2014 Quilts

Here are three more quilts finished in 2014 - two for grandchildren going off to college and one for Kate and Chris. I also made three baby quilts, two are the same pattern as Michelle's quilt. And one is a whole cloth quilt that I practiced quilting on.

Here I am working at Christine Francis' house on sachet bags for the charity boutique she is planning.

  This is the 'whole cloth' practice baby quilt. I hand quilted around each of the red circles to practice quilting.

Seth's Quilt was made from homespun scraps and shirt tails from 3 of Grandpa's old shirts...everyone seems to like it.

Michelle's Quilt, with a totally different feel to it, was made of a variety of scraps in a simple pattern.

Farmer's Wife is from a book and pattern by Laurie Aaron Hird. I replaced some of her blocks with applique or pieced blocks that I preferred. Again this quilt, except for the sashing, was made from scraps. I really enjoyed making the blocks, both selecting the fabrics and sewing them together.

January 2013 Quilts

Of course, these quilts were mostly done in 2012, but were finished this month ( two of them were). The Jacob's ladder is awaiting quilting, but since I had a picture of it, I decided to add it now.

The fabric for this quilt was selected and cut by Sue Tannyhill and part of our quilt group's ten inch block exchange. She gave the cut pieces to me and I took them to my granddaughter, Kalani Kelly, in Houston and showed her how to make the blocks. She completed all the blocks by hand and then sewed them together. I selected the batting and backing and had it machine quilted by Liz Minick and then I bound it with a bright turquoise. Didn't it turn out great for Kalani's first pieced top? I am really proud of her and grateful for Sue's sharing and Liz's good quilting.

Seeing how full my scrap bucket was getting, I designed and made this 'scrappy squares' quilt. I was delighted with how it turned out. It was easy to make and fun to select the fabrics and put them together.

This Jacob's ladder quilt was made based on a old quilt book from my mother. Two things I'll do differently if I make another one: make the basic blocks 3'' instead of 4 and use more mid-range colors instead of mostly lights and darks. This is another quilt made from the scrap bucket, which as you know never seems to get empty.

Truly Twisted Nine Patch

Karen Lusby, soon to be Lewis, led this quilt group activity. All who wanted to participate made a total of 400 4" blocks, some light squares, some dark squares, some 1/2 square triangles of light and dark and some 1/4 square triangles of light and dark. We then divided these up into packets - one for each participant - of a designated number of each kind of square. Due to the large number of squares involved, we did 200 squares at a time and spread the distribution out over nearly a year. After the first distribution I was eager to see how the quilt was going to look and began putting the blocks together. Once started, I could not stop and here is the finished result - with smaller 1/2 square triangles as the border.  All of my squares were made from scraps as was the border, the back of the quilt, and the binding....truly scrappy.

Garden Fairies

This quilt I call "Garden Fairies". Geri sent me a 1/2 yard scrap of fabric that showed garden fairies in several different scenes. I decided to fussy cut each picture and then frame then and piece them unto a background of light yellow foursquares. This quilt is lap size and I can picture a granddaughter cuddling up in it to read. We had a UFO (unfinished objects) challenge in our quilt group this past year and turning this bit of fabric into a finished quilt was my response.

Hard and Easy

This is a quilt with an amazing story. My sister Geri was at a garage sale near Etna, California. This quilt top was on the floor of the front porch with a dog sleeping on it. When she went up on to the porch to look at some books for sale, the dog left. She glanced down and, being a quilter, noticed the quilt top. It looked like it was a grandmother's flower garden in shades of browns. She picked it up and shook it and not noticing any tears or holes, asked how much the man wanted for it. She paid less than $5 for the 'old rag'. Taking it home, she soaked it in the bathtub in some quilt wash. The quilt turned out to be red and white - quite a surprise- and came out very clean. Unfortunately the bright reds ran and the quilt quickly became shades of red and pink. She sent it to me to use if I could. It wasn't very attractive with the pink, but was all beautifully hand sewn with each hexagon perfectly sewn to the others. I couldn't use it the way it was so threw it in the washing machine (gentle cycle) with hot water, laundry soap, and a little bleach. Then I added one after another color catchers and watched them turn bright pink. When the last one I added remained white, I rinsed the quilt top and hung it to dry. It looked perfect! I paid for it to be hand quilted by a mother-daughter combo in Utah - Alice and Melanie Stones. They did a beautiful job of outlining every single hexagon. Alice and Melanie came upon a few small 'toenail' cuts and mended them as they quilted. I found a few more as I put on the border and mended those as well. I then appliqued the outer edges of each outside edge hexagon onto a great print border and hand bound the edges. An entire quilt done by hand - a wonderful creation. We think the top was made in the 40's, but maybe later. I wish the woman who made the top could see her beautiful handwork all finished.

This 'diamonds on grays' king quilt I plan to send off to college with my grandson Macon. I found the pattern in a magazine, but didn't write down who did it. Thank you who ever you are.

2012 Starting out smallI

I combined two patterns from a magazine to make this small hot air balloon quilt. I had a few fat quarters and then used scraps. The birds on a limb involved some tiny pieces but I was pleased with the result. This is for my first great grandchild - due in September. This was machine quilted by Liz Minick.

I bought some muslin with red work design blocks in the sale basket at a quilt show. I combined them with some scrappy hearts and came up with the little quilt for our latest granddaughter to be born in December. This was machine quilted by Liz Minick

Last two of five in 2011

This Americana quilt is based on a Fons and Porter design. It is an exchange quilt. Each one in our quilt group made 19 blocks of one pattern. We each chose our own fabrics based on swatches provided. We exchanged blocks, I made the 4 log cabin blocks in the upper left. I also made about a dozen other blocks, plus several 'filler pieces' to make the quilt twin size instead of lap size. I also made the big lone star and the tiny flying geese that border the big star. This quilt was a real challenge for me. It is a treasure since it contains beautiful blocks by my quilting friends. I appliqued Bob's hand print and the wreath and the rose. It will be in the San Diego Quilt show in September 2012 along with 8 other versions from other members of our quilt group.

This scrappy spider web quilt was fun and fairly simple to make. I got the pattern from Karen Lusby and used lots of interesting scraps, emphasizing green on the outer edges of the webs and putting some yellow in nearly every block. I then renamed it a 'wheel quilt'. Who would want to sleep cuddled up in a spider web? Erin Hamson is the happy owner of this quilt.