Benjamin's Favorite Colors

My Grandson at 10 deserved a new, more grown up quilt. What are your favorite colors? Yellow and Blue. It also needed to be a geometric design since numbers and shapes are the way he views the world.  

Benjamin picked this pattern, "BOOMERANG", from the Modern Quilt workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr

I was determined to use up the left overs so the backing included piano keys and extra blocks.

You can see that Benjamin was delighted to have his new quilt!

"RIDING THE RAILS"

After completing a quilt for my younger son, the oldest asked me to make him one. He requested a vintage train theme. I began my search online finding the cost of shipping really adding up so I asked my friends to be on the lookout. They came through. I also searched every shop I visited. Soon I came up with a variety of train fabrics.

I love the challenge of coming up with my own design, putting together different size prints and tying it together with coordinating fabrics. I modeled it after an airplane themed quilt I designed for my husband. 

 I machine quilted each area following the outline of the images, pattern of the fabric or the block design. 

(You can click on the images to enlarge and see the stitching.)

This train track fabric made the perfect border.

I backed it with cozy shirt flannel.

"HEXAGON JEWELS" Wedding Quilt #7

This quilt will be set aside for Lauren's wedding day, age 10, my sister's granddaughter.

On my bucket list was to make a kaleidoscope quilt. I found this book, Precision Patchwork for Scrap Quilts by Jeannette Muir, in a used book store with 8 different hexagon designs.

 I had already purchased (on sale) these coordinating fabrics with stripes, repetitive prints and large focus designs. It took larger amounts of fabric because they needed to be fussy cut. The finishing touch that tied it all together were the triangles, an idea that came from Eleanor Burns. 

My goal is to make all of these wedding quilts queen or king size and to hand quilt them. So far so good. 

There was only 6 yards of the perfect backing fabric so "killed 2 birds with one stone";  I was able to use up left overs and add to the width of the backing. 

Collaborative Quilts

I.  Jigsaw Puzzle (designed by Alyssa Clancy)

Every year my church quilting group makes a quilt to raffle at the Women"s Retreat to support Women's Ministries at Pomona Baptist Church. 

The theme this years was "70's".
We went into our stash and combined
oranges, pinks and greens for this retro look.

II.  Chop Stix Strips

The retired teachers from my former school have continued the tradition of making quilts for retirees which we started while we were still working at South Pointe Middle School. We see each other twice a week to work on our own projects but also to plan and piece these two quilts.

Claudia, English and ESL teacher, is moving to Arizona. We took the colors for her quilt from the tile in her new house.

III.  Simply Cakes 1.2.3 (Me and My Sister Designs)

I found these fabrics that reminded me of 50's prints and knew they were perfect for my friend Marsha, who is retiring this year. She has been part of our teacher quilter's group from the beginning and has helped make all the retiree quilts. We will miss her since she will also be moving to Prescott, Arizona but we are already planning a gals quilting retreat to her new home.