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 :-).

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 :-).