Nary A Cross
Word
This
is my own personal quilt, made with a little pocket on the back to hold
a laminated copy of the puzzle clues and its answers. It is not
hand-quilted but is tied, and the numbers of the puzzle blocks are
hand-stenciled.
Lessons Learned
What I learned from this quilt is how not to make mitered
corners with the edgings, and to pay attention when cutting lengths for
borders: the reason for the corner squares on the borders is that I'd
cut them too short, but it turned out nice after all that. Also,
no matter what color you've bought, nor how many pieces you've already
cut for a quilt, if you have to buy more of that color to finish, do
not assume that what you've bought separately will match, regardless
of how close it seems at the time. It will not match unless
cut from the exact same bolt, which is extremely unlikely. Set the
already cut pieces aside for another project and start over with the
correct yardage.
back to gallery
Joyful Noise
This quilt was made for a music minister fighting a rare bone marrow
disease which, though not malignant, treats her in a manner similar to
leukemia, with some of the same effects, treatments, and problems.
I thought that during long waits in cold waiting rooms, or for her naps
on the sofa, a quilt would remind her of the warmth of those who love
her and pray for her. In the white sashing of the bottom right
hand corner square is embroidered in white ("tone on tone"), "And the
prayer of faith shall save him who is sick, James 5:15" In the
white sashings of the other squares are the signatures of the members of
her choir.
Lessons Learned
What I learned from this quilt is to read about a square or pattern
when I find it in a book. Taken by the name of the traditional
American, "Bright Hopes," which I found appropriate for this quilt, and
by its apparent simplicity, I began to cut strips, then realized that
the pattern was going to require a right-angled seam. That, I
thought, was my doom...I would never be able to work it. Feeling
led by God to make this quilt anyway, I felt Him take me back to the
book in which I'd found the pattern, and there, in the instructions
which I'd failed to read before, was the simplest trick to making this
one of the easiest and quickest blocks anyone could ever make. I
also chose to fit the border butted in the same sequence as on each
square's sashings.
back to gallery
Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy, Down In My Heart
This quilt was made for a co-worker of mine who had battled cancer
for about a year and a half when I made "Joy, Joy..." It is in her
favorite colors of red, black, and yellow, and backed with yellow
flannel, as she is always cold. The finished quilt was edged in
black to help bring out the vivid colors, and tied with yellow
embroidery floss.
Lessons Learned
What I learned from this quilt is to baste the "sandwich" of backing
and batting (this can be safety-pinned) to keep the whole thing squared.
This pattern would also be very easy to stitch.
back to gallery
Something Old, Something New
Made for church friends, this quilt is made of 3" squares of fabrics
they brought me from his mother's home when they were cleaning out. With
her "old" fabrics and a few of my "new," this crazy quilt began, and it
contains no more than 2 squares of each fabric (except the center).
It's center is a bright red "friendship star," and it is bordered in a
soft green fabric that was the mother's fabric....edged in a soft yellow
commercially prepared quilt edging.
Lessons Learned
Miraculously, no major quilting lessons presented themselves during
this quilt. It went much more quickly than it would appear, and
was fun to do.
back to gallery
Bluebird Days
This baby quilt was made for a Women's Missions sale at church.
It was the first quilt I'd made completely from my own "stash" of
fabrics (including the white sheeting backing and the batting, which I
pieced), and it was wonderful to not have to make the long trip to the
store to buy something specific for the project. It is a "tied"
quilt, using a pale yellow pearl cotton embroidery thread.
Lessons Learned
No real problems presented themselves except that if a seam must be
pressed toward a very light or white fabric, be sure that any colored
fabric in the seam is trimmed back if at all possible where it won't
be visible through the lighter color. I made rounded corners and
slightly gathered the edging around the corners, which was not as easy
to blind stitch on the back through the doubled edging, but I really
like the soft look it gives.
back to gallery
Corn Crib
This baby quilt is made in shades of yellow (for corn), greens
(for
the stalks and leaves), and brown (for the dried corn shucks and
stalks). The pattern is diagonal rows of 2" squares, tied on the
opposite diagonals with perle cotton in shades of corn silks: yellow,
pale green, ecru, and brown, bordered in a pale, butter yellow (one
cannot have corn without butter!), then finished with a sage green
commercially prepared edging. I did machine-stitch one round just
inside the body of the quilt next to the border to "anchor" it. It
is backed with pale yellow flannel.
