No Points Stars Christmas Quilt

 

Here is the second quilt that I made for our grandsons. Red and green - it's Christmas! I think two in a row is plenty for holiday quilts. This one turned out to be 65" x 75" which is a bit bigger than a baby quilt needs to be so maybe it's more of a lap size. It's possible to use on a child's bed, too, but it's a gift so they will use it however they like.

The pattern is No Point Stars by Cluck Cluck Sew. It is machine pieced and hand quilted. I used a wider than normal striped binding (1") and attached the binding to the back by machine. I don't know why I deviated from how I usually do things. 

Gen Z Halloween Quilt

This is the first quilt of two that I am making for the grandchildren. I started out thinking I would match or coordinate with colors in their bedroom but I veered off onto Halloween. One boy is 2 and the other is still a baby so I can get away with the small quilts for now. 

The pattern is Gen Z from Treehouse Textiles. I haven't finished my first Gen Z quilt because I wanted to get this one started and finished and in the mail in time for Halloween. This was a 12 day project. It is machine pieced and hand quilted. The completed size is 53" x 66" - they really shrink in the wash. It has a striped binding and the back is a spider web print that glows in the dark! Spooky!

Crossroads Quilt

 It's all done. This is the Crossroads Quilt pattern from the Treehouse Textiles shop in Australia. I expanded it by one row and one column which was super simple, of course. It measures 63" x 72" and is machine pieced and hand quilted. The striped binding and newsprint backing are both favorites of mine. 

I contemplated various patterns for the quilting and settled on a custom clamshell design. I don't love how the shells meet in the middle of the red squares but everything else is good. I also did a wee bit of bartacking as a final step because it seemed that the unquilted sections were too big. 😍

Komebukuro (AKA Rice Bags)

Komebukuro bags are traditional pouches that were used in Japan to carry rice offerings to the temples or shrines. They were often hand sewn in a patchwork style and were decorated with Boro stitching. I have also heard them called kinchaku, which means attached to the sash (the obi of kimono?) but I don't really know the distinction between the terms. Made of cotton, they usually have a drawstring closure and are reversible.

I used this pattern by Karen Stevens to make the one in the first picture and a technique described in this tutorial to make the others. They used up some scraps, for sure, and are quick and easy projects.  

Flying Geese Quilt For My Brother

 

My brother and I were talking about hobbies and he surprised me when he said "I would love one of your quilts." 

My starting point was the solid steel grey as I wanted to stick with manly colors and keep to a limited palette. Each goose measures 4" x 8" and the quilt is 63" x 71". It has barbed wire binding and a newsprint back. Too bad the newsprint is poetic instead of the sports page. The quilt is machine pieced and hand quilted.

Carpenter's Star Quilt

 

My friend Maureen's first grandchild is due in October. She mentioned that the color palette for the nursery was going to be forest green and coral. Well, that's all it took and I had a quilt plan forming in my head. 

The pattern is the Carpenter's Star Quilt from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. It is an easy design to make - I made mine a little bigger by adding an inner striped border and the scrappy outer border. It is machine pieced and hand quilted. It finished at 41" x 42" after it was washed and dried. It's bright! 

Crossroads Quilt Top

The Crossroads Quilt is a PDF pattern that I first saw on Instagram. It was love at first sight and I made my version out of a lot of fabric that I have recently purchased. I really like how it is "matchy clashy" and how the little red squares hold it all together. I am waiting for backing fabric to arrive and then I will start in on the hand quilting.

Finished Smitten Quilt

The pandemic quilt production continues and here is another finish. The final size of this one is not so big - just 47" x 60". The whole thing was done by hand so I really didn't want to go any bigger. It's just not the most practical thing to use, maybe for pulling over your legs on the couch. 

I like it and didn't deviate from the pattern very much. I hand pieced the blocks and hand quilted it with #8 perle cotton thread. The backing is a light colored solid and it has a striped binding. 

Started June 4 - Finished July 27

Finished Stretched Hexagon Baby Quilt

43" x 49"

This project took about 6 weeks from start to finish. It was completed on June 26. I did some machine quilting on the main hand pieced section and hand quilted the machine pieced borders. It has a striped binding and the back is mostly Kona Snow with about a quarter of it made from leftover fabric scraps. I have a recipient in mind though the sex of the baby is going to be a surprise in October. 

Scrappy 5" Square Quilt

I made this quilt over a one year period and finished it November 9, 2016. It never made it on the blog so today it gets posted. I always think of it as a 5" square quilt block because I was saving scraps of that size for awhile and had some leftover charm squares that I wanted to use up. But I trimmed them down to 4.5" in order to surround them with 2.5" squares. It made a pretty good dent in the scrap supply. 

The finished quilt is 62" x 78". The quilting was done by hand with #8 Perle cotton and big stitches in a traditional Baptist fan pattern. It has a striped binding and a former comforter cover for the backing. It is a library of fabrics I have used over the years, one of the best parts of scrap quilts. It's definitely a favorite of mine.

Smitten Quilt Progress

This is the Smitten Quilt, which I started on June 4. The pattern is from the Jen Kingwell Collective, designed by Lucy Carson Kingwell. I am using acrylic templates from paperpieces.com and a color palette that is kind of strange. I'm still not sure it works but I am pretty committed at this point. I am handpiecing the blocks which is an enjoyable process for me. I like finishing a block and then starting a new one - it feels like a good way to measure progress and feel like I am getting somewhere. 

Stretched Hexagon Baby Quilt Top

When I was finished with the Rainbow Fade quilt, I had a bunch of leftover 3" x 4" rectangles. I drew up a stretched hexagon shape like I had seen used on a project by Red Pepper Quilts and cut out some papers for English paper piecing. I have done this sort of stitching before, but for some reason, I really had to fight the paper this time. I used light and heavy paper, tried glue basting and thread basting and used all kinds of threads and needles. I never really found my groove. 

My intention was to make a full size quilt, maybe 66" x 82". Oddly specific, you say. I first sewed the pieces into 12 patch blocks, measured one, then calculated how many blocks I would need to make for the size I wanted. It didn't take long before I moved the goalpost to 58" x 75" then to 58" x 68". After three weeks of making lozenges, forming blocks and sewing them all together, I turned it into a baby quilt. I was done. I added a scrappy border to frame it and to make it bigger and called it a completed top. Once I find the right backing and binding, I think I will enjoy quilting this. For now, I'm glad the top is finished. 

43" x 49"

Head Start Preschool

I wonder if my days at the preschool are over. I wrote about it earlier here. I have continued to volunteer there 2 mornings a week during the school year. In early March, as the threat of COVID-19 began to be felt, I didn't go in and within a week, the school was shut down. As far as I know, it has yet to be reopened. I likely won't go back until there is an effective vaccine or if I happen to get infected, recover and become immune. I do miss the kids a lot. 

Zambia Nine Patch

This quilt is bright! I bought a lot of fabric when I lived in Zambia in 1994 and this is pretty much the last of it. I used solid fabrics in the blocks with the traditional African prints in hopes of balancing the colors and breaking up some of the large patterns. 

I machine pieced the top and then got completely carried away with the quilting. It is sewn by hand with #8 Perle cotton in a very dense design. I started by stitching circles and squares of lines 1/4 to 3/8" apart then added diamonds, rectangles and triangles. I used many different colors of thread. When I tired of all of the shapes, I filled in the rest of the top with Xs. When it was done, it just seemed like too, too much and I quickly gave the quilt to my friend, Maureen, who loves color. I recently borrowed it back because I had failed to take any pictures and now I have more photos than I need!

The quilt is 51" x 61" - it was completed in March 2018. 

scrappy binding