A Quilt for Chase

A new nephew meant it was time to put together a baby quilt.  Twelve little squares embroidered with simple  chain stitch images -- dog, cat, tree, house, car, boat, bird, fish, sun, moon, airplane.

It was such a fun little project and the best was sending it off and getting in return a picture of the new guy, waving at me.

A Family Heirloom . . . and a Memory

Josie loves her Peter Rabbit quilt. I pulled it out of the linen closet where it's been waiting since her daddy outgrew it.

Full disclosure: the above is not my quilt or picture. I found it on Etsy when I wondered it there were more like mine. There are. It was, no doubt, a kit.

As quilts go, it's not exactly my cup of tea. But I love it for its story -- my great-aunt Tellie and Marion, her life-long companion made it for Josie's uncle--Ethan, my older son.

I have a vivid memory of the two sitting side by side in the sun room at my grandparents' house, cross-stitching away on either end. They made many projects together and were frequent ribbon winners at their county fair.

I wrote more fully about Tellie and Marion HERE. I'm so glad Josie is loving their quilt. And that their love is warming another generation.

One More Amazing Quilt from the Easter Party

My friend Mary Maupin is a talented painter (see her website HERE) and she's no slouch as a quilter either. She designed and made this striking quilt for her older son.

Her fabric choices are quirky and individual and the play of geometric patterns is mesmerizing.

Someone viewing the quilt on Sunday said to me, ' I'd like some of whatever she was on.'

A wild trip, indeed!

My First Quilt

Talk about a blast from the past . . .

The Florida cousins are paying us a visit and as Barb was showing me a picture of her cats on her phone, my eyes went to the very basic, very loud, Roman Stripe quilt in the background.

1974 -- We are living on a lake in Odessa, Florida. John's Uncle Charley is getting married and John's sister Fay and I decide to make a quilt as a gift. Neither of us has ever quilted but I have a book of patterns and basic instructions. We pick out the Roman Stripe as being the easiest. . .

Today, the color choices make me question my sanity and taste but, as I recall, we thought it was something the recipients would like, based on some other quilts they had recently bought.  So we assembled a bunch of primary colored fabrics and set to work.

This was before I'd ever heard of roller cutters and I suspect that we used cardboard templates to trace the many rectangles and then scissors to cut them out. The quilt was for a king size bed and it took roughly forever to make enough squares and then sew them together. 

At last it was complete and we layered it with batting and backing and wrestled it onto a homemade quilting frame hanging from the ceiling of our house. 

Several hours of novice (first time) quilting later, our progress was so minimal that we faced reality. If this quilt was to be finished before the up-coming wedding, we would have to tie it, rather than quilt it.

So that's what we did and how we beamed with pride when we presented our gift.

The marriage eventually ended and Uncle Charley is gone now but the quilt still adorns a bed in the house that our cousins inherited.  

It looks to have held up pretty well. But, my heavens, it's a gaudy thing! Even the cats won't sleep on it.

A Wedding Quilt for Joe and Julie Claire

I'm back from John C. Campbell and back from a very quick visit to my brother in Alabama.  I have more JCC pictures to share but first there's this quilt. . .

A friend asked me to help with putting together a quilt for her daughter and future son-in-law. I've been involved pretty much every step of the way but, as is traditional, had to keep the secret.

Since the wedding was last Saturday, I'm free to publish pictures now.

The bride's mother  -- a relative novice to quilt-making -- picked out the fabrics in beautiful sea-glass colors, assembled the kits, then spent hours arranging and rearranging the squares that friends and family had sewn, and more hours sewing the border that contained embroidered rectangles, also from friends and family.

Time was short and the bride kept coming home for weekends -- meaning that all signs of quilt making had to be hidden away till she left again.

When the top was finally pieced, all three layers had to be basted.

At last the quilt was on the quilting frame and we could get to the serious work of quilting. Ruth, the bride's mother, is cutting paper hearts to be used as templates for quilting in the solid squares while Claui (my daughter-in-law) and Amelia (the bride's sister) ply their  needles.

Most of the quilting got done in a few long days (there were others who quilted) and then the quilt came off the frames and the borders got done on hoops.

As is always the case, a whole lot of love went into the quilt. . .

If you'd like to see even more pictures, there's a link to a web album HERE.