Lessons Learned
No real lessons or problems presented themselves in the making of
this quilt. I did find that it is a beginning to be easier to turn
the mitered corners of the edgings with practice. A book with
excellent instructions, well-illustrated with photos, was of great
assistance in showing me the exact way to stitch and turn the corners,
while others were not nearly so clear in what seemed to be a matter of
elementary simplicity, but of such total mystery when one doesn't know
how!
back to gallery
A Man's World
This quilt was made for
a
man who had cancer,
so I made this
James 5:15 quilt, using the traditional American block, "Bright Hopes,"
for him.
Lessons Learned
What I learned from this quilt is that when designing a pattern and
placing pieces onto the design wall, be sure before you sew
borders that you have the correct layout on the wall: I
worked very hard to place border strips from 8 different fabrics around
3 rows of 4 squares each so that I had the different plaids spaced
correctly, the values balanced, and no two center squares next to each
other that were exactly alike. Then I realized after sewing
all the borders and I was ready to sew the squares into their rows, that
the layout was wrong...with this strongly directional center square
pattern, the rectangular layout had to be vertical (or "portrait"), and I
had laid it out horizontally ("landscape"). It was not easy to
rearrange and still keep it balanced.
When choosing fabrics for
center squares, always remember to buy extra fabric for large repeat
themes/motifs. One yard of solid color or small repeats will
provide 12-16 cut 9" squares (which finishes to 8" for me, with 1/2"
seams), but it may take 2 yards or more when cutting "scenes" or
"bouquets." A really helpful lesson came in trying to find the
solid or nearly solid colors I thought would be complementary to the
simple yet stark design for the center squares. "That will be
really easy to match," I thought, but, alas, nowhere I looked did
I find anything anywhere that was even remotely appropriate. To
border the squares and entire quilt in black, the only solution I could
think of would've been much too heavy visually. The solution
finally came in a pre-packaged bundle of "fat quarters" of mixed plaids
in homespun-type fabrics. Those reminded me of men's work shirts
and seemed to fit the horse theme exactly for this man who raised
Tennessee walking horses. Then the black border did
set off the black horse silhouettes without overwhelming the whole
design, and I edged it in a pieced strip of the rest of the "shirt
plaids." To finish, I tied the quilt in dark brown perle cotton
embroidery thread through assorted buttons in shades and color pf the
plaids, continuing the "shirt" idea.
back to gallery
Old Rose
This little "lap quilt" was made for a Women's Missions sale at
church. Made in the simple design of the traditional American
block, "Bright Hopes," to show off the lovely rose print, it is (as all
my quilts are) a utility quilt, tied with perle cotton rather than hand
or machine quilted, and made with 1/2" seams instead of the skimpy
traditional 1/4."
Lessons Learned
What I learned from this quilt was that the difficult mitered
corners on the edgings DO get easier with practice! I wrestled for
quite some time, trying to pin one of the corners and gave up, settling,
I thought, for a grossly imperfect miter. Then, with needle and
thread, the miter easily pulled together at the correct angle.
Whew!
back to gallery
Lasseter's Rodeo
This
quilt was made for a lady at church (at her request) as a
gift for her 10-month old grandson. She asked
for a larger quilt that he could grow with rather than a "baby" quilt. The blessing of quickly finding a "cowboy" print fabric as she wanted
and a light-weight, workable denim to accompany it was a terrific help
in getting started much sooner that I thought I'd be able to, since I
thought it would take some time and perhaps even travel to locate a
suitably themed print! The lesson I learned from "A Man's World"
about looking at fat quarter packages applied here, also, as the
homespun plaids, though they didn't at all "match" the cowboy fabric in
colors, they matched in the theme and spirit of it,
reminding me of work shirts a cowboy might wear when out on the plains.
Using a few denim strips with the plaid sashings tied the squares
("Bright Hopes" for this little boy's future!) to the border. A
"leather" fringe was added across the top and a silver-colored concha
tied with leather, as well as several extra inserts irregularly spaced
in the denim borders (shirt plaids, a bit of fringe, a couple of smaller
motifs from the cowboy print, and a couple of denim-jeans seams), and
finally edged with the shirt plaids. It was tied at intervals with
brown and tan perle cottons, and had the quilt not been destined for a
toddler, I might have tied it with "shirt buttons" also.
