Mel's Baby Quilt

Melanie just sent me a picture of the baby quilt I made for her oldest daughter...this is the third daughter in the family and the quilt is still being used :-). This is another one of the rag quilts. I did this one with three layers and used a white or yellow (can't remember :-) layer of flannel in between, but that is very difficult to cut. It does give a nice secondary colour to the quilt. The next rag quilts I used two layers and it's much easier on the arms when cutting all those little snips into the seams!

More Miniature Quilts

This was another quilt we made in Kathy Wagner's workshop. It's a 'wonky nine patch' design which is fun to make (you can do this with curved lines as well). I had black and white fabrics leftover from a quilt I made for my oldest son. I've always wanted to do something in lime green with black so this was my chance :-). Interestingly, white binding worked nicely for this little quilt. I have it in my little wooden doll crib I bought at a yard sale. It's the perfect size.

This little quilt resulted from a dare by my friend Linda. She walked into the Quilt Shop where I worked at that time and threw a pattern on the counter and said, "I dare you to make that one!!" She knew I liked mini's but this was really crazy! I think the blocks are 2 1/2" finished...I gave the quilt to a friend. It is not paper pieced! Of course the pattern lay on the table screaming at me and with some leftover Japanese fabrics I thought, 'why not try it'. They were a challenge to keep straight, but I thought they turned out quite nicely. I have two blocks left that I hope to make into a little mini for myself one of these days.

I love this little quilt! Whenever I show this, people think I'm totally nuts!! until they realize it's not pieced...it's a little cheater panel :-). I handquilted this one and bound it with black. I have a whole series of these cheater fabrics with quilt designs on them. I'm handquilting a log cabin Debbie Mumm one right now and hope to hang up a whole series of these little guys someday.

This little quilt was the result of a challenge issued by the Hamilton Quilter's Guild where I was a member for two years while my husband went back to University to obtain h[Photo]is teaching degree. We had to use 9 patch and each person drew a theme from a basket. I drew "Spring". I used the leftover fabrics from a baby quilt I made for my grandson. My thought was to make a 9 patch in a 9 patch, in a 9 patch, etc. But, we were restricted to 49" so the next 9 patch would have taken me over the size limit. The center 9 patch is made using 1/8" blocks and I also used this size for the corner squares. There are 7 nine patches on the front and I put two on the back and called it 9 patch nonsense. It is quilted on my trusty 15-88 Singer treadle.

The little quilts below are from a workshop I took through the same guild taught by Kathy Wagner on Miniature quilts. We paper pieced in the morning and did wonky 9 patches in the afternoon. These are the results of the paper pieced morning class. I didn't finish them all in the workshop :-). I also made another one which I gave as a gift to my friend. These mini's were a great way to afford using those wonderful batiks at minimal cost, especially on a student budget :-).


This paperpieced little quilt was made using civil war scraps and a larger scale print I fell in love with at the Quilt shop where I worked to put my husband through school.

Linda's Baby Quilt

Here is another baby quilt I found in the archives :-). When we lived in Hamilton, a young Mom from the church we attended there wanted a bright quilt for her new baby...bright is what she got! The focus fabric in the center of the stars is the cutest fabric with all kinds of tiny children's motifs in crayon colours in it. The bright colours were selected from this fabric. I tried all kinds of border fabrics and nothing would work until the pieced squares using the colours in the stars. They say bright colours stimulate babies....Linda's baby will be the most active child around :-).

Anita's Quilt

This is a lap size quilt that I made for our young friend Anita and her husband Shane for their wedding. The blocks are made using Spinning Four Patches. I used the same fabric as the border print and layered four identical layers using the 12" repeat on the fabric. I then cut 3 1/2" squares and with the four identical squares, made the kaleidoscope blocks. I set them diagonally with pink squares in the center and teal setting triangles because I didn't have enough of the pink to do it all :-). I also used some of the leftover kaleidoscope blocks for the four corners of the quilt. These Spinning four patches are addictive! I now have 8 sets of blocks ready to be made into various quilts. I will post more on the blog as they are finished. Below are some closeups of the blocks.

Abby's Quilt

Just finished the latest baby quilt and went to visit Megan today to give her the quilt for little Abby, so now I can post it on my blog :-). The pattern is called Crazy 8's, but this one ended up being crazy 9's because I used 9 Fat quarters instead of 8! I couldn't figure out why I didn't have any blocks leftover and the pattern said you should have two left. But, I had an extra row which worked out perfectly to make the quilt square. I finally realized I had 9 FQ's in it. The pattern is by Bits 'n Pieces www.bitsnpieces.net. It uses the same idea as the popular turning 20 pattern. This design is fun for doing free motion quilting because there are so many squares and rectangles. It helps with planning the motifs in each square. I quilted a free hand flower in each large square and added swirls and leaves in the other squares and rectangles using a wonderful variegated thread that had all the right colours in it! Of course it was all done on my trusty Singer 15-88 treadle :-). Here are a few close ups of the quilting: