"SECONDARY COLORS"

My cousin's son was recently married to a Thai girl. The wedding took place with her family in Thailand but they met, work and live in Hong Kong. They are visiting family in California and on Saturday there will be a reception for the newlyweds. I wanted to make something personal rather than buying a gift. 

 This pattern called "Zipper" comes from a great book, the Modern Quilt workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. I have made two other quilts from this book, "Treehouse" and "Outside the Box", and plan to do more.

I machine quilted it with a Japanese wave pattern as shown in the book.

All the fabrics came from my stash, even the backing. I generally do not buy more than a yard of fabric without a plan but I actually had enough of this matching fabric adding extra rectangles to get the desired width.

Retirees

Ten teachers retired this year from my old school. We started the tradition of making a quilt for each person who left us 9 years ago when our principal retired. The four of us continued even after I retired 4 years ago.  We made this one 2 years ago when Betty was originally retiring but only finished it this year.

This year the district offered an incentive at the last minute that could not be passed up and so we were in trouble.  With the help of our VP who also quilts (she made these two and offered one from her stash.)

we completed 10 quilts in time for the closing of school. I was involved in most of them, making the tops for 5, quilting 5 and the binding of some.

My good friend Marsha (who is the only one of our group who isn't retiring) helped with the one above right and made these two, with me quilting the cat quilt.

Whoo!

Ready for binding

This quilt was a collaborative effort of my teacher friends (3 + me) for our beloved secretary, Betty, retiring this year.

We went into our stashes and put together this design in Betty's favorite colors. We strip pieced squares tying in the "white on white" background.

The appliqué, suggested by the pattern, was turned with fusable interfacing.

I did a combination of machine quilting, in the ditch and free motion, on the colored parts with hand quilting in the white background.

Now its Debbie's turn to put on the binding.

Ready for the Walk

Abby and I are almost finished. We put the borders on and sandwiched the quilt. I decided on wavy lines for the major part of the quilt and stippling between the shells in the border.

Abby will finish the binding and it will be ready for the raffle on Sept 11. Abby limits the tickets to walkers, volunteers, family and friends who come to the Walk. She feels they are the ones who have family affected by MS and will appreciate the theme of the quilt. Even with that, they made $900 last year.

There is still time to donate at the site at the top of my sidebar. Let's find a cure.

"WINGS OF SUNSHINE AND POSEY PINK"

I watched my grandniece and nephews today so their mother could teach a class. I thought it would be a good time to post the quilt I made for Vanessa in February, 2006. She is now 7 and quite the young lady. We sat down at the sewing machine and together made a pinafore for Nellie, her American Girl doll. She was really very good at cutting and controlling the sewing machine.

Vanessa loves her quilt as do her brothers (Flying in Formation and Geckos). The butterflies came from on-line free patterns. This was my first project to free motion quilt by machine. The antennas were embroidered by hand.

Sarah (her mother) asked for pink, yellow and plaid to match the sponged painted plaid on Vanessa's walls. Her room is all girl and fits her to a "T".

Christmas in June

I thought you might be inspired to start a Christmas project to be finished in time for the Holidays. (Actually, I'm kind of stuck with the garden quilt below, so I'm stalling.)

Tree Skirt #1
"PURPLE POINSETTIAS"

My Daughter-in-Law is my purple gal. Everything in their home has some purple so . . . she asked for a purple tree skirt. In the after Christmas sale I actually found this pale purple poinsettia pattern not knowing what I'd do.


While I was visiting our friends in Ariz., there on the dining table was still their Christmas poinsettia plant. I traced the leaves and started the applique. Kathi and I went shopping for beads. When it was time to quilt, I tried free motion and followed the subtle outline of the print.


Tree skirt #2
"GINGERBREAD KIDS"

This one was for me. The "gingerbread kids" was introduced in my Monday class as a block quilt. I modified it to have the kids join hands around my Christmas tree. I used a round table cloth as the base which made it a lot easier.


It was so much fun to "dress" the kids, vary their hairdos and decorate the trees.

Tree skirt # 3
"WINTER WONDERLAND"

This one was for my other Daughter-in-Law. She had asked for snowflakes. I started by needle turning the applique during my summer travels. I had no idea how I was going to put it together.




When I returned, I found the tree pattern on white and immediately visualized trees around the edge. The quilting is done in silver metallic thread (I challenge to work with).

"MEMORIES OF AN ART TEACHER", finished

It's done and I'm really happy with the results. The dark border really framed it and tied it all together. Thank you for your comment Connie. The burnt orange is just the right accent for the binding (also from my stash) and the right color for the flannel backing.



I densely quilted as much as possible. I love the texture that shows on the back while images on the front still stand out. The most difficult areas to quilt were the vinyl transfers. They tended to stick to the presser foot and shift.

"ONION PEEL", Another Stack and Wack

I have already posted a picture of Kathi (MS Challenge Walk) with her lap quilt. This is based on Karla Alexander's "Red Onion" also in Stack a New Deck. We had so much fun picking out the fabrics and colors together. She really is more a traditional gal so I was surprised that I was able to "steer" her towards this vibrant combination.

The"batik" flannel backing makes it warm and cozy.

"COLOR FUN", quirky brights

I continue to upload and showcase quilts that I made before I started this blog. This quilt was raffled off to support my grandneice's nursery school. Selling $1 tickets made $417. I love working with brights and abstract designs as well as more traditional patterns. The fabrics all came from my stash. (Too much stash?)

The pattern called "Bent Out of Square" came from Stack a New Deck, Karla Alexander. The technique for making the blocks is sometimes called "Stack and Wack" or "Stacking the Deck". Six layers of fabric are cut together and then shuffled to rearrange the colors. Ten "decks" are cut in variations and mixed in the layout.

I can machine quilt a twin or lap size quilt on my regular machine but I don't attempt larger sizes. The wonky design lent itself to free motion quilting that mimicked the pieced pattern (and of course didn't require me to be too precise). I like to back lap quilts with flannel because it makes them so cozy.

It's Time Again for "Challenge Walk MS"

Kathi and I have been friends for over 35 years. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in her early 30's. It has progressed to confinement to a wheelchair but her faith, sense of humor and spirit has never diminished. I made this colorful lap quilt for her last year and she loves that it draws people to come over and talk to her.

My niece also has a long time friend, Rita, who has MS. As part of Team Momentum, Abby will walk with friends who have known Rita since High School.

Abby raises additional money by raffling a quilt that she and I make. This was last year's and we will be starting another very soon.

The T-shirts for the walkers and volunteers become the focus and create the theme. Tropical stamp fabric was perfect for the sashing and palm tree flannel became the backing. The hibiscus flower was scanned from the logo and enlarged. I used fusible web (see "Mon" entry) and machine applique to create this shadow effect.