Lessons Learned
One thing I learned from this quilt was to just have fun and let
what I find in the fabric departments guide my design. It was a
joy to put this quilt together! Adding items to accent its theme
made it more interesting to work on, but the design really just evolved
as I went along rather that appearing in whole to me all at once.
Also, it looks really great to make the edging strips from the other
fabrics in the quilt, using bits and pieces sewn into the long strip,
but it can get too bulky at multiple seams, especially with the
"homespun" fabrics which are a bit heavier than regular "quilt-weight"
cottons. It can look just as good if longer pieces are used to
make the edging strip and then there are not so many seams to contend
with having to trim and hand-stitch through. Even though a package
of iron-on labels says it can be ironed onto "any porous surface," they
really do not work well on flannel. It works best, at least with
the type I have been using (printed on the computer printer), to iron
them onto white cotton, which then only takes a few minutes to
hand-stitch onto the back of the quilt.
back to gallery
Da Blues
This quilt was a favorite of mine, made for another Women's Mission
sale at church. I secretly hoped it would not sell and I could
take it back home, even though there is not a blue stitch in my home for
it to "go with." Alas, not only did it sell, but the buyer
requested another like it! So another, similar but not identical,
followed this one. The block is the traditional Courthouse Steps,
and the blue print fabrics placed at random, perhaps like the wanderings
of the thoughts of a blues singer, from whence cometh the quilt's name.
The backing is a blue flannel in a rose pattern remarkably similar to
the larger patterned print on the top, though is from a different
manufacturer. The quilt is finished with ties of white perle
cotton.
Lessons Learned
No particular challenges arose in its making, but trying something a
little different, I lengthened the short strips of white that I wanted
to border the quilt with by using blocks of some of the blue prints,
then edged the whole also in a white background-blue print.
back to gallery
Wyoming
This quilt was made for my beloved husband who has twice taken me to
the beautiful state of Wyoming.
One of our favorite places there
is the tiny town of Dubois, about 90 miles east of Yellowstone Park.
"Out from town," on Fish Hatchery Road, there are a number of large
boulders on which American Indian petroglyphs which are hundreds of
years old still exist. I was lucky to find a petroglyph-print
fabric for the centers of the "bright Hopes" squares, which I sashed
with colors in that fabric: red, black, sand, and brown, colors also
found in the hills around Dubois. The top was bordered in a
marbled sand color, but was not edged: the top and its gold-brown
marbled flannel backing were stitched, right sides together, like a
pillowcase, then turned and the low-loft batting stuffed in. Then
it was tied with black perle cotton, and a blanket stitch in black
worsted-weight yarn completed the edging. I used fabric paints to
apply my own petroglyph, a handprint, in the bottom right corner of the
border and continued some of the black streaking found in the print, as
well as a couple of its petroglyph patterns. My quilt label was
adapted from a book of iron-on patterns, with "the flute player" so
often seen in American Indian Art on one side of the label, hand-painted
in brown, black, white, and turquoise.
back to gallery
Garden of Hopes and Dreams
The quilt was made for the recipient of the first Habitat for
Humanity house that our office participated in building. The
squares are in the appropriately named "Bright Hopes" pattern, the
centers of which are a pattern of roses, and other flowers, and the sashings done in solid light and dark rose, sage green, and pale yellow
to bring out the colors in the print centers. It was bordered in
the dark rose and edged in a smaller print version of the square-center
fabric. Backed in a white on white tiny floral print, it was
quilted by a friend of mine with the names of the house
recipient's family members and "God bless this house" in the
sashings.
Lessons Learned
Except for taking care how a border of the same color as a sashing
will look when it meets that same color on one side of the quilt, as this
one did across the bottom, no real lessons presented themselves in the
making of this quilt. The design was another story, though:
I had begun it in a log cabin pattern square, and with the several other
fabrics I was using, even though they were beautifully coordinated in
color and pattern, it was turning out entirely too "busy." The
"Bright Hopes" pattern with only the print centers and solid sashings
worked much better, especially when the names were quilted in.
back to gallery
My Little Cabin in the Woods
This quilt was made for my sister for Christmas. Her home,
though not a log cabin, sits on a little hill with woods around it, a lovely, peaceful, cabin-like setting. The quilt block is the
traditional "Log Cabin," with the red centers signifying the hearth
(heart) of the home, with the darker colors (shadows, or night) to one
side of the block and light (or sunshine) on the other. The
pattern, then, in which the blocks are set is called "fields and
furrows," signifying the plowed fields in which a farmer would make a
living for his family...this pattern put the darker colors together,
then the lighter, producing alternating diagonal "stripes." A
2" border of the "hearth" red plaid surrounds the
"fields," then a 6" border of navy plaid, and all bound narrowly with
one of the "light" fabrics. The centers of each block are
embroidered with values and sentiments found in a happy home, beginning
with God, and, though it is last on the quilt, by no means is "love"
last in the home, but between the two fall all the rest; country,
family, peace, memories, joy, generosity, good food, self (after all,
home is where one can be absolutely one's self!), kindness, and safety.
