Another Wedding Gift

 Another of my cousin's daughters was getting married so a quilt was in order. I selected fabrics from my stash to audition with her mother and they met with approval. Next I selected a pattern that I had done before, a "stack & whack". 

 This pattern comes from Stack a New Deck by Karla Alexander. I have used this book for several different quilt ideas (Red Onion and Cottage Quarters). Her instructions are clear and allow for your own creativity and variation.

I'm still awaiting a thank you note but I'm hopeful that they liked it.

WEDDING RING Finished, Wedding Quilt #3

 I finished quilting and binding this quilt for my granddaughter, Grace, just after her 1st birthday. I know that I'm a bit early but who knows what's ahead. I want her to have a special memory of her Grandmother.

Since there were no suggested quilting patterns, I selected two patterns to repeat in the open areas. I outlined each wedge within the arcs and shadowed the white shapes.

 I was concerned that the pencil lines would not wash out. I sprayed with a prewash stain remover and threw it in the washer and dryer (removing it while still damp) and all was good. It did press out the major wrinkles so the quilting would show better.

• Someone suggested folding quilts on the basis to avoid fold lines. I opened the quilt to photograph it just before this post and still found some creases but in the long term, this may be less permanent.

Heirloom Quilt

 My Granddaughter is only 8 months old but I'm already making her wedding quilt. I made an heirloom quilt for each of the grandsons, "Betty B's Bouquet" and Mary Mannakee, which are stored away for when they get married. Who knows if I'll be here for any of their weddings and I may not be able to quilt years from now so NOW is the time to make those quilts.

 This double wedding ring pattern is based on a old issue of McCall's, reworked to use paper piecing and offered as a pdf for free at McCall's website. (I did find the outside pattern was 1/2" too small to fit the arc pieces.) I still had some scraps from my mother so I included as many of those as I could. There are 7 different combinations for the rings, 6 blocks across and 6 down for a king size. I really don't like to do paper piecing but the accuracy for the arcs made the joining of pieces so easy.

I started this quilt last September. Once it was ready to hand quilt I worked on other projects, picking it up intermittently. I looked through all my books and on-line for suitable motifs and decided on two that were compatible.

 All the center motifs are done and most of the arcs and almond shapes. I hope to finish before the year is up.

"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!

Love of Travel

My latest inspiration is to make a memory quilt of our travels.

We have visited over 50 countries and more to come.

I have collected fabrics and needlework samples from a number of those countries.

I want to design a quilt that features as many parts of the world as possible.

I found this panel at Hancock that I'll cut up to show our love of cruising.

I purchased these fabrics to supplement my stash.

I appliquéd these stacking dolls to represent Russia.

I want to also appliqué a maple leaf for Canada.

I'll post more on my progress as I plan and start piecing. I don't want to move too fast as we have a upcoming trip to Africa in the works.

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.