A Quilt Story to Remember

Here's an amazing story about a quilt.

I made this quilt for my brother-in-law and his family for Christmas some years ago.

Their kids were playing with a reading lamp near the bed and knocked it over.

 Some time later, as they were getting ready to leave the house for the day, my sister-in-law realized she forgot something and ran into the bedroom, only to find the quilt smoldering and smoking.

 She soaked the quilt in the sink and saved her home just in time.

Luckily, she was inspired to run back inside the bedroom.

 Luckily the quilt was folded over and the light bulb only burned through the quilt not harming the mattress.

 Luckily it was only burned on the very corner and a simple fix.

 Luckily I had exactly enough scrap of that stripe fabric left to rebuild the border.  Stripes - especially uneven stripe like those - are so forgiving!  You can't even tell where I pieced in the new fabric...

...Unless you look at the back ... I used what I had on hand.  A slightly different neutral muslin.

Oh, well.  It will serve as a reminder scar, I guess.

 All in all, the quilt was saved and, more important, their home is saved too.

 It's still a beautiful quilt with many more years of use in it.

I finished it in time for my sister-in-law's birthday, so as a gift to them, I appliqued a fourth little cub because #4 is coming this winter.  Cute, huh!

Not Your Momma's Denim Quilt

For Parma Quilter's Anonymous, I got to add a border to this fabulous denim quilt.

 The center square that started it all - the denim rectangle with the wheel in the middle.

Each border was added by a different member of the group.

Some scraps of 1930 reproduction fabric was provided for us to use in our borders.  That really made for nice continuity throughout. 

There's the border I added.  I used some light and dark blue denim and some red denim for the squares and the some scrappy strips in between them.

The whole thing... It's getting quite large.  Good thing we are nearing the end of the year.

As an after thought, I decided to add something to that wide solid border (with permission).

I appliqued some simple little circles with buttons to match others that were on the quilt.  Those will look so cute when the quilt is washed and they fray a bit.

 Can you just imagine a fantastic picnic spread on that someday...

 Love it!

More Mosaics

Well, International Friendship Quilters (IFQ) has closed it's doors.  (And has opened new ones in the form of a yahoo group.)  I'm sad to see it go but I understand that life does get in the way of things, even for those wonderful people who put together these fun quilter's meeting places.

These are the last few Mosaic blocks that I've been able to swap.

These are the ones I've send to others:

And these are the blocks I've received:

I just love all the great fabric combinations that these great ladies have put together to go with my center.

 Don't you agree!

 This last one is from Barb.  I was blown away by her generosity.  Since IFQ is done, she sent me some extra fabric that matches my theme so I can make a few more blocks to finish the quilt.  Can you believe it?   Great people like that make me happy.

Thanks again, Barb.

Happy Stitching!

A Gaggle of Goslings and other such PQA excitement...

Catch-up time.

Here's some of my summertime adventures with PQA.

(For more on what's going on and some of the other quilts, click the Parma Quilters Anonymous button on my sidebar.)

For May, I had Dawnel's cute baby boy quilt.  This is how I received it:

She painted the scene on the center block.  If you look close enough, you'll notice that the moon's hat is striped blue and white with black outlines.  I wanted to use that in the border I added.

 Here's a closer look.  All of the borders are fantastic.  I love it!

 I mitered those striped corners and they looked sharp!

 For June, since we are half way through the year, we decided to get our own back and add to it what we felt it might need to help it through the rest of the year.  I was excited about this because I had big plans for mine.

I cursed myself...

This is how I received it.

I did a 12" circle of flying geese for the center.

 I really wanted to use the circle of geese again somehow but I wasn't sure how.

I made miniatures!

I copied the pattern at 50% and made them into 6" squares...

Lots and Lots of  mini geese - goslings...

Dizzy Goslings!

 I won't go into detail about the hours spend and all the tiny pieces of fabric.... I was quite dizzy when I was through.

 And, here's how I added them to the quilt.  I wanted to elongate it some so it would be more usable for the kid's beds.

 I like it so much I'm giddy!

What Fun!

Come back later on and I'll show you the others I did this summer.

Red and White Table Runner

I needed a gift for a friend's daughter recently so I decided to make this table runner again. 

 I made it for myself some time ago and I love it. 

I was told red and white were her kitchen colors.

Here are all of the pieces cut out and scattered so I could sew them randomly.

 Don't you think it looks fantastic?!  I do!

 For the back, I used some red and white stripe and some scraps left from the front in a brick pattern.

A Great Summer Finish

I've got a great summer finish!!

I'm so excited to finally have this one done.

I started working on those stars about 10 years ago.  That was back when I first started quilting.

I guess this was one of my first big, solo projects.

 I just worked on it a little at a time... and 10 years later...

Taa Daa!  Here she is!!

I really like the black for the sashing and borders.  It gives it a bright, starry night look.

Maybe a little hint of Amish too... 

 The back is pretty basic.  I  just put three big black stars there.  They look pretty sweet though.

 It was quilted by a local long-arm quilter.  She did a great job.  I held the border up to the sun so you can see the star pattern around the edges.

 Look!  It glows!

 The first quilting technique I ever learned was paper piecing and it came pretty easily to me.  At that time, I didn't know how to make a square with any sort of design on it except by paper piecing so that's how I made each of these stars.

I designed the pattern and traced each one and then sewed them all.  They are 8 in. squares and there are 72 of those little gems.

Here are some of my favorites:

 It looks great on my bed, doesn't it!

(I built my bed too.)

Someday, I'll get some pillow covers made to go with it.  Any suggestions on pillow cover designs??

Anyway, I'm loving my new quilt. 

I give so many quilts away, it's nice to have something for me.