"ANNABETH"

I'm a Grandmother for the 4th time and blessed with a perfect little girl. Each son now has 2 kids each, 2 boys for Tim and 2 girls for Andy. Of course I was making her a quilt while we were awaiting her arrival. I left a space to embroider her name, weight and birth day once she came.

I attend a senior class once a week. When someone wants to rid themselves of unwanted scraps or stash fabric, they leave it out for anyone to take. Most of the reproduction flour sack prints in this quilt came from those donations. They were small squares, strips and cut flowers. Using some of the left overs from big sister's quilt, I had enough to make this quilt.

POSTAGE STAMP Wedding Quilt #8

I finished hand quilting this wedding quilt for my grand nephew, Jack. He is only 10 but my goal is to make a queen or king quilt for each of my 4 grandchildren and my sister's 7. They range in age from 13 to 2 weeks. I have 3 more to make. 

The white spaces were quilted with a traditional motif. 

For the rest of the quilt, I followed the diagonal points of the squares, quilting every other row. I thought I would quilt every row but I soon realized that I didn't have the stamina nor did I think it was necessary.

 It's fun to look at the fussy cut squares and

 find the prints pictured.

I read online when storing quilts, they should be folded on the basis to avoid permanent creases. They are also stored in fabric bags (never plastic). I use large complementary laundry bags from hotels. 

Ready for Hand Quilting

I was amazed that this quilt top went together so fast. With careful directional pressing, the seams locked together and lined up perfectly. I can now take my time hand quilting a grid diagonally across squares and add a motif in the open white spaces.

Postage Stamp, I am really quilt crazy

I saw this quilt in an antique store and I knew that I had found my next wedding quilt pattern. So....

I gathered scraps, asked friends and went through my stash. I cut 2" squares so my finished square is larger than the standard postage stamp of 1".  I cut 2 of each which I didn't realized would be very helpful in assembling the blocks later. I used all kinds of prints, some being fussy cut, and then stored them by color totaling 4000 squares.

I arranged the layout (2 squares together) on felt, covered them with a sheet square. I was able to fold and transport this sandwich and they stayed put until I was ready to sew.

I could sew one block at a time and still have the second layout in place to refer to. The decision to cut 2 turned out to be a great accident. Here's the project in progress. Only 13 more blocks to make a king size. I am quilt crazy.

DOLL BLANKET for BABY

I like to take hand sewing quilt projects on our many travels. On this trip to Antarctica, I pieced a doll blanket for my two & half year old granddaughter. 

With cutting the pieces ahead, I was able to finish the top, hand quilt it to a flannel back and bind it. Grace knew right away what it was for.

DRUNKARD'S PATH from Scraps, WEDDING QUILT #5

Autumn, my grandniece, will be the recipient of this quilt. She is only 12, so it is stored in a cloth bag for now with a label telling her that it was made with love by her Aunt Janet.

This had been on my to do list for years. I found this different adaptation using multiple prints of light and dark instead of the traditional 2 color design. The original quilt size is 54" x 66" but I added extra blocks to make it king size. I started by collecting scraps from various sources, cutting no more than 12 of each shape from both light and dark prints. Part way into the cutting I realized that the pattern called for more light scraps than dark. I wasn't going to discard the extras so I made the outer squares the reverse of light and dark. You may notice the difference or not. 

I chose to hand piece the curves because of their size but also because I was laid up with foot surgery. The blocks were machine pieced.

In planning the layout, I used 12'x12' scrapbook paper to arrange the small squares. I rolled masking tape and fixed them in place on the paper until ready to sew each block. By laying out all the squares first I achieved a balanced design. 

The repeat of the border fit perfectly at the corners even with increasing the size. I finished by hand quilting circles that outlined the curves.

Here's the pattern if you'd like to try this. Just click on the pictures to print the actual size.

“COZY AS A CAT” Bento Box

I made this queen size quilt for my son and daughter-in-law. Melissa loves the color purple yet Andy wanted a masculine geometric design. This Bento Box pattern is featured in Successful Scrap Quilts by Judy Turner and Margaret Rolfe.

To create contrast in the concentric squares, I used both light and dark values and added Melissa's second favorite color, green and the complement of violet, yellow.

I like the challenge of using up the scraps on the back. My daughter-in-law, a Veterinarian, loves her pets so I included a cat on each corner.