These blue stars were my favorite of the Christmas fabrics I chose this year. These were also my first attempt at the Lone Star or Bethlehem Star design. I think its a design that looks really dramatic when its all together, but when you break it down and use strip piecing techniques its easier than it looks. Once I got the hang of the design I moved on a bit (below) to other Christmas fabrics, and turned a few of them into Quillow (quilts that fold up into pillows) designs.
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This lap quilt on the bottom left was a Christmas gift for a neighbor of ours. She is older and has had a lot of problems with her health. Surgery on her back has resulted in her not being able to walk very well, so she sits in her recliner and watches the neighborhood out her front window. I know that sounds like it could go the wrong way and be creepy, but she is really so nice. She sends us notes and tells us how much joy she gets from watching Jason play in the yard out her window and sends him gifts on his birthday. She always remembers our wedding anniversary and once she even sent her husband over with a plate of meatballs because she saw that we were working in the yard for a long time that day and hadn't taken a break for lunch. She is someone you want to do nice things for.. and I was happy to make this quilt for her. She was really touched when Jason, Glenn and I all walked over to give it to her and seeing her face that happy really made my day.
This black and white Lone Star was done as a gift for my Niece Kristina. She had decorated her room mostly in black and white and likes specifically the zebra design so that lent it self to a whole black and white twin quilt.
This one is just the quilt top before I had put it together with the batting and backing. I was testing it for the size and placement of the inside boarder as I wanted it to frame the top corner of the mattress. Since I quilt mostly at night after Jason goes to bed, if you look closely in this photo he was an unsuspecting helper that night.. : )
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This crib quilt was a baby shower gift for my niece Andrea's first baby, Tony. The block design is called The Friendship Star and I wanted to stick to one general color theme but try to give the illusion of almost a texture with the fabrics, solid, check and stars. Most of the quilts I make I do so as gifts and ask that the recipients send me a photo of themselves with the quilt for my scrapbook. This one was super cute so I stole it from her blog for mine ..
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This one was also a Christmas gift for my father-in-law. I like the orientation of the squares for this application because of the strong red in contrast to the lighter colors. I had some extra fabric so I also put together a sofa pillow for him that matches. Every quilter has bags and bins of fabric hanging around with the excuse of some day finding a project for it... Whalla... this project was completed out of my fabric stash without any new fabric being purchased.
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Another log cabin block quilt. This one a gift for Aileen's baby girl, Maura. It was my first attempt at the log cabin design and also my first time working with flannel. Cotton flannel made this a very soft blanket when it was completed and it was fairly easy to work with in this type of design. I'd be a bit concerned about working with flannel with the clock design required cutting on the bias as it seemed a bit more stretchy than usual cotton.
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This was a crib quilt design that I mixed a traditional block, the Ohio Star quilt block with Winnie the Pooh novelty fabric. This one used a bit more fabric than usual as I did fussy cut the characters so they would fit inn the middle of the ceter of the star. I liked this design alot and it finished nice. This was a baby gift for Jason's cousin Tessie who was born about 7 weeks before he was, so if you could see the feet below the photo on the left you'd see two giant swolen ankles. I finshed this project just in time before I was too uncomfortable to sit at the sewing machine...
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This crib quilt was a design I wanted to try for a long time but was waiting for the right project. The square design is out of a Thimbleberries book and is called Paddles and Pinwheels. The part of this quilt that I like is that the 'negative space', the whilte triangles that are the pinwheels, make up a design on their own and depending on how you look at it can steal the show from the more prominent blue 'paddles'. Almost all of the fabrics for this project were left overs from Jason's quilt and I kinda kept a bit of a star theme here as well. This one was a gift for my niece Nikki's 2nd baby, Thomas.
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This is a twin size novelty quilt for my Nikki's oldest son, Jack. I used my very favorite web outlet for quilt fabric http://www.4my3boyz.com/ and ordered a bunch of fun novelty fabric. These Batman large pannels and also a ton of Spiderman fabric as well. Her prices are awesome and she has a ton of stuff. This quilt worked out great and the pannel is an awesome way to make a fun focal point in the quilt and really makes the project get completed fast. I have completed a Spiderman quilt top for Jason that matches this design which is waiting batting and backing, once complete I'll post that as well.
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This twin sized quilt I finally completed for Jason...
I had started this project before he was born and it was intended to be a matching crib quilt to go with the window treatments I had made for him when we were preparing his room.
Turns out... I got side tracked, did a bunch of projects in the middle, and Jason's quilt got set aside. When I finally got around to working on it again he was just about going into a twin bed. So, at long last, Jason got a new twin bed and finally got his quilt. This design is called Tumbling Blocks. I did it in all different blues, mostly stars and some other small patterns. The backing does match is window treatments, so I didn't completely blow it on getting it finished in time.
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These two are the first two quilts I made. The first is for my friend Kelly's baby girl Sarah and the other one is for my nephew Phillip. Sarahs project is a quilt block design called "Fence Rail" and is about as easy of a design I could find. Done entirely with stip piecing which made the assembly go very fast. Most likely if I had tried a difficult design for that first project I wouldn't have been so eager to continue. Phillip's quilt is a novelty quilt with Curious George fabric. I found a simple design online and substituted the novelty squares. I got lucky and found a fabric for the boarder that made it interresting. Phillip (now 7 years old) has used this quilt in exactally the way I like for quilts to be used. He has been dragging it around now since I made it and it is worn almost through and has been sewn and re-sewn together several times. I hate when quilts sit on shelves or are only for display on walls.. I like when they are used for warmth and comfort.. at least that is what I intend for them when I make them and give them away as gifts.
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