Spring Table Runner

I made a couple of these for a silent auction fundraiser last month. 

Then I made two more for gifts. 

Now I am finally getting ready to make one for myself, except now that Easter is over, I will be packing it away until next year! That's kind of how I usually do it. I get it done after the fact.

Here is the pattern:  

http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/projects-ideas/table-toppers-runners/carrot-table-runner_1.html

A Memory Quilt for Kaye

My world was turned upside down in February when my eldest sister was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I was able to go visit her for a week, and nurse her after her surgery. Not knowing what else could be a comfort for Kaye, I prepared all the makings of a special quilt from my family, and took them with me. I was able to finish it while there and present it to her before I left.


Kaye deserves to have a prize-winning quilt because she is a prize-winning sister. I am no prize-winning quilt maker, so this will have to do. I hope it gives her the comfort she needs.


Each member of my family made a block that said something special about Aunt Kaye. I added a few blocks that highlighted some special events from her life. The red and blue blocks are horse print fabrics because she always enjoyed horses.


Here is the result.























The blocks with hand-written messages are done in crayon. By placing a sheet of sandpaper underneath the muslin, you can color and write whatever you like without the fabric wrinkling up. "Set" the color by placing a piece of brown paper sack on top of the design, and press with a hot iron for 10-15 seconds. It will never wash out now...any mother who has tried to remove color from laundered crayons left in a child's pocket knows what I mean!


The back is anti-pill fleece, just like I made here. This one is machine stippled, and I am happy with the way it worked out, despite a lot of thread breakages this time (I was using a machine I wasn't accustomed to).

My new favorite way to make a quilt!

I've wanted to try this for a long time and I finally took the plunge! I have successfully put fleece as the backing of a cotton quilt! Yes--it works!

I got this Star Wars panel at a garage sale a couple years ago, and it recently resurfaced from the inner-most chamber of my stash. It was calling to me to make a hurry-up blanket for my young Padawan son for his impending birthday.

Make sure your cottons are all prewashed and preshrunk. I added a colorful scrap border and a regular border. I continued the fire theme by freelancing some free-motion flames in the scrap border.

Using fleece on the back eliminates the need for batting, and it comes up to 60 inches wide, so I didn't even piece this back. Two yards of length was all I used. With a fleece back, you can get away with less quilting than with cottons too. I think the best results would be obtained with a high quality fleece. I used an anti-pill fleece.

I layed out the fleece without stretching it, and then layed out the top over it. I pin basted well, to reduce stretching that could occur during quilting. I think you could add a regular fabric binding, but for softness, I opted to do a fold-over binding. It worked really well.

I rotory cut the fleece edge 3/4 " larger than the quilt top. Fleece doesn't fray, so I think a straight edge would be fine, but I used the scolloped blade on my rotary cutter (it was a little challenging to use a wavy blade againt a straight ruler). Then, you just fold it over in place and sew it down. It would be essential to use a walking foot with fleece.

My fold-over binding corners are always less than stellar, but fleece is so forgiving, that you can easily push the corners into place. I sewed to within a couple of inches of the corner from both ways, snipped off the pointed corner, and then worked it into a suitable corner shape, and stitched it up. Easy!

A Neat Quilt Story -- Part 1

It will hopefully have a happy ending...but it will be up to me. How's that for putting a little pressure on myself?

Last Friday morning, the 11th, I headed to a garage sale that had advertised "quilt and cross stitch material." What a gold mine! I was sifting through all the available goods, wondering why someone would be getting rid of the great fabric, and why it wasn't very organized, when a nearby man mentioned that all this stuff belonged to a woman in her 30's who recently passed away from a sudden illness. She was an avid quilter, and her mother, who knew nothing about quilting, had to clean out her house, sell all her things they didn't need, and settle her affairs. Suddenly, this happy moment took on a little sadness.

I picked out all the stuff I was interested in (it was really hard to keep within my budget!), and took it to the woman to pay, asking her if I could pay for part of it now, and I would go to the bank to get more cash and return to pay for the rest. She had no problem with that. While going to the bank, I called my quilting friend who is also into making aprons to sell. On the spot, she postponed her canning of carrots until after a trip to the garage sale.

Some of the fabric was grouped into bags, which looked like partially finished projects. Other fabrics were in piles of flat folds. There were books and notions galore. This is what I got for $40.00.

3 rulers
1 small cutting mat
8 quilting books
a pile of folded fabrics and fat quarters
4 bags of partially finished projects
a small collection of neutrals

a bias tape maker
a value finder
Quilter's Speed Grids
Quilter's Template Kit

and a couple of music CD's

When I was paying for the loot, the woman pointed to the largest project bag of fabrics, mostly purples, with some things sewn together, and she said, "That quilt was going to be mine. My daughter was making it for me. I'd love to see it if you ever finish it." So now you can probably see where I am going with this. I have to finish the quilt and give it to this woman!

When I got home and dug into my new treasures, I discovered that there were some fabrics in the partailly finished projects that didn't seem to match up with anything else, and I remembered seeing fabrics in the piles that should have been put with the partially finished projects. I debated...should I run back to the garage sale? I called my quilting friend to explain the dilemma. She brought her purchases over to my house and we mixed and matched...she had some things that went with my projects, and I gave her some stuff she could use for aprons that I probably wouldn't need! It was a win/win. Together, we tried to make sense of the unfinished quilt projects.

I did find a piece of graph paper with a sketched out pattern in one of the books I bought. I goes right along with one of the bags of unfinished projects. It is made of "Grecian Square" blocks in red, blue, green, black, and cream.

