"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.

"TEA TIME"

This table runner has been on my wish list for a long time. I found a quilt book Cups and Saucers by Maaike Bakker, on the SALE rack and immediately knew I wanted to use this idea. Unlike the book, I chose to applique the images rather than paper piece. I added some other images that a friend shared with me.

My husband and I travel a lot, many times on a cruise. This last trip lasted for 35 days with more days at sea than in port. I planned to take this project for those restful days. Unable to bring an iron nor wanting to use that technique, I used a glue stick to tack the edges under (Tutorial). This has been a very successful and easy way to prep my applique in the past. I was able to complete both turning the edges and hand applique before disembarking. The hand quilting was done during the last month while waiting for our newest granddaughter.

"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.

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.

"GO DUKE"

In honor of my son receiving tenure at Pepperdine University, I made this quilt in the colors of his graduate school, Duke University, where he spent the first 7 years of his marriage earning his doctorate and where our grandson, Benjamin, was born.

Although the strips are straight, the arrangement gives it an optical illusion of curves.

"D" is for the Duke Blue Devils with its outstanding basketball team and coach "K".

I machine quilted triple diagonals and hand embroidered my congratulations.

The pattern came from Best of the Best Quilts by Leslie Beck, 

pg. 106, called "Autumn Lights".