Latest Project

Sorry, I haven't posted anything in the past 2 weeks. My daughter's birthday was last weekend, and that consumed a lot of my time.  I had finished this project before the party, but haven't had the time to blog about it.

I wanted to make this quilt for a wonderful person that I know who is going through a rough time. I wanted her to know how much I cared and I wanted it to be very feminine.

 Here it is. This quilt required a ton of cutting.  I made 12 of the individual blocks that were made up of triangles and squares. I absolutely love the bows that they make.  The tan fabric that I used for the sashing has tiny pink specks in it.  I repeated the same white border around the blocks, and then used this quite striped fabric for the back. 

 Here is a close-up of the individual squares.

 And again, how it might look folded up on your couch or chair.

After doing quite a few quilts, I have discovered that my favorite way to bind a quilt, is to use the fabric from the back and wrap it around the front.  I used to cheat and use my sewing machine to sew down that fabric in the front, but the results I will say look like you "cheated".  Instead, I plop down in front of the tv, and hand stitch the binding down, so the stitch is almost invisible. I used to be nervous that this would come loose in the laundry, but it never has.  It looks professional and clean.  I guess we have to give it up to all those quilters back in the day that did everything by hand; none of it done with a machine.  I also many years ago figured out how to miter the corners quite well.  I should have taken a photo of those corners.  Anyway, I will remember to take more details photos in the future.

I have some curtains to sew for my daughter's classroom, and someone else to make window treatments for. I hope to get some pics of those up soon.

Modern Quilt

I made my oldest sister a quilt for Christmas last year. Her family room has a very modern artwork piece above the couch and coordinating pillows on the couch.  So I wanted to go bold and modern with the quilt.  What I loved about this design was the design that the individual blocks made as they were pieced together.

 And here is a close up of the individual pieces.  I think some people have the idea that quilts are all flowers and very grandmother like.  Those are beautiful, but quilts can also be very modern and bold.   My personal belief is that quilts look even better with age and the more they are washed.  I have also found I love flatter quilts, so I usually pick the lowest loft batting I can find to put in the middle.  My kid's quilts are perfect now that they have been laundered so much.  Maybe someday I will make a quilt just for our family to take on picnics.  That was quite a tangent, but anyway those are some of my thoughts on quilts.

I have two more projects in the works.  One project I finished and gave to my son's teacher for her classroom last Friday, but I am waiting to see it up.  Then I will take some photos and post.  The next project I am working on now and am extremely excited about.

Photo Quilt

For my Mom and Step Dad's first Christmas together I made them a photo quilt including pictures of both sides of the family. To this day, you can see it on the back of their couch in most family pictures. I also made one for my Mother-in-law the next Christmas.
This was my first quilt I ever made. This was definitely a learning experience.

Awesome idea. . . 3 generation Quilt

This quilt was for a good friend of mine. She knew exactly what she wanted, and came to me with this awesome idea. She had saved her father-in-law's pajamas and favorite button down shirts, her husband's shirts, and some of her sons as well. So she asked me to cut them up, and piece them together in a quilt. This was not the easiest project because the pieces of fabric were well laundered and not real straight. However, it was fun to see this come together. We decided to back it with corduroy, so it is very masculine. I believe she still uses this as her winter time quilt on her bed. It is more of a decoration on the bottom of her bed, I think.





This really does make me happy just looking at this picture.

Quilts in the kid's rooms

I love creating things for my children; unfortunately I don't think I create enough. I do think it is really sweet when the kids ask me to sew something for them. Hannah asks for new dresses all the time, and Hunter has asked for things on occasion. I loved decorating/sewing things for their rooms especially. Creating quilts is one of the most rewarding sewing endeavors I can think of. You start out with scraps(or large pieces you painstakingly cut) and you end up with this beautiful durable quilt.

Hannah's quilt was designed and finished before we moved into our current house, and before she had even came out of her crib. I fell in love with a swatch of fabric I wanted to make her window treatments out of. It was full of so many colors. I brought the swatch with me to the fabric store and picked out the fabrics in the quilt. This is one of my mother's pieces of advice. Choose a piece of fabric that you love all the colors in. You don't even have to use it in the room, but if you match all fabrics and accessories to it, you will have a pulled together room. I had an amazing time putting this quilt together on the floor of our old tiny house. This was before she was old enough to have an opinion. About a month ago, my almost 7 year old just figured out that I actually made the quilt that has resided on her bed for the past 4 years. That small pillow in a funny position, is made from the fabric of her window treatments, with that cute bally trim around it.

Hunter's quilt is totally boyish. I originally decorated his room with a fireman theme. His window treatments even have embroidered fire trucks driving along the bottom of them(sadly they are now covered up by his bed). He has kind of grown out of the firemen now. I wanted a quilt that wasn't a theme, but had different boy colors that could last him a while. I think blues, reds and tans are classic colors that will last him forever. We can always change out the other accessories in his room, but I would love for this to stay as long as possible. His quilt was done in less than a day, since it is really just large chunks of fabric sewn together, and I quilted it more to give it some interest. It was exactly the look I was going for. It totally matches these painted stripes that are below a chair rail on one wall of his room.

I have sewn many more quilts, but they will come in a separate post. Teaser: baby quilts, photo quilts, throw quilts, even a quilt made out of 3 generations of men's shirts.