Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

Masthead header
Needles and a Pen bio picture
  • Welcome to my blog!

    Hi! I'm Traci. I'm a Registered Nurse who loves quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and the great outdoors. In my pre-scrubs life, I owned Real Photography, and you can still see my old wedding and portrait photography site here .

    I've created a map that shows links to our camping/hiking/general family fun review posts that you can find here. It's pretty much the coolest thing on this site. Thanks, Google!

    I great big puffy heart *love* comments, so please let me know you visited! I try to always reply!

ta da! (my sherbet pips quilt)

It’s done!  My sherbet pips quilt is happily installed around my shoulders as I type this.  I’m so excited about this quilt and think it ended up capturing what I had originally envisioned as my goals.  A quilt that showed off the cute sherbet pips illustrations (through fussy cut center blocks), something modern (with improvisational piecing), something scrappy (by piecing the blocks together without sashing I got that look that I so love in a lot of the Material Obsession and vintage quilts), and something whimsical (the little pieces I stuck into some of the rings–puppies or the girl on the swing or a snail).

We are headed to Disneyland in a couple of weeks, so we are refreshing Will’s memory of some of the Disney classics.  On Saturday we watched Cinderella, which was the perfect opportunity to finish sewing the binding on this bad boy.  I would have preferred one of the blues for the binding (actually my first choice would have been one of the Pips scarf fabrics), but the only fabric I had 1/2 yard left of was the green, so green it was.  Will fell asleep under it as I was finishing off sewing the binding.  I tossed the quilt in the wash, then the dryer, and felt like a kid on Christmas when I pulled it out.  (I even put it over my half of the bed so I could sleep under it that night!)  Willie woke up and said it was Beautiful, and that his favorite part was the ‘cute little puppies’ so I’m happy with the reception it got.  🙂

I love the back.  I’m not sure I’ve shared this tidbit here yet, but when I was a teenager and quilting in England, my mom used to always make pieced backs very similar to the ones in vogue these days.  At the time I thought it was sooooo hobo.  I was aghast that she’d spend all that time on the top, but then not shell out the extra money to get a few yards of one single print for the back.  And then when I discovered modern quilting this summer and all the amazing pieced backs I had to give a little tip of my hat to my mother, who was hip before her time.  Rockin’ the modern minimalist pieced quilt backs in 1997.

And a few more pictures in case you need more sherbet pips in your life.  🙂  (The back of the quilt got a little linty from when I laid it on the office floor.  I would retouch it, but retouching is my job and I get tired of the patch tool.  Really, REALLY tired of the patch tool.  So instead when you look at these pictures of the quilt back imagine that I wasn’t too lazy to either get a lint brush or use the patch tool in Photoshop.  Also when you’re imagining, imagine the quilt with a blue binding and me without a muffin top and stretch marks.)

Alison - Not a fan of Sherbet Pips but this quilt is the exception! Love the fact that yo have mixed it up with other fabric lines, think the addition of the yellow really enlivens it and I think the whole quilt is therefore GREAT!

siobhan - I liked the sherbet pips range but everything I saw looked the same and it was always done in big bits of fabric, I eventually kinda turned off the idea of using it – But this quilt has changed my view of the range. I like the mix of colour and the framing of the fussy cut bits. Great Quilt 🙂

Vickie - Traci, it is fabulous! I just wanted to share…your quilt is my inspiration quilt for my month in my bee, “The Fussy Cut Love Bee”, although I sent out Alexander Henry’s Starling fabric in white! 🙂 Seriously, this is my favorite quilts right now! I simply love that you didn’t sash it. It adds to the sherbet pips cuteness!!

Kristie at OCD - Awesome!!! Glad you balked all our advice and avoided the sashing, it looks great as is. I love the balance of “stars” and “team players.” Love the hobo back. I love that the binding matches your boots 😉 Love, love , love! Great job!

Enjoy Disneyland!

Natalie - Of all the sherbet pips projects I’ve seen floating around the internet, this one is my favorite! I think it’s a great use of the fabric, and it’s beautiful 🙂

Chelsea - Oh, love it! The addition of the yellow is just perfect. It’s too bad Moda didn’t include a yellow print in the range to tie in with some of the yellow hits in the prints. It just adds such a liveliness.

Kati - I haven’t been a huge fan of Sherbet Pips. It just wasn’t my style, but I love what you have done with it. Incorporating a few other fabrics, makes all the difference to make this quilt unique and beautiful. Great work!

Brooke - I LOVE how this all came together, Traci!

Jennifer G - By far my most favorite Sherbet Pips quilt I’ve seen yet! You did a fantastic job popping the bits of yellow and dark charcoal in there. Love it, love it!!!

Lee - Love love love this!!! Just wonderful, I love everything about it. : )

Susie - Oh Traci! It turned out fantastic! All your hard work paid off, I think Enjoy it, girly!

Jen B - Love it! That’s my favorite quilt using Sherbet Pips!

Sonia - hey this must be the best pips quilt I have seen. I love how you used the fabrics. Fantastic, I love this quilt.

holly | bijou lovely - I love this quilt so much! By far my favorite quilt ever made with Sherbet Pips 🙂

margaret - I agree with siobhan–everything else I’ve seen with S. Pips has looked very similar. This quilt is a refreshing change. I like the solids and other prints (non-Pips) thrown in the mix.

Rachel - this turned out AMAZING Traci!! LOVE it! You are blowing me away with all your amazing projects!!

Raechel - Okay – now seeing the finished product. I know every artist has their own vision and is probably the most critical of their own work, but girl, this is my favorite Pips quilt I’ve seen. Excellent work!

Emily - Love this!!! I have some Pips and I’m hoping to do some improv blocks too. 🙂 You are my inspiration! 🙂

Nicola - I stumbled across your blog whilst looking for inspiration on how to design the Sherbet Pips quilt for my little girl. I love your design and it’s given me some ideas on where to start. It’s the loveliest I have seen whilst searching around!

Linda battison - Is there a pattern for the pips quilt? Thanks, linda

Traci - Sorry! This was just improvisationally pieced based on the log cabin block structure.