The flannel backing is in blue tones which echo the blues of the quilt's
top; its pattern is called "Cat Toile," representing my sister's love for cats. The
quilt label is also a cat, with flowers, and is colored with wax crayons
and heat set, then embroidered as if quilted itself. The whole is
not "quilted" but tied with deep red perle cotton with assorted buttons
of an antique or Americana look.
Lessons Learned
Amazingly, no real challenges presented themselves in this quilt.
Most of the fabrics used came from a trip to Atlanta, Georgia, where
they were found in a fabric warehouse in nearby Decatur on an outing
with our Aunt and Uncle.
back to gallery
Roosters
This quilt was made for a cousin of my husband at her request.
She asked for a rooster theme, and with that seeming
to be a popular one
at the time, I thought it would be relatively easy to find the fabrics
in this country theme. Wrong! There was nothing in any of
the stores that I frequent, and I finally found the roosters at a fairly
new store many miles away, eating up in the cost of gas a fair chunk of
any profit I might have made on this quilt, and the very high cost of
the fabric there took most of the rest. A visit to Wal-mart had to
supply the remainder of the accompanying fabrics, just to keep costs
down. I don't know the name of this block, which is simply an 8"
theme block with 2" sashings and squares at the corners. The
blocks are then connected with another 2" sashing, also with squares at
its corners. The borders measure 3" and 5" and are edged with the
only solid fabric in the quilt, a sage green. Country red and
"earth-tones" of off white, camel, light and dark browns (almost
black), the sage green, and a dusty blue-gray don't sound as colorful as
the quilt looks! It is tied with perle cotton in several of those
colors. The backing is plain white cotton, as this is to be a wall
hanging, with a hanging sleeve sewn in at the back of the top. A
label of my own design, an apple hanging from a tree branch with a
single leaf, shows his cousin's love of the apple theme also.
Lessons Learned
I really had no particular difficulties and no other real "lessons"
in making this quilt. An accidental happening did make it unique:
while designing it, I had difficulty getting the blocks down on graph
paper, miscounting and miscalculating measurements. I had the
entire quilt drawn (finally!) and was drawing off the borders, and
noticed when I was coloring it that I'd drawn one of the sashings
extending all the way through both of the borders. After I decided
that I really liked that, I added two more extensions on two other sides,
their placement random. Then, finding myself about 1" short of
enough fabric for the outer border, I inserted a rectangle of one of the
other fabrics from the quilt blocks. All in all, a little bit of a
contemporary twist to a rather conventional design.
back to gallery
Roses and Raspberries
This little quilt was made as a baby gift for a couple at church.
I had bought baby themed fabric for this quilt, and loved it, yet, when
I began to try to design the quilt, I could in no way work it out in
this fabric. I finally gave up, searching my "stash," and came up
with pink rosebuds on several coordinating fabrics, including a
contrasting raspberry-colored one. Very quickly then, the design
came together, using just 2" (finished) blocks set in diagonal color
"stripes," similar to "Corn Crib." There is a light rose piping
between the body and the 1" first border, then a 3" border surrounds the
narrow one, and all edged in a commercially prepared edging in the same
light rose as the piping. A white backing with a tiny white floral
pattern finished it off nicely.
Lessons Learned
No challenges here, except giving up a preconceived notion of one
certain "perfect" fabric, which wasn't! I did notice that one
needs to take care to check each fabric pattern to see if there is even
the tiniest directional detail which would not "look right" if the
pieces were not all laid out in the same direction.
back to gallery
Blue Skies
This quilt began just as a project to work on between other quilt
projects, and all the fabrics for the top came out of my own "stash."
