A Quilting Challenge

Barb and I attended a quilt show in Marquette and purchased a stack of fat quarters from a vendor there. The fabric was definitely a bit out of our comfort zone, but we thought it would be fun to split the stack and each make something out of the same fabric. I ended up having to snitch a bit of Barb's portion to finish this quilt, and I added the background fabric. I really don't remember what she did with her fabrics or if I took all of them. Send me a photo Barb and I'll add it to this post!



The quilt looks a little distorted -- in real life it's actually square. Just hanging in a bad spot for picture taking.
Quilting done by Ann Made Quilts in Chassell, original quilt design by Joan Kent Braga.

Completed March 2000.

More Scrappy Fun

I really had fun making this quilt -- completely from my scrap bin. Why didn't it make a dent?
I even had some flannel in my stash for the backing, making it a wonderful quilt to cuddle up under in the winter when the house is feeling a bit chilly. The machine quilting was done by my sister-in-law Ann.

From Stash and Scraps

Last spring I joined The Old Red Barn Quilt-along on the internet and put together this quilt. It's turned out to be one of my favorites -- great for afternoon napping! I found most of the fabric in my closet but I think I did buy a few half yard pieces, and I did have to buy backing fabric.

This photo of the back looks a little weird -- for some reason it was taken before I put the binding on.

When the quilt was complete, I was left with lots of scraps. I added some white and put together a coin quilt. It's still waiting to be quilted, along with several others in my closet.

This post reminds me that I bought enough fabric to make another quilt using the same pattern as the first one. I need to do something about that.

Simply Squares

Another baby quilt -- just for the fun of it. Made from a small stack of coordinating Robert Kaufman fat quarters.

And here's my napping quilt -- a larger, scrappier version. These fabrics were all from my scrap pile -- some of them must be more than 15 years old. It's a good feeling to put together a cozy quilt just from what you have at hand.

Quilting motivates me to get out of bed in the morning when the alarm goes off. I always have a project or two in the works and many more unfinished projects waiting for attention. And even if it's only for ten or fifteen minutes, on most days I spend a little time at my machine in the morning before I have to head out the door. It's a great way to start the day. Often my days end the same way.

This is the project that's currently in my machine. Some mornings I only stitch on one more strip, some mornings I finish two strips. I've machine quilted all of my recent quilts -- this one is tempting me to try hand quilting again.

Square in a Square

For every Christmas our family exchanges names for Christmas and you have one gift to make. This is from 2008 -- a gift for Dennis.



I used the Fit to be Square ruler from Open Gate Quilts for this one -- it helped me loads with all the points.

Memories of a Road Trip

Several years ago, Barb and I were on a road trip that took us through Spring Green, Wisconsin, where we visited a neat quilt shop. This was my attempt to recreate a quilt I saw there.





It will always bring back wonderful memories of that road trip. We stopped at numerous quilt shops along the way and I collected a few fat quarters for this quilt at almost every one of them.
Completed January 2010

Turtle Quilts

About January 2009, I was asked to make a quilt with turtles for a co-worker who was waiting for a grandbaby in July. I started working on the quilt shown above. I had gotten to the point of machine quilting it when I decided I wasn't real happy with the way it was going. So........ I went fabric shopping and came up with some fabric that had turtles on it and quickly put together the second quilt:



Early this year I decided to finish the original quilt and ended up being quite pleased with the way it turned out. Should've stuck with it the first time! Anyway, it ended up being my first finish of 2010.