Quilts = Love and Comfort - H2H

Even if you don't know me, the title of my blog should tell you how I feel about quilts. 

I truly do believe that 

Everyone Deserves a Quilt!

I love to make quilts and I love to give them away. My goal is that the recipient of the quilts I make can feel the love and comfort that I try to sew into each and every quilt. 

I often quilt "secret" messages into my quilts when I'm free motion quilting. Actually, there's really nothing secret about it. Sometimes I just "write" the words LOVE, COMFORT, HUGS, or whatever is appropriate for that particular quilt. Even when I quilt following a pattern or panto, I often FMQ a message close to the edge, near the binding. If the quilt is to commemorate a special event, I quilt names, dates, etc. 

Sure, sometimes it's challenging and I know I'll never win any awards for my "quiltmanship" (that's quilt speak for penmanship), but I like doing it. It's especially fun for me when the recipients finds the message - sometimes a year or more later.  :-)     

No matter when the message is found (if ever), I love doing it. It's just my way to saying, "You matter!" and I hope it brings a smile or laugh. 

I participated in this year's Hands2Help Challenge 

that Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict organized and was even honored to be a guest blogger. I made four quilts this year and they are on their way to the charities. And yes, they all include a special message! 

Here are pictures of three of the quilts. It was raining when I was packing the quilts and packed the fourth one without taking a picture. Darn it! It's green, pink and white and I used the Stretched Star pattern. It was a pretty old UFO and I'm very happy that it's finally done and going to a new home where I hope it will be used and loved. 

The message on that one says "Reach for the Stars!"

Here's a Yellow Brick Road quilt that I made while teaching a class. These blocks were my "work in progress" so students could see each step more easily. When they put their quilt together, I put mine together - with a different border and I used a flange binding. :-) 

The message included here is "Live, Laugh and Love!   

This is the pattern I posted a tutorial for when I was the guest blogger back in April. I call it All Boxed In and it's a simple and quick pattern to use. 

The message here is "Sparkle Like a Firecracker!" 

And finally, this is a Disappearing Nine Patch quilt, set on point. (I love this layout for a D9P because it is a great way to showcase special fabrics, especially from charm pack.) 

The message here is "You Bring Color to Life!"

Thanks for sharing your day with me and remember,

Everyone Deserves a Quilt!

March Recap

March was National Quilting Month.

What did you do to celebrate?

I was fairly productive during the month, but what I am even more excited about was the fact that I had numerous opportunities to share the joy of quilting with new quilters. (I sometimes feel like a "quilt pusher" who gets a kick out of introducing people to MY drug of choice - QUILTING.)

I've shown various projects throughout the month that I've completed, but here are a few tops that are ready for quilting. The bottom four have the backing and binding ready to go and all that needs done is to get them on the frame. I hope to have the backing and bindings ready for the top three by next week. Most of these are donation quilts or class sample quilts and although there are deadlines, they aren't super soon.

Here's the Mondo Bag and Strip Quilt that I made using just one Jelly Roll and 2 yards of fabric. That was fun and I'm making another set, only this time I'm using more modern fabrics - Poems from Pebbles. I got my Jelly Roll from M&E Quilt Shoppe and I know they have more, along with Charm Packs and Layer Cakes. (See I AM a quilt pusher!)

I was very lucky to spend National Quilting Day (and rest of the weekend with a couple of my favorite people.  :-) 

There was a lot of laughter and even some sewing.

Of course there was also some eating! 

Tony, Claire and Ryan worked hard and made a wonderful dinner Saturday night. There was a lot of team work during the cooking process, but don't let the pictures fool you. There was a lot of laughter coming from the kitchen too!

And even though this isn't what I had intended to make, these blocks (plus three more) got sewn and are ready for sashing. These are a version of a Disappearing Nine Patch.

The original plan was for Ann, Jerry, Connie and I to follow the same Disappearing Nine Patch pattern and see how our fabric choices made the blocks look different. We spent quite a bit of time Friday playing with the block construction and none of us liked what what happening so we decided to work on our own projects. I didn't take much else on which to work, so this is what I did. I don't love it, but that's ok. I'll finish it and move on to my next new and exciting project.

But, none of the quilting projects completed during the month of March compare to what Lynn and Ty completed. 

Peyton Louise is simply adorable and a wonderful blessing to us all! 

I see a future quilter here. :-)

Design Wall Monday

I'm making another version of my Dressed To The Nines. This one was made using Sweet Serenade by Basic Grey. (I love their fabrics!) 