The "purple bag" and one of the other bags seemed to have things sewn together in a similar pattern. I've seen quilts like it at shows, but have never know anyone who made one. The constuction was totally foreign to me; there were strip sets sewn into tubes. My friend suggested I take it to our quilt group which was meeting that evening. Another friend there was not familiar with the "tubes," but knew these kind of quilts were called "Bargello" quilts. We were all confused by the fact that some strips were narrow, and some wide. Without a pattern, I could not see how we could figure this out.

The first friend then recalled that one of the books at the garage sale was about Bargello quilts!

First thing Saturday morning, I was off to the garage sale again, and sure enough by some miracle, a book called "Colorwash Bargello Quilts" was still there! A pattern called "Enchanted Carpet" in the book was marked with a post-it note, and the narrow and wide strips and the tube constuction in that pattern matched those of the first of my two unfinished Bargello quilts! Also, I found an additional bag of numbered fabric strips that matched the fabrics of the first Bargello quilt.

The purple bag, the more important one, does not have nearly as much done as the first one does. And it also may not be complete on having all the needed fabrics. But there are also a lot of large triangles in the bag. So I figure I've got to practice the Bargello technique by getting the first one together, and hopefully come up with something to do with what there is in the purple bag.

Stay tuned for more as the story unfolds, and if you know anything about doing Bargello quilts, please contact me!

Baby Quilts

I had all seven back in the nest for the summer...barely got a turn on the computer! I have finally sent them all back to college and school. The only projects I completed this summer were two baby quilts.

This one was made with all left-over scraps from my two daughters' quilts I did a few years back. There is no batting; just a flannel backing, which is what I actually prefer for babies. Soft, flexible enough to wrap them up in, and not stiff.

This one was made for an expectant couple on their way to grad school at BYU. I figured the little guy will have no choice but to become a loyal BYU fan! I was overly surprised to stumble upon flannel BYU fabric at Joann's here in Michigan...sandwiched right between fabrics for Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Purdue. Who would have thought? Hubby was overjoyed with a pair of homemade BYU flannel pants for his birthday, and the little tyke got a baby quilt from the left-overs. This one is all flannel pieces for the top, cotton on the back, with batting.

Back in the saddle again!

I'm back! Yes, it's been a while since I have even checked in on the blog. Spring gets so hectic!

I was away for a week in the first part of May. I went to Salt Lake City to visit family, and while I was there I got to attend the Home Machine Quilting Show. I love going to quilt shows, but then sometimes I come away feeling overwhelmed, like I never could do a quilt as good as any of the ones I saw at the show. Anyone else feel like that?

Do you remember how I mentioned that I must do something about the ugly paint in my family room??? Well...while I was gone my husband (and oldest daughter) decided to do something about it (Happy Mother's Day to Me). They started into a huge project of repainting three rooms, and rearranging and reorganizing several others. Their intentions were good, but the project has carried on all this time, so my life has been in a bit of an uproar. The good news: the formal dining room has been converted to a quilting room (we rarely formally dine anyway)! The bad news: my quilt hanging rod has been removed for now (tall bookshelves are in the way). It may be a while before I find a new place for it.

I did come home with a commission to make a T-shirt quilt for my neice's graduation. So here it is.

The last block has some tropical birds because I needed to make one more block. She has a conure, so I thought she might like it. : )

I hadn't stippled anything for quite a long time; I have decided I am no "stippling warrior!" I am soooo out of practice. Choosing and piecing fabric is much more fun!

Hey-It's still February isn't it???

This is the Valentine wall hanging I did a couple of years ago.

It is an enlarged version of Cotton Way's

Table Topper of the Month for February.

My stairway needed something to hang there, and hanging a rod was out of the question lest someone impale himself upon descending the stairs too carelessly. So I just tied it up to the posts, using rings that are sewed to the back of the quilt, about an inch down from the top.

Music Quilt

This took me forever to finish (over a year?), but it was finally mailed off to it's recipient before Christmas! We moved after I started it, and then my machine was broken for a while, and I stewed forever about how to quilt it. I also had to work at getting some oil spots off of it, either from my sewing machine or my washer. Grrrr. Sorry photos are kind of dark. I really must do something about the poor lighting and ugly paint in my family room.

This is one block (slightly wide). I free-motioned music notation symbols in the white areas where blocks joined. A straight black line of quilting goes diagonally through the black areas. Plus there's stitch-in-the-ditch around the "sheet music."

I improvised on the back. Since it is a square quilt, I made a "courthouse steps" with pieces of large music fabric scraps I had (I'm usually too cheap to buy backing fabric). The size of the steps depended on how much of each fabric I had.

This is where I got the pattern: http://www.trudiehughes.com/patterns.htm.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

I'll post my Christmas quilt from 2006. I liked that this pattern had presents under the tree and a star on top, as opposed to other rag Christmas tree quilts I have seen (the poor lighting on my photo doesn't do it justice). I borrowed the pattern from Judy, so she'll have to tell us what the name of it is.

Caitlin's Quilt

I made this for my daughter for her high school graduation this year because she is really into fashion. I started with a pattern called "Pretty in Pink," but expanded and modified it quite a bit. I also took some ideas from a pattern I picked up in Utah called "Girl Talk," designs by Lori Holt. It is an all hand applique pattern, and y'all know I would never do any of that tedious stuff. My quilt is all machine appliqued (I use satin stitch applique). I have since added some more embellishments, but the quilt is at college now, so I can't get anymore pictures. :(



Here is one of the blocks I designed on my own.