A Starry Night

Sarah made this quilt for her husband for Christmas, so I had to wait to reveal this one as well.

 Sarah used the same Cheese and Crackers pattern she used for the quilt she had made for her newborn son--Clouds .    She assured me that she had counted all the border pieces this time , and since she no longer has pregnant brain, I believed her.  Sure enough, when I loaded it, there were no issues.

The first quilt had a light background, so we chose to quilt it looking like a sunny day with clouds.   This quilt, having the dark background, and being for a man who has a lot of interest in astronomy, got stars.  Sorry, J, I know they're about as realistic as a Valentine's heart shape is to an actual heart, but it's the best I could do.

 I used a variegated Rainbows thread on this quilt, the closeup above you can see the colour changes.

I didn't get a good photo of the backing, but you can see above it's a pale blue bubble minkee.  This quilt is for a queen sized bed. 

I hope your husband liked his gift Sarah!

Jessie's Memory Quilt

Now that we are post Christmas, I can show a few more quilts.

First up is this memory quilt Jessie and her aunts and cousin made for Jessie's sister. 

This quilt needed to be freehand quilted because, being a memory quilt, the piecers had used some shirts, and there were buttons I needed to be able to stitch around.  This was all good, since I prefer to freehand quilt anyway.  I don't think I got a photo, but some of the buttons became the flower centers.


A pre-quilting photo

 Jessie had asked for whimsical hearts and I suggested the flowers as well, because of the floral fabric you can see above.  The backing really shows the quilting nicely.

 A very special label was stitched into the backing.  I did have to take the buttons and d-ring off of this shirt, as being on the bottom, I couldn't see them and risked damaging the quilt and my machine if I hit one.  I used white glue to hold the placket closed--this will wash out with the first time the quilt is being washed, and that placket will flap again, as they intended.

What a great Christmas gift! 

Ombre Fabrics and Texture

This quilt was made by Lori.  She used ombre (graduated) fabrics, and then carefully arranged her blocks to get this lovely colour wash effect.

If you look closely in the bottom row of the photo above, you can see in the brown block on the left and in the two purple blocks the colour going from deeper to lighter--the graduations of colour.  This is a great pattern for using the graduated fabrics.    I wish I could remember the name of this pattern, but I cannot.  Lori messaged me, the pattern is Intersection by Blue Underground Studios.

We wanted to add movement and texture to this quilt with the quilting.

 and some piecing on the back.   I love the blue batik Lori put on the back of this quilt.

Thanks for letting me play with your quilt Lori!

Lego Quilt

 This Lego Quilt is a baby quilt my friend Colleen and I made for the son of a family who very much enjoys building Lego.  We took pieces of Lego into the fabric store with us to colour match, and sized our 'bricks' in proportion to actual Lego bricks. 

 I randomly sewed the pieces together while Colleen pressed, and it was truly random, like a 4 year old would build a Lego wall--that was my goal.

 My son, who used to call his bedroom 'the Lego Lab' picked the quilting pattern for me.

 And there is an older sister in the family, so we made these two little panels for her, and made a little book bag.  I had thought I had a picture of the finished bag, but I don't.  You'll have to use your imaginations.  Side 1, same fabrics but different from baby brothers quilt

 and side 2, pieced the same as the baby quilt...

Baby Quilts--Owls and Whales

Patty made these baby quilts for her great-niece and great-nephew.  If I recall correctly, the quilt recipients are cousins to each other, not siblings.

These quilts are both good examples of taking cues from the fabrics and the recipients for quilting choices.  For the first quilt, which is for a girl, I quilted daisies, hearts and stars.    The daisies came from the backing fabric....

For the second quilt, the new owner to be a boy,  the border and backing made me think of pebbles in a stream, and I thought that the whales needed some water to swim in, so I quilted it with  a water meander pattern.

I think a side by side shot, even though it's not a good photo, is worth including, because these two quilts have almost all the same fabrics in the body of the quilt, but changing the placement of the fabrics and quantities present in each quilt and adding different borders make them look quite different. 

A Wedding Gift

Louise is a relatively new quilter, and she agreed to make this quilt for friends for their wedding.

But it's not lap sized--it's KING sized.

which is a very big project to take on as a new quilter.   I think it looks just lovely on my bed, and the colours go in my room so well...


Here's a 'before quilting' photo taken as I was loading the quilt

 Louise had some help with the piecing, if I recall correctly from the Bride's Mother and Sister or another friend, so, as often happens when more than one sewer is involved, there was a little fullness, but it quilted out just fine.

 I love the batiks the ladies chose.

 and an extra wide backing was a good choice--no seam in the backing and very simple to deal with.  Often an extra wide backing is more economical as well---although there may be a bit of a 'sticker shock' at the price per meter, for a king size quilt you only need 1/3 the meters, so a much better deal.

 Louise did some of the piecing on this top at our guild retreat in October, but I hadn't realized the teal blocks were being formed until she brought it for quilting.  I love the pops of colour in the black/grey quilt.

We chose an edge to edge quilting design that would add a nice texture to this quilt.

What a lucky lucky friend Louise has!

Alice's Owls

This quilt was made by Alice for her granddaughter.

The owl fabric is just darling.

I quilted it with hearts and flowers.

 Alice gave me flannel for the middle layer, instead of batting, which was a first for me.  I was a little apprehensive about this, not sure if I could get good stitch tension and quality with the flannel, but it worked very well.  I was pleased and would definitely do it again.   Although my personal opinion was that the flannel was as heavy or heavier than a light batting would have been.   Flannel can be quite heavy.

 Alice put a very cute flannel on the back of this quilt too.

She has a very lucky granddaughter!   Thanks for letting me play with your quilt Alice.

Simplicity 2

This is Colleen's version of Simplicity.  She changed the layout of the blocks from the pattern.  I really like her adaptation.

I took my inspiration for the quilting design from the inner border fabric

I think of this design as being very elegant.

 Colleen chose this lovely ivory colored minkee for the backing.  A lovely cuddle quilt.

and here's a photo of another Simplicity quilt I've quilted, with the layout according to the pattern. 

More photos of the above quilt here if you're interested.