Charity Quilt

I just finished this one today. The blocks are printed pillow panels and the sashing is 4 inch strips of a coordinating fabric. The cornerstones are cut from the border strips on the edges of the pillow panel fabric. It's finished size is 44 x 64 inches.

It was done completely on the machine, which is extremely unusual for me. The machine that I have has a walking foot, but it doesn't work very well, so I seldom use it. However, the blankets are due this Sunday and I really wanted to make a quilt to donate. I knew that I didn't have time to hand quilt it and I was afraid that I wouldn't have time to hand turn the binding, so I just did it all by machine. It will be donated to the child advocacy center along with the fleece blankets featured in the post below.

Fleece Blankets!

My project this summer has been to make fleece blankets. The women's group at my church decided to make blankets to donate to the Child Advocacy Center. Walmart had their fleece marked down so I bought a whole bunch and started making blankets. There are ten blankets in all. Six of them have a fringed hem and four of them have a braided hem. I was going to do it 5 & 5, but I accidentally cut the sixth one with a 3 inch cut (to make the fringe) instead of a 2 inch cut (to make the braid). No big deal either way. I think both ways looks nice.

Sisters Quilt Show

I actually got a chance to go to the annual outdoor quilt show in Sisters, Oregon this year. This is a picture of me with my quilt. It is the same quilt that is featured in this post. I was afraid that we were never going to find it. There were so many beautiful quilts there. We finally found mine hanging on a house close to the edge of town. It didn't sell, but it was fun to have a quilt in the show. Maybe next year I'll enter one of the contests. We'll see.

The Finished Product

I finally finished the quilt in the post below. I actually finished it several days ago (April 5th, I think), but have just gotten around to posting the pictures. The quilt finished 40 inches square. It was machine pieced and hand quilted in a house top motif. I decided to call it "Jungle Babies" because of the focus fabric.

Baby Quilt in Progress

This is my current project in progress (in the quilting frame). It is a baby quilt for my cousin and his wife's new baby that is due this month. I had to make it gender neutral because they are not finding out the sex of the baby ahead of time. She said she was doing the nursery in elephants so I thought these baby jungle animals would be prefect. Green and yellow were as gender neutral as I could think of.

Amongst the Waves

Here is a picture of my most recent finished quilt project. I made it for my youngest son's bed. Below is a picture of him on the bed with the quilt. It was made from a storm at sea pattern. I used the Marti Michell Storm at Sea template set to cut the patches for the diamond blocks, using the 12" block cutting directions. The quilt finished approximately 71" x 95".

My son picked out the fabric; I cut out the patches, pieced the top and sewed on the binding; and my dad hand quilted it. It was multi-generational family project.



We had a little difficulty coming up with a name for the quilt. We wanted something to reflect the wave-like feeling that the pattern creates. At first my son just kept making a "woosh" sound and doing what we called a "crab-walk, jazz-hands hula", which we decided could be the subtitle for the quilt. For the "official" name we decided on "Amongst the Waves", which comes from the title of a song by Pearl Jam.

My First Fabric Postcard

This year I decided to try to entry a quilt in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon. I noticed that at the quilt show they also have a postcard auction and sale for charity. Anyone can donate fabric postcards to the sale, so I thought I would try my hand at making one to possibly donate. Yesterday morning I sat down and made this little postcard. It was fun and I think it turned out pretty good for a first attempt at postcard making. I got the directions from Red Shoe Ramblings. The directions were easy to follow and had great picture illustrations.

Pinwheels in Autumn

I made this quilt using the same pattern I used for my last Project Linus quilt. This time I used deer fabric with a fall theme. The fabric matches my living room furniture very well. This one I'm calling a lap quilt instead of a baby quilt, even though they are the same size. The fabric is a little less juvenile, but it could still work as a toddler quilt.

Here is a close up of the quilting. I quilted it the same way as the Linus quilt: outlining the gold triangles, down the center of the rust border, outlining and going down the center of the print border, and making a grid in the center panel.


I entered the quilt in the Pike County Fair last week, and it won a Blue Ribbon!

Flower Cross Pillow

This is a pillow that I made for the silent auction at the Alabama State Homemakers' Club meeting. (That's not their official name anymore, but I forget what the official name is these days.)

The pillow is 11 inches x 14 inches. The center of the cross is a folded flower. I just quilted in the ditch around the cross and around the border. It has a split back to insert the pillow form. The back of the pillow is made from the floral material that the cross is made from.

I made the pillow from start to finish in about 8 hours.

Up, Up & Away

I actually finished this baby quilt on March 2, but it has taken me this long to get it posted. The photo below is a close up of the quilting.


The balloons are foundation pieced from a pattern I made myself. The large balloons are 5" by 8" and the small balloons are 2.5" by 4".

It was machine pieced and hand quilted. The balloons are quilted in the ditch around the outside of the balloon and then quilted through the balloon to indicate the lines that a hot-air balloon has. To mimic the cloud motif in the background I decided to quilt a seashell pattern. To make the seashell pattern easier to hand quilt, I cut several scallops out of sticky-backed labels (left over from an old political campaign) and stuck them to the quilt, then quilted around them.

