A Thimbleberries Quilt

I don't know why I am compelled to make quilts in dark shades in August. But the colors are gorgeous, I love the dark reds, greens and blues. My all time favorites are the beiges though. Maybe on some subconscious level I try to work color into my beiges. It could be that the pastels of spring have worn out their welcome for me. Although I will never tire of the warm weather season. I guess I should try working with summer colors one of these days.

I always have company when I'm quilting. My kitty loves to pounce the thread as I baste the layers together. He constantly breaks my thread. So I usually have a few needles threaded and ready to go so when he wants to play, I'm ready.

He is a great quilting companion.

Catalog Copy

I saw a quilt just like this one in a Pottery Barn catalog. I loved how the colors were like a rainbow, soft, and flowing through the color wheel. And the white background is a great contrast, crisp and clean against the softness of the pastels. So instead of ordering the quilt, I made my own version. The really cool thing is that I only used fabrics that I had in my stash, except for the white. I didn't have enough white to complete something this size.

Sampler Wallhanging

I took a quilting class for fun and the first suggested project was this sampler. It was a great opportunity to make a bunch of different kinds of quilt squares. I used one of Debbie Mumm's fabric collections to complete the project and I used the leftover scraps to make the backing. I learned a good technique to attach a rod pocket to the back in order to make this into a wall hanging.

I've been making quilts since seventh grade but since most of what I know about quilting was self-taught, I thought it would be a good idea to see what I could learn. It felt good to discover that I knew more than I thought, good validation and it gave me more confidence. I did pick up a few new tricks and techniques so it was a worthwhile investment. It also gave me incentive to keep on quilting.

Pink Lemonade Quilt

My favorite colors are yellow and pink but not necessarily in that order. I found this wonderful quilt pattern and whipped up this lap quilt. It's made with hourglass blocks and Irish chain blocks, pretty simple. I call it pink lemonade. It's backed with a traditional pink-white striped fabric that looks like the old fashioned ticking fabric found on mattresses and pillows years ago.

Kitty Quilt

I fell in love with this fabric full of kitties and doggies. Some of the coordinating pieces have little paw prints and many of them are varieties of blues, reds, blacks and whites with adorable cats and dogs.

So what does one do with this kind of fabric?

Make the kitty a quilt of his own. And as you can see, he likes it.

Because of Summer

I love summer and I love gardening. I also love Country Threads patterns. In honor of some of my favorite things, I made this wall hanging. Now I just need to re-paint my kitchen to reflect the colors I used. Is that a bad thing to decorate a whole room to match a wall-hanging?

State Fair Entry

I entered this quilt in the Wisconsin State Fair. It qualifies under the memory quilt division. It is to commemorate my husband and his time in the Navy. Even though the fair is in August, the entry deadline in May so I have to think about this way in advance, in fact, I got the entry form in February.

I printed some of his Navy photos onto fabric and incorporated them into the quilt. Then, I embellished the photos with some trim that looks like the rope that is used to tie ships to docks and I found some with stars and anchors embroidered on them. I used Navy print fabric and the blues either had stars or a wavy pattern to resemble water and the beiges reminded me of sand.

Funny thing is when I did the blocks individually, they looked great but for some reason when I put them together...well, there really was no way to put them together where they looked like they had some asymmetry. It's mish-mosh bunch of stuff that didn't turn out so well together. Luckily, when Jeff is under it in is favorite chair, it's not straightened out enough to notice how bad it really looks. At least he likes the memories that the photos bring. I doubt if I will win anything with it but I've seen worse at the fair. At least it was a good learning experience.

Breast Cancer Quilt

At work we do a fund raiser as part of the Making Strides Breast Cancer Walk. My company is a corporate sponsor so it's a big deal. The really cool thing is each department is asked to make a gift basket and most people are pretty enthusiastic about it. It's pretty amazing to see the creative ideas that go into some of these baskets.

I decided to add a breast cancer quilt to the mix. Since pink is one of my favorite colors, I used scrap fabric and some of my stash that I had on hand. All in all, my out of pocket investment was under $20, with a third of that used on the pink fleece fabric I used as the backing. I cut out simple squares and machine-appliqued some pink hearts on it.

It was a fun and easy project that brought in nice sized bids and a great final sale price.