A Garden of Hearts

When I found this pattern (a few years ago) in the book Potting Shed Patchwork, I just knew I needed to make a quilt for Valentine's day -- something I could display during the month of February. I added the narrow black border (actually it's black with little red hearts) and used a narrower border than the pattern called for (because that's all the fabric I had for it), but I was still pleased at how it turned out. I had collected fabrics with hearts or "Valentine" fabrics and it was nice to finally use them. I then made this quilt (that I posted last February) using the same fabrics.

Jelly roll fun!

I recently finished a king-size Civil War quilt that pretty much kicked me in the rear end.... so by the time I was done, I needed some brainless sewing to do. I had a jelly roll and decided to sew 32 of the strips together, using the leftover ones for binding. Add in a 6" border and DONE!

I call this quilt "Easy-Peasy"

30's Fabric Quilt

Melissa finished the 30's quilt that she had started here. She gave it to her mother (lucky mother!).
Melissa quilted this on her sewing machine. She jumped right in at quilting her creations and has done an excellent job!
A close-up of the back.

Man Quilt

Melissa made this quilt for her husband, Joe, for his birthday. She said, "It is random and it was really quick and fun to make."

Picnic Quilt

Melissa made this quilt. She said, "I made this for my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas. It is a picnic quilt made out of upholstery fabric. I loved this one when it was finished and so did they. It only cost about $20 dollars too because the fabric was clearance and I got the batting 1/2 off!"

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.