The original quilt is hanging at M & E Quilt Shoppe because I'll be teaching a class there and I needed another sample for another program I'm doing. Since I like the quilt, I don't mind having a second one made, although this may not be finished until sometime next week because I'm teaching all week. I think this will make a great donation quilt and plan to use it as such when I'm done showing it at the program.

Since this quilt starts as a disappearing nine patch and there are fabrics with musical notes, etc. in this line, perhaps this version should be called 

A Quilter's (not Beethoven's) Ninth Symphony.  :-)

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times.

It's Like Magic!

I've teased you the last couple of days with some nine patch blocks made using a charm pack of the New Bella Solids by Moda and a bit of white fabric from my stash. 

Notice there is no rhyme or reason to the placement of the colored squares.

After they were sewn together, they looked like this.

I cut them in half, both directions, added a color square in the middle and more white squares and sewed them together to get new and bigger nine patch blocks. 

The only attention I gave to fabric placement was to be sure that the center square was not the same as any of the surrounding small squares. In retrospect, I guess it was a good thing that I also did not have any of the center squares the same color/fabric as the larger corner squares. I didn't do it, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if I did.

I cut these blocks in half, both directions and them sewed them into this little beauty!

It measures about 38" x 48" and I love it! I'm thinking about the quilting possibilities here and think that this may be my "go to" quilt for baby or quickly needed quilts.

A little while back, my brother sent sent me some information about a double disappearing nine patch and I think I've put this together the same way, but for the life of me I can't find what Jerry sent. So, if you know who is responsible for this block, please let me know so I can give proper credit.  :-)

Update: Thanks Jerry:

 knittingbrow said...

http://afewscraps.blogspot.com/2011/08/double-disappearing-nine-patch.html

it's from here!

Design Wall Monday

I've been piecing some backings so they are ready at a moment's notice when I have the opportunity to quilt something. Here's the backing in stages for my Disappearing Nine Patch.

I had four quarter blocks left over from piecing the front so I decided to make them into a block and put it on the back. Above it where I sewed the block in the middle of a strip and added a bigger strip on top. Below is where I'm ready to sew the bottom portion of the back together. The block is purposely NOT in the middle of the quilt backing.

 

Here's the front of the quilt.

 

 

I'm kind of scaring myself because the binding is already made for this quilt, as well as three others.

 

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times.



Design Wall Monday

I finished both the T-Shirt quilt and the OSU quilt that were up last week. The T-Shirt quilt is quilted, bound and with it's new owner. This quilt was too big (90" x 110") to have Jack hold it by himself so he's got it hanging off the balcony so I could get a picture.  :-) Thanks, Dear!

 

The recipient is a swimmer and I thought that the Seaweed pantograph (I forget the designer's name - sorry!) looked like waves, so that's how I quilted it. What do you think?

 

 

The OSU quilt top is complete and ready for quilting as soon as I get the backing. I have fabric for the binding, but I'm going to wait until its quilted to get it ready because I might change my mind once I get the backing or after it's quilted. Speaking of quilting this, I think I'm going to stipple in the letters with coordinating thread and diagonally quilt the rest. Or, if I wait too long and this has to be done in a hurry, I may just choose a pantograph and quilt an all-over design. I'll post a picture when it's totally done so you can see what I decided to do. Details about this pattern can be found in this post.

 

 

Now for what's on the design wall right now....

 

Remember this post when I said I was working on scrappy nine patch blocks as a leader/ender project while working on the blocks for the OSU quilt? Well I finished the blocks and decided that I would make them into a disappearing nine patch quilt. I cut all the blocks and just tossed the units up on the design wall tonight to get an idea of what it would look like. 

 

 

I'm not going to fret about placement here, but if you see something that really looks out of place please let me know. I may just throw caution to the wind and start sewing them together and not even try to rearrange. Since I used charm packs that I had here, the nine patch blocks were pretty big (14") so each of these units is 7" -  unfinished. If I don't add any borders, this quilt will measure 52" x 65".  I have the black fabric that is used within the quilt, but I'd have to buy border fabric and that might be just enough reason to simply bind this in black and be done with it. Again, I guess we'll see how I feel and then I'll post pictures.

 

I may work on this later today, but in honor of Memorial Day, I'm going to begin a Quilts of Valor project. I'll post pictures later today of that progress.

 

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Go to Judy L's Patchwork Times.