Even before I finished it, and despite the fact that it is totally
unlike my other James 5:15 quilts (which are "Bright Hopes" squares, and
fabrics with themes and colors for a specific person) I knew it was for
our friend who is battling cancer. The name of the traditional
pattern is "Rail Fence" or "Roman Stripe." It is a simple pattern, having 4
squares in each block, each composed of 3 strips of fabric, all of the
same width (in this case, 2"), then each of the 3 strip squares are set
at right angles to those beside it. The backing is a
homespun-style fabric in a small blue plaid pattern, since the top is
quite floral, despite its blue and white color scheme. It has a 6"
border of one of the white-on-white fabrics, then an outer border of 2"
blocks of all the fabrics (two different white-on-whites were used, and 3
blue florals), and finished with an edging of strips of both of the
white fabrics. It is tied with white perle cotton, the right
bottom corner embroidered in blue with "James 5:15," and a label of my
own design attached.
back to gallery
After a Girl's Heart
This little quilt was ordered by a friend for her little grand-daughter.
Her request was for a size larger than a baby quilt, in colors of pink
and mint green, with some gingham. The pinks were no problem to
find, but mint is not presently a popular color, the 1960's hot
lime shade is much more easy to find. A muted lime and pink rose print
sufficed despite the fact that I could not find another green to
accompany it. A heart pattern evolved in my head, and I laid it
out in 2" squares (finished) as if I were figuring a crosstitch pattern
until I had a design I was pleased with. Then I just filled in
with the remaining fabrics, a tiny pale pink gingham, white tiny florals, and a carnation pink solid.
It is backed with the pink gingham and tied with white perle cotton.
An original label featuring a
heart with the James 5:15 verse hand lettered on it finished this sweet
little quilt that, despite the fact that it used well over 600 little
squares, took remarkable little time to construct.
Lessons Learned
Though it caused no irreparable damage, I did learn that one cannot
iron over the textured fabric paint I used for little flowers around the
edges of my heart label.
back to gallery
Princess Pansy
This quilt was made for a grand-daughter of a friend for whom I've made
several quilts. She asked for a "ladybug" theme, but there was
just not fabric to be had in that pattern, no matter where I looked, so
faced with having to go to "plan B," she gave me free reign to "just
make something feminine." Rather than go for the traditional
pinks, I thought of how often little girls fall in love with purple, and
found three fabrics that fit beautifully together. Done in 2"
squares, the pattern is a "Double Irish Chain." It is backed with a
tiny-checked lavender gingham, which is turned up onto the top to form
the edging also. The photo does not show whether I tied or machine
quilted this one, and I can't even remember, but I suspect it was the
latter, sewn through the centers of the diagonal, darker squares.
The label is an original, with pansies copied from the fabric used in
the quilt body.
Lessons Learned
This little quilt was a pleasure to make, with no particular problem
or lesson presenting itself. I had many years ago attempted a
"Double Irish Chain" and found the pattern totally beyond me at the
time!
back to gallery
All American Boy
This baby quilt was made for the son of couple who are members of my
church. Made with 2" squares, denim (the Great American Uniform)
alternates with squares representing cowboys, car racing, and ball
playing (football, basketball , tennis, golf, baseball). Also used
are a "country style" American flag print, red and blue kerchief prints,
and a couple of homespun shirt plaids. The border is of the blue
(nearly navy blue) kerchief print and edged in the red kerchief.
It is backed with a dark blue, finely speckled with white, mindful of
the enamel spatter ware plate an American cowboy might have eaten his
campfire stew from while out on the range. A commercially printed
label, hand-colored, completes the quilt.
Lessons Learned
I have begun to work my edgings' mitered corners a little
differently from what's shown in books, though that has worked well.
That method does leave a rather bulky corner that's hard to deal with,
so I've begun to refine that to try to take out some of the many layers
that wind up all in a half-inch square at each corner.
back to gallery
Lori's Dream
This quilt was made for my friend, Lori.
With her personality, I
knew her quilt had to have lots of bright color, so I came up with a
rainbow color scheme, then the "Trip Around the World" pattern just
seemed to come naturally. Lori's dream is to design websites,
which she can do at home, and so a "subtitle" of sorts for her quilt
might be "Trip Around the World Wide Web!" Made of 3" X 4"
rectangles, the colors are arranged in a diamond pattern, which reverses
itself when it reaches the red, outer color of the rainbow. Since
the bright red occurs only in one single "round," I used it to edge the
quilt, then each rectangle is tied with perle cotton in rainbow colors.
The backing is a really fun surprise: a white flannel, covered
with rainbow-colored "kisses," lip imprints in every color!
back to gallery
