tutorial was so well done. One of these days, I’ll even make one of the more difficult ones using the technique in the tutorial. Here’s Geta’s finished basket:

The tips to sew flat the middle bottom seam and to add the additional lines of sewing to form the bottom of the basket worked wonders.

Note: If you decide to make this basket too, use either the measurements presented above or the ones in the tutorial. Don’t mix them, as they are slightly different.

While I loved the flowers from Geta’s first post about the baskets, I opted not to add them to Lucy’s as Lucy has a 4 month old baby sister, so we’re back in baby-proofing mode in our family for the next year or so.

I’d love to see your finished baskets, as I’m sure Geta would too. Please leave a comment below to the link on your site.

Enjoy and have fun. I sure did. Can’t wait to make more.

Here’s a great Rag Quilt Tutorial with lots of photos and detailed instructions. Jen wrote me to say she’s not much of a quilter, but she loves to cook.

I want to make a couple mini ones of these for my cats in the new year. They love soft and cuddly things to curl up on or under.