"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.

"BIG BROTHER" & "LITTLE BROTHER"

"BIG BROTHER" "LITTLE BROTHER"

My daughter-in-law saved my grandsons' "baby" clothes in hopes that I would make a quilt for each of the boys. They are now 5 and 3 years old. The challenge was to blend a variety of colors, deal with various fabric types and include key logos in both quilts i.e." DUKE" and "OXY".

I started by cutting and reducing the bulky clothing into usable "squares". As I was cutting up the T-Shirts, I realized that the brand labels and printed sizes inside should be used too. I also found that I could leave the ribbed neckline, pockets or the snap front from some body suits.

I laid out the various size pieces on the floor, distributing colors to repeat throughout. The remaining fabric was cut up and used for sashing and additional squares.

I did a lot of stitch-in-the-ditch and diagonal grids but I also had fun doing free motion designs that reflected the image in the logo. Since so many of boys clothing is made of plaids and stripes, it was natural to use plaid and stripe backing fabrics.

"It's a Girl!"

Melissa and Andy have found out that they will have a daughter in November. I could hardly wait to finished a baby quilt for my first granddaughter.

The pattern, called Charmed Circles by Denise Sheehan at A Graceful Stitch, was designed to be done in 1930's reproduction fabrics. I scanned the cute child, animal, and flower images and enlarged them to fit in the white background. After tracing them in pencil, I embroidered using the same colors.

The machine quilting followed the circles and a zigzag for the almond shapes.

New projects in the works . . .

The young man who was hired to teach Art when I retired, is also one of my former students. He is doing a terrific job and I am so pleased to see what I started 20 years ago continue. He and his wife are expecting their first child in March. A teacher colleague and I are making a baby quilt for them.










I found this flannel backing, scanned the images and enlarged them for applique.




Marsha is making the pinwheels to fill in the other 5 squares. We'll join them next week and I show you the finished product.


The second project is for my oldest Niece, Sarah. Its her turn for a king size quilt for their bedroom. She looked through my books and spotted an idea in Louise L. Smith's A New Twist on Strips 'n Curves (Not a simple pattern). "Can you do this Aunt Janet?" "Of course Sarah, I love challenges." I put together these fabrics from my stash and got the go ahead.
Here are the strips I've sewn so far, ready to cut and put together. I hope the orange doesn't take over.

I did this technique before for my sister. Look here to see what I'm talking about.

Round Robin Baby Quilts

My church quilt group makes baby quilts for the newborns of members. When the number of ready quilts is low we start a round robin. Each person selects several fabrics from our donated stash. The first person makes a square and passes it on to the next. (The square I made appeared here) I was totally excited about adding to the first but the second just didn't thrill me.
Sue started with these 9 fussy cut framed sea creatures. I seamed them together and added the zigzag border. The easy funky zigzag comes from Collaborative Quilting by Moran and Marston.

I was given the rail fence center. I added the pinwheels and fussy cut teddy bears. Clink on the picture for a close up and try to figure out what turned me off. Maybe its a generational thing.

GAMES WITH FABRIC: "Tic-Tack-Doe" and "Musical Chairs"

I just found out how to post two pictures side-by-side. I chose to show these two baby blankets I made for JACK who will be 4 this month. I was helped by Carol, Funoldhag, who also wanted to find out how and posted the question. See her instructions. Both blankets were made with the same fabrics complementing each other.


The backing and blocks are made of flannel and stitched in the ditch without batting, the perfect weight for receiving blankets. Jack still sleeps with these. The patterns come from Quilters Playtime by Dianne S. Hire. Her instructions are easy to follow and she gives multiple variations for innovation.

"POOH & FRIENDS"

My choice of theme for my first grandson's blanket was easily based on his mother's lifelong love of Winnie the Pooh. At the time, my quilt class was shown how to combine redwork with crayon embellishment. I adapted the snowball blocks to feature characters from a Disney coloring book.

Using Crayola brand, I colored in the designs, set with an iron, and then outlined with embroidery floss. In the borders I embroidered the sayings most often used by Pooh and his friends. Hint: Place paper towels over and under the coloring when ironing in crayon. This sets the color although it will fade somewhat in washing.


I used flannel in the front and back. The squares came from scraps of baby blankets and PJ's I had made for my boys and family. The backing fabric of Pooh and buzzing honey bees gave me the pattern to follow for hand quilting.