Joash's Baby Quilt

My daughter sent me a picture of the baby quilt I made for her son Joash Alexander (Joey) when he was born. It is made mostly with Robyn Pandolph fabrics and is handquilted with a grid across the four patches. He was born Nov. 4, 2005. Since my oldest grandson named his quilt his 'lotsa squares blanket', it has become the tradition to make the first quilt for each of my grandkids with squares. I need to think of a new one since Joey is going to have a brother or sister in October :-). I handquilt the first quilt for the grandkids, so I'd better get working on it soon!

A Quilt for my Dad

My Mom asked me to make a quilt for my Dad for his birthday. A few years ago, I made a quilt for my Mom using a batch of brown and tan calicos that I purchased at an auction for $4.00. There were four boxes of fabrics which I hadn't really looked at closely, but the auctioneer couldn't get a bid, so I impulsively bid $2.00. Of course someone then bid against me and then I had to have it :-). I found all kinds of treasures in those boxes including a set of hand embroidered quilt blocks and a complete quilt top and matching dresser scarf which was embroidered as well. This is the quilt I made for my Mom (my Dad is holding it up for me):



Here is the quilt I made for my Dad:


The light parts of the log cabin blocks are meandered (is that a word?) and the borders done with a free motion leaf design. I didn't have enough dark fabric left for the borders so put a 'lippy' (flat piping) around between the border and the binding and between the border and the quilt to frame it. Again, the whole quilt was done on my trusty Singer 15-88 treadle sewing machine made in 1951 in Canada.

Ruth and Jason's Wedding Quilt

On August 6, 2005, our dear friends, Ruth and Jason got married. Of course, she had to have a quilt :-). I had just taken a class at the Quilt Rack in Ancaster, ON, where I worked at that time, on the Friendship Braid Quilt from the book, "Open a Can of Worms" by Debbie Caffrey. I did my quilt in black and yellow and just fell in love with it! It's at the Quilt Rack waiting to be quilted by Lucy. This quilt pattern is addictive and I helped a few friends make one in blues for an auction for the Christian school in Hamilton. It turned out very nicely as well. Then it was on to the next one...it's a great way of using up leftover 2 1/2" strips! I found this wonderful leafy fall print in the exact colours that Ruth was planning for her new home and I raided my stash for colours that blended with the borders. I didn't have quite enough length for the outside borders, so I added corner squares.

This was the first quilt that I got brave with and used my trusty 15-88 Singer treadle to free motion quilt loops in the braid sections. I quilted straight lines in the green background for some variation and stippled around the borders.

Here you can see the quilting on the back:

A quilt is not complete without a label!

I have since done another one for my niece Melanie's wedding. I will post that soon when I find the pictures :-).