Brown Bear--Fully Interlocking

This quilt is named in part for the way it was quilted--fully interlocking puzzle pieces.

Planning the quilt and in an intermediate stage

Last year, when I saw this panel and fabric on sale on the fabric.com web site I had to buy it.  Brown Bear, Brown Bear by  Eric Carle was one of Hannah's favorite books when she was a little girl.  I gave it to Ravinder's girls when they were small and they loved it, too. I picked this project as the next most challenging as I gear up after my long absence from quilting whilst I hand quilted the Many Steps quilt.

This is the first quilt I've made whose name reflects the way it was quilted. Ann asked for this quilt for her church's auction in the fall; she promises to bundle it together with the book.  

Size: 47" x 56" Crib Size
Quilting: Quilted horizontally to look like bumps and indents on child-sized jigsaw puzzle pieces.  Remounted the quilt 90 deg and quilted horizontally again in the same manner.  I had to figure how big to make the pieces so it would work out correctly for the quilt dimensions (Turned out to be 5"). I quilted a wavy line around all the edges to look like the cardboard frame that a lot of children's puzzles use. Used brown polyester thread (Omni from Superior Threads-named "Milk Chocolate"). Free form quilting. 3 bobbins. 
Backing: Brown Bear print from a fabric.com sale. Also used some of the striped matching fabric from the same sale.
Batting: 50/50 Cotton/Poly (Warm Blend)
Binding:  Brown cotton tonal print from my stash to match the "Brown Bear" theme.
Pattern: Inspired by "sew-easy" Baby Quilt in the book fresh from the clothesline by Darlene Zimmerman. Because I had the coordinating striped fabric I did not need to make a piano keys border; I used the striped fabric instead. The blocks used a Brown Bear panel for their centers.  Panel came from the same fabric.com sale. Borders of the blocks were bright colored fabrics from my stash.

Piecing by Patty.

Pinned into frame June 25, 2014. Quilting on long arm quilter June 25-27, 2014. (Patty). 

Binding by Patty. 

QC by Spencer.

Orange dog, orange dog, what do you see?

I see a quilt for my QC!

Location:County Line Quilts

Strippy Flannel

This is a "strippy" quilt, as in fabric strips were used to make it.

QC is exhausting work!

This is the second of Mother's scrappy flannel quilts. Mother designed this quilt to use up strips of flannel we have left from the edges of long armed quilts and bindings and other sources. I tried quilting feathers, but I failed.  However, I do not give up! I will continue my conquest of feather quilting if it's the last thing I do!

Size: 65" x 85" Single Bed Size
Quilting: Attempted feathers, but miserably failed.  My feathers look more like the tracks egg beaters make when whipping cream or egg whites. Big sigh!  Used yellow polyester thread (Omni from Superior Threads-named "Mellow Yellow"). Free form quilting. 10 bobbins. 
Backing: Plain yellow flannel from my stash
Batting: 100% Cotton (Warm And White)
Binding: Gray flannel from Mother's stash
Pattern: Mother's own design

Piecing by Mother.

Pinned into frame June 13, 2014. Quilting on long arm quilter June 13-20, 2014. (Patty). 

Binding by Mother. 

QC by Spencer.

Location:County Line Quilts

Scrappy Happy

With all the flannel strips left from making baby quilts and pajamas over the years, Mother decided to make a couple of scrappy quilts.  This is the first and the one I call "the happiest quilt we have ever made". You can't help but smile when you see the bright colors, especially the bright green and pink. The pattern came from quilts we have seen on our quilting shows, in quilting magazines, and from quilt pictures on the internet. Mother used a heavily starched muslin for the base of the strippy blocks. She wanted starch like she used for clothes when we were kids, something she declared we would never find. So, my first stop was Amazon, where I swear you can find anything.  And found it I did! Amazon comes through for us again! This turned out to be one HEAVY quilt, worthy of a cold winter night.

Size: 53" x 66" Crib or Lap Size
Quilting: Loose stipple over the entire quilt. Used bright green polyester thread (New Brytes from Superior Threads). Free form quilting. 8 bobbins. 
Backing: Tan plain flannel from Mother's stash
Batting: 100% Cotton (Warm And White)
Binding: Bright green flannel from Mother's stash
Pattern: As seen on various media-TV, magazines, internet

Piecing by Mother.

Pinned into frame May 28, 2014. Quilting on long arm quilter May 30-June 11, 2014. (Patty). Took a week off for various doctor appointments and errands, that's why quilting took so long.

Binding by Mother. 

QC by Spencer.

Location:County Line Quilts

Boxes

Mother had some beautiful larger prints in her stash that were crying out for a pattern with big blocks to display them effectively.  We saw a "Sewing with Nancy" program about making this quilt and it seemed to be a perfect fit for Mother's pretty fabrics. Other fabrics from her stash were added, including some from the donation we received from Sari several years ago.

This quilt was given to Cletus Vann when she visited end of June, 2014. We had so much company at the same time that Mother did not have a chance to make a label and we didn't have time to do a good official "portrait" of the quilt.

