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!

Happy Times

I had collected cherry fabrics for a long time and when I found this pattern and the border fabric, which was designed by Sharon Evans Yenter for In The Beginning fabrics, I just knew I had to do an all-cherry quilt. Since every fabric I used in this quilt has cherries in it, it is rather busy to look at. But, it is done! And Cathy did another fabulous job in quilting it for me.

A Quilt with a View

I made two quilts from the pattern "A Quilt with a View," which was in the September 2005 issue of McCall's Quick Quilts magazine. In both quilts I used corduroy from yardage and clothing (pants, shorts, etc., which I obtained mostly from garage sales) and backed one with flannel and the other with homespun. I serged the corduroy squares with the black cotton strips and they went together really fast -- a perfect quilt for using this type of squares -- or so I thought. However, after having them quilted, I took them to a laundromat to use front-loading washing machines and dryers to launder them as they were too heavy to launder in my home machines. In a couple of places on each, I noticed that the corduroy is tearing away from the black strips. :-( I guess corduroy maybe wasn't the best choice afterall. I made these for my two oldest, college-aged sons for Christmas and was hoping for something that would withstand lots of wear. They did like them though, so I will repair them and they will use them.

Kip and his quilt.

Micah and his quilt.

Shea's quilt

My 10 year old loves purple and blue.... I also embroidered her name on all the purple blocks.


Kathy Tree did the quilting. So perfect!

Red & Green

This is my "red & green" quilt that I did many years ago. It was a free quilt-of-the-month (November) pattern from Wal-Mart -- I have no idea of the year. It was one of the first quilts that I actually sewing-machine quilted myself, but I think it needs much more quilting in it. Because of the colors, I like to pull this out for use in December.

Fok Art Angel

I started this block-of-the-month quilt in a class at a local fabric shop several years ago. The sample quilt at the store was made with 1930's reproduction fabrics and I thought it was so beautiful. It is in this class that I learned how to do machine applique. I found out then I really didn't like doing machine applique at all. I didn't like how the angel blocks looked and felt frustrated, so I put the entire thing away. Well, as time passed, I learned that I really do like machine applique. In fact, it is one of my favorite things to do now. When I was looking through my stack(s) of unfinished projects, I happened upon this and realized how much I really did like it now. I remembered showing the blocks to my mother once and how much she liked them, so I decided to finish the quilt and give it to her for Christmas. I almost wanted to keep it for myself, but it is now on its way to my mother. I know she will enjoy it too.

Puppies Baby Quilt

My mother embroidered the puppy blocks and asked me to make them into a quilt for her newest great grandchild (#4) due to arrive sometime in December. Since I didn't know whether it would be a boy or a girl, I went with the green dotted fabric (from my stash) for the front.
For the back I found this cute puppy fabric (in my stash also). My mother embroidered blocks and made them into baby quilts for each of her ten grandchildren. She continues to do embroidery, but has given up quilting and just asks me to do it instead.