Lap Quilts

 Another old UFO was finished last week and gifted to a senior friend.  She loves gardening and flowers so I hoped she liked bright colours.  I delivered it this week and she did like it ☺.  The pattern is Spinning Four Patch and the borders show the original fabric that is layered with four identical strips and cut into squares and then arranged with the most pleasing center.  I quilted this one myself with diagonal lines in the center and piano key borders with my Westalee ruler and then I got brave and quilted a maple leaf (with a ruler) in the corners. (click on the photo to enlarge)

Finished quilt

closeup of the original tulip fabric

The maple leaf in the corner is a little hard to see

This quilt is for my aunt who turns 90 in June, but I delivered it to her last week so she can enjoy it already.  I found a layer cake that has been languishing in the stash for at least 15 years.  These are the perfect colours for her living room so I made this no waste Windmill pattern from Anita Solomon's book, Rotary Cutting Revolution.  It's a fun and quick pattern but you do have to arrange it on the wall first before sewing together.  I had a bunch of squares left and added fabrics to make a second top.  It needs to be quilted yet and will go to another senior friend.  They are enjoying the gifts and my UFOs are getting tamed!  Win/win situation.
 

Finished quilt

I quilted free motion loops all over this top which worked well.

 

Wedding quilt for Justine and Michael

We were invited to a wedding for two young friends last week. I had this quilt top in my UFO drawer and decided to quilt it up for Michael and Justine's wedding.  This is a spinning four patch pattern where you cut four identical repeats of fabric, layer them exactly, cut into strips and then cut into squares. Each set of squares can be arranged in four different ways.  I sashed them in yellow, blue and green kona cotton strips without any extra borders.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any of the original fabric left to put in the backing.  It was quilted with a spiral/flower on my domestic, vintage Bernina 830.

Finished quilt

one of my favourite blocks

the spiral flower quilting

finished quilt

backing leftover from another quilt

Stacie's Baby quilt

I finished a Spinning Four patch baby quilt for baby Stacie, a first baby for Trevor and Sarah, who are members of my Church. First babies are a great reason to make a quilt :-). I had been saving this quilt for that special baby and since Trevor is a farmer, the animals were the perfect choice! Here is the finished quilt:

The original fabric can be seen in the border:

The four patch blocks turned out really fun. This was the second quilt I had made from this set of blocks. You can see the first one here. I cut the first block too small so I only got 15 blocks out of the fabric. So, I fussy cut one sheep out of a leftover piece so I could make another quilt. I just love these animals...they are so cute :-).

The label on the back:

I found a perfect colour purple for the back and it had sunflowers on it to continue the country theme. I realized that I spelled Stacie's name wrong. It's too late to change the label, but Sarah figured that Stacie won't notice it :-).

Spinning Four Patch Quilt

This summer Jake and I enjoyed a wonderful two week vacation in BC. We were invited to stay in a lovely little home on the property of friends of ours. It was so nice to have a little home away from home to have as our home base. This quilt was made as a thank you gift for them. Our daughter in law boarded with them a few years ago, so I picked her brain to come up with colours that would work in their home. I decided to try a Spinning Four Patch quilt with this classy navy and gold fabric. It wasn't the perfect spinning four patch fabric as the repeats were too small and too symmetric, but it did turn out nice. I added the narrow border of a Japanese fabric around the blocks as it would have been too dark with the navy blue batik. I totally forgot to take pictures of this quilt before I gave it to them! Thanks to their daughter, Corina, who was over visiting my daughter in law for taking the pictures for me. This is the back of the quilt:

The front of the quilt:

One of the blocks:

The quilting in the blocks (this was close to the true colour of the quilt):

Colours are somewhat off in this picture - there were gold flecks in the fabric making it very difficult to get a good photo:

The finished quilt:

Thanks Wout and Addy for letting us stay in your wonderful little home!

Robyn and Mike's Spinning Four patch

It's been awhile since I did a blog post! I haven't finished much in the last month, but did work on a lot of projects. I did finally finish a quilt for a wedding we attended on May 28th :-). That's what happens when I miss my deadline...no more pressure to get it done on time LOL. Actually, that was the same week we had two huge quilt shows in the area and I had several ladies sleeping over to attend the shows. So, I do have a good excuse.

I bought a lovely piece of fabric at Hyggeligt's sale bin awhile ago thinking it might be good for a Spinning Four Patch block. It did work, but it's not as dramatic as some of the other fabrics I've used. Here are a few of the blocks:



I tried to set the blocks with two different colours, but nothing seemed to work until I found this solid brown. I used wider sashings than usual and this helped to make the blocks float.


I had the perfect green in my stash for the border (it has little beige flecks in it) and had enough brown left for the binding:

I quilted leaves and funky flowers in the sashing and feathers in the border with a King Tut variegated thread:

The finished quilt:

Colton's baby quilt

In February, we had a baby shower for my nephew and niece, Jon and Megan. My sister said they liked zoo animals, and I had the perfect fabric in that theme and decided to do a spinning four patch. This is the original fabric:

Four identical layers are cut and pinned and squares cut. The four squares are laid out forming a kaleidoscope (there are four options for each set of squares making it fun to play with the possibilities). This was part of the tiger:

Oops..forgot to crop that photo :-)...you get the idea:
Here is the finished quilt:


And here is sweet little Colton enjoying his quilt and resting on a matching pillowcase that Megan made herself to go with the quilt :-):

I found a little bit of giraffe fabric in the perfect colour to do corner squares:

Closeups of the rest of the blocks on the quilt:

Three sister's Quilts

My sister from BC visited me in June for the first time in 14 years. We had a great time catching up. I had only been quilting for a few years the last time she was here so we had a great time exploring patterns, fabric, UFO's, etc. She was intrigued with the Spinning Four Patch and when I told her I was contemplating doing a mini, she was all excited. She loves miniatures even more than I do :-). I let her loose in my fabric stash with the instruction to find a small scale busy print that she liked. She chose a pretty sea shell fabric that I had purchased for another project, but it was not suitable so went into the stash. It was perfect for this project. We cut out the squares 1 3/4". Here you see Thea playing with the layouts of the squares and coming up with her favourites.

Squares ready to sew together:

First squares sewn and on the design wall:

We had quite a few squares so decided that we would get our youngest sister, Eva, involved as well and make three little quilts. We would each choose our own colours for sashing and binding and our own layout. Thea chose her favourite colour combination, blue and yellow and decided on this layout:

Not sure if the quilting in the border shows up on the photo (click on it to enlarge it), but I quilted stars and loops in the border:

Eva chose to set her blocks on point and have hers made into a mini table runner for her patio table and chose blue and pink for her accent colours:

I quilted little funky flowers in the light blue squares:


Quilting on the back of the quilt:

I decided to make a little doll quilt for one of my antique doll beds and went for the brighter red for mine. I also set the squares on point and added a narrow gold border and used the same for binding:

I quilted pansies in the blocks and swirlies in the border:


Here are the three quilts altogether:

Now to wrap them up for Christmas and get the one for Thea in the mail :-).