Size: 61" x 76" Single Bed or Lap Size
Quilting: Spiral designs in "frames" and "mats"; each large block had different quilting designs. Used orange polyester thread (Omni from Superior Threads-named "Orange Glow"). Free form quilting. 10 bobbins. More densely quilted than I usually do.
Backing: Tan cotton print from a JoAnn's red tag sale
Batting: 100% Cotton (Warm And White)
Binding: Dark red cotton print from Mother's stash
Pattern: Purchased from Maple Island Quilts, called  'BQ'.

Piecing by Mother.

Pinned into frame May 9, 2014. Quilting on long arm quilter May 9-14, 2014. (Patty). 

Binding by Mother. 

QC by Spencer.

The Back of the Quilt showing the quilting

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:County Line Quilts

Blind Baby Quilt 2

This is the second kit from the quilt guild. All the details are the same for this quilt, except the every other tactile-neutral block was a plaid, cotton flannel. This neutral block was much easier to handle than the first quilt. If I do anymore of these quilts, I will check the kit to make sure I'm selecting one with an easy to handle neutral.

Size: Approximately 42" x 48" 
Quilting: Stitch in the ditch, using my "domestic" machine, 100% cotton, light gray, machine quilting thread. 
Backing: Dark rusty-orange, plain cotton from Mother's stash. Chosen because it is a little wider than 42" inches so wouldn't require a seam in the backing
Batting: 50% Cotton/50% Polyester (Warm Blend)
Binding: Dark blue plain cotton from Mother's stash.
Pattern: Tactile square alternating with a tactile-neutral square. Kit from the quilt guild.

Piecing by Patty using serger.  Quilting on domestic machine with walking foot. Stitch-in-the-ditch.

Patty). Binding by Patty. QC by Spencer.

Location:County Line Quilts

Blind Baby Quilt 1

I took 2 kits from a quilt guild meeting to make quilts for the Blind Baby Foundation. The quilts need to be tactile and not necessarily pretty. Some of the fabrics are faux leather (essentially plastic) and are thick to sew. Indeed, most of the tactile fabrics were difficult to handle and sew--slippery, raveling, or sticky on the sewing foot or feed dogs. I used my serger to sew the blocks together for all of the above issues. It was a good choice. For the most part the serger zoomed through the seams. Every other block is a tactile neutral one. On this quilt the neutral block was not cotton and also had raveling issues. Another good reason to use the serger. 

An Imitation Leather Block

The instructions said to use a plain, dark back and quilt--not tie--the pieced top. I quilted using my "domestic" with a walking foot and stitched in the ditch. I used a 50/50 poly/cotton batting because it only needs to be quilted every 10 inches (100% poly batting needs to be quilted much closer). The squares in the kit finish about 6 inches. There are 56 squares in a kit making the finished quilt 7 squares to a row and 8 rows long or about 42 x 48 inches. This quilt was approximately that size--maybe a little smaller, but not much.

To prepare the sandwich for quilting, I taped the backing, batting, and top on my granite table using drafting tape. Drafting tape works really well.

Taped to the Table

Size: Approximately 42" x 48" 
Quilting: Stitch in the ditch, using my "domestic" machine, 100% cotton, light gray, machine quilting thread. 
Backing: Dark rusty-orange, plain cotton from Mother's stash. Chosen because it is a little wider than 42" inches so wouldn't require a seam in the backing
Batting: 50% Cotton/50% Polyester (Warm Blend)
Binding: Orangish-brown cotton print used for the back of Autumn Roses 2 in 2012. This was a piece left from that project. 
Pattern: Tactile square alternating with a tactile-neutral square. Kit from the quilt guild.

Piecing by Patty using serger.  Quilting on domestic machine with walking foot. Stitch-in-the-ditch.

Patty). Binding by Patty. QC by Spencer.

Location:County Line Quilts

Socky

I loved this fabric line called "Socky" and this pattern called "jumping jacks" from Sue Pfau's book "quilts from sweet jane". So, it seemed natural to marry these 2 loves--fabric and pattern. The fabric I used was charm squares, "Socky" from the Missouri Star Quilting Company. The pattern took almost 2 charm packs. I found the perfect backing on a fabric.com sale. It is the same teal print as in the fabric line. The background fabric is also perfect and from a fabric.com sale. It is cotton printed to look like the socks (Rockford Socks) used to make sock monkeys. It was not part of the same fabric line (different manufacturer), but perfect nonetheless. The brown background color made the bright colors of the other fabric really "pop". I named the quilt "Socky" after the fabric line. This is no doubt the cutest quilt I ever made, due to the fabric colors and prints.

I rate books and patterns based on how easy the instructions are to follow and how well the quilt top turns out. This pattern got a perfect score on both accounts.  I will try more patterns from the book.

 

Size: 38" x 50" Baby Size
Quilting: Loopy, free form design using brown polyester thread (Omni from Superior Threads-named "Milk Chocolate"). Free form quilting. 5 bobbins.
Backing: Sock monkeys on teal cotton print, fabric from a fabric.com sale
Batting: 100% Cotton (Warm And White)
Binding: Brown cotton printed to resemble Rockford socks from a fabric.com sale, also used for the background in the quilt top.
Pattern: From "quilts from sweet jane" book by Sue Pfau, called  'jumping jacks'.

Used almost 2 charm packs.
Piecing by Patty Pinned into frame April 30, 2014. Quilting on long arm quilter April 30, 2014. (Patty). Binding by Patty. QC by Spencer.

 

 

Location:County Line Quilts