It took a long time and it is the most intricately quilted quilt I have made so far. The finished quilt is about 37" by 53".

Update: I entered the quilt in the Pike County Fair last week and it won a Red Ribbon!

Trip Pictures

I've uploaded most of our trip pictures from our trip to New England and Niagara Falls to Webshots. There is a permanent link to my albums over in the side bar, but here is a link to the new album. Here are just a few to get you started. Enjoy.

American Falls at Niagara

Nubble Lighthouse

Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse

Getting ready for a trip

We will soon be leaving for our annual summer trip to visit my mother-in-law in New Jersey. Luckily this time we are extending the trip to include a family vacation up to New England and Maine's Acadia National Park. So anyway, I always like to take some hand sewing when I go on long car trips to give me something to do.

This time I'm planning some applique and possibly some hand piecing. I've gotten some fabric ready for an appliqued Little Mittens quilt from an old issue of Quiltmaker (Nov/Dec '00 I believe). I'm thinking I'll use it as my project Linus quilt for next year.

I'm also thinking about taking some fabric along for the Captive Beauty quilt that is in that same issue of Quiltmaker. It has a lot of set in pieces so I thought it would be a good hand piecing project. If I get all the mittens appliqued then I'll move on to the hand piecing. We'll see how it goes.

Fluttering Free

This is my latest finished project.



It is a baby quilt that I made for one of my husband's colleagues who just had a baby. It was her first. She decided to decorate the nursery in pinks and browns. At first I wasn't sure how to approach a pink a brown quilt, but with a lot of help from Melanie at the Front Porch Quilt Shoppe, we came up with a pattern and some great fabrics. After I finished sewing the pieced part of the quilt I thought that it needed a little something more, so I decided to add the butterfly applique.

I was having trouble deciding how to quilt it once the top was all finished. My husband suggested the diamond pattern and I thought that would be just perfect. I didn't quilt the straight lines through the butterfly, though. I quilted up to the butterfly and then quilted all the way around it. The quilting really shows up well in the picture, too.

I hope the new mom likes it.

Patriotic Mini Quilt

This is a little patriotic mini quilt that I finished a couple of days ago. I gave it the very unimaginative name of "54-40 or fight". But it seemed appropriate because it is, of course, the name of the block that it is made from, and that was an old presidential campaign slogan back in the day so it seemed patriotic. It is yet another UFO that I've brought out of storage to finish lately. It is a 54-40 or fight block that I added a couple of borders to and quilted. It is machine pieced and hand quilted. It's finished size is about 20 inches square.

The quilt's in the mail

I finally got around to mailing my little quilt (for the quilt swap - see pictures in the post below). I finished it a little while ago, but I was so busy with my son's graduation and college orientation that I just finally made it to the post office to send it.

So anyway, it is in the mail and out of my hands. I hope my partner likes it.

April Showers Bring May Flowers

This is my finished mini quilt for the Spring Blooms Mini Quilt Swap. (The color in the photo doesn't seem quite true, but it was the best I could get.)

The quilting was somewhat improvisational (my husband calls it "jazz quilting"). I couldn't decide on a quilting pattern ahead of time so I just put it in the frame and started quilting. First I quilted the diagonal lines from corner to corner. Then I decided to quilt the center cross. Then I quilted around the inside and outside of the blue inner border. Next I thought that the green strips needed some quilting so I quilted the outside of the strips. Then I thought that the inside needed quilting, too. Then I just kind of echoed the lines of the quilting into the border of the quilt. I think it worked out pretty well.

I hope my partner likes it.

Finished Mini Quilt Top

I have my quilt top finished for the Spring Blooms Mini Quilt Swap, but I haven't decided how I want to quilt it yet. I'm a hand quilter, so I need to decide soon so I'll have time to get it done by the June 21st deadline.

Soccer Balls at Sea

This is my latest UFO that I finally got around to finishing. It is a soccer themed quilt that I plan to use on those cold fall nights at the soccer field while I watch my youngest play soccer.

The quilt is 47 inches wide by 64 inches long. It is made from six 16 inch storm at sea blocks. And surrounded by a border made from soccer ball fabric with appliqued corner stones. The quilt is machine pieced, hand appliqued, and hand quilted.

I've always liked the storm at sea block and I thought that way the block imitates a pieced circle was reminiscent of a soccer ball. I'm not sure that the circle idea shows up as much as I would have liked in the finished product, but I'm happy with it.

A long over-due window cover

At my husband's office he has a long narrow window in this door that he wanted to cover up. A few years ago I started making this fall themed hanging to cover the window, but never could decide how I wanted to quilt it, so I just set it aside.

I finally finished it, back on March 10th, we took it to his office and hung it on the door. I even took a picture of it hanging on the door, but then I forgot to post it here. Yesterday was my middle son's birthday (and of course Mother's Day) so I was going through my camera to make some room for new pictures when I saw the picture in the camera.

So anyway, the long over-due window cover, that was long over-due in the making and in the posting, is finally made and finally posted.

Mini Quilt Swap

I've just joined this mini quilt swap hosted by Quilting Blogger. It sounds like fun and I'm interested to see where the quilt will come from. You can sign up through May 4th. Follow the link above and give it try.