Some Quilts

I began looking for photos of quilts I've made to show a friend, and discovered it's a rather daunting task looking through so many photos.  I didn't even find the ones I was looking for, so that will have to come later.  Some of these are ones made professionally, some for charity and one for a wedding gift for my niece.

This is the quilt Emerald and I made for our niece, Kaylia as a wedding present.

This is the front of a baby blanket made for someone through Frabric Nosherie.  She had the name embroidered on and we chose to tie the quilt to give a more tactile experience for the child.  The back of the quilt (shown below) was pieced to have the feel of a road that the boy could drive cars around on when he was older.

Next is a quilt made for Shannon to have on display in her shop, front and then back.  I must say that this quilt shows my anal tendencies.  To give it a random look, I was extremely careful to not have matching or even like fabrics touching, to spread the colors throughout the quilt, etc.  I laid it out and swapped things around for probably more than a good hour.  Once I had it how I thought was perfect, I took pictures of each square's layout so that I could get it back in the right place.  Then as I squared each square, I made sure that the diagonal lines were going to line up properly.  The ruffled binding was a pain in the ba-tootie.  With a double ruffle, the 4 layers of fabric was so thick that ruffling the regular way wouldn't work.  I had to hand baste it to gather the ruffles, then of course sewing it all closed by hand. Shannon did not have me quilt it, though I would have liked to and think I could have done it at least as well.

This is a beautiful quilt top I made for someone through Fabric Nosherie.  Little did I realize the amount of work that would go into this.  The pattern was for a baby quilt and I don't know who told the customer how much material to order, but they did NOT figure things out very well. They doubled the amount of fabric to make a quilt 3 times as big.  Let's think about this, if the baby quilt is 5 squares by 5 squares that equals 25 squares.  Now we want to make a quilt that is 8x9. That's 72 squares, so why would they tell her to get twice as much fabric.  But, I'm pretty thrifty.  I cut out the biggest 2 pieces, then out of the centers - the part that would be covered by the fabric above, I cut out the next two sizes.  It worked.  Beautiful quilt too, but not worth the amount I was paid for it.  My son came home one night from babysitting and I realized that he made more per hour sitting at someone's house while kids slept than I was getting per hour making this.  Live and learn.

Here's a close up on a bit of the rose quilt.

Aaaah, Memories . . . Here are two ways of preserving those memories in the form of a quilt.

A sweet lady who took my beginning class and then the Houndstooth quilt class at the store undertook a project to take her recently departed dad's button down shirts (the kind he always wore) and cut them into squares to make some memory quilts for her mom and sister by her dad's birthday.  About two weeks before his birthday, she felt overwhelmed and called me for help.  I was delighted to do it.  In fact, my sister Emerald helped so we could make 3 quilts (she needed a memory quilt of her dad, too, you know) within the time frame.  At each of the squares corners are buttons, painstakingly removed from her dad's shirt.  She let me embroider her dad's initial onto the quilt.  They were finished in time for her dad's birthday.

This was made for a woman this past Christmas for her daughter from all her special t-shirts from high school, in her school colors, of course.

The next are two quilts made as demos for classes I taught.  Mazed, pattern by Kristy Daum - though I made it a quarter of the size.  Instead of each square being 2" finished, they were 1" finished.  The next was Houndstooth, pattern by V and Co.

Mazed, made and quilted by me.

Houndstooth, made by me, but quilted by someone else.

 The next quilts are ones I made last summer for a charity event at church, where we made quilts for girls rescued from human trafficking.  They wanted the quilts to have either the "Log Cabin" or "Shoo Fly" designs somewhere in the quilt to symbolically represent safety - taken from the use of quilts in the underground railroad.  However, I was trying to use fabric squares that one of my sisters had given me when cleaning out her fabric stash - squares she had bought to make baby blankets for charity, but had come to the determination to clean some stuff out.  So, know that I was trying to use up these squares and somehow put in one of those quilt designs (usually in little squares around the outside or in the corners, though one is a log cabin made out of squares).  The last of the quilts is one made by that sames sister who gave me the fabric squares.  She made it, I quilted it.

Log Cabin

Hugs and Kisses with Shoo Fly in corners

Puzzle with mini Log Cabins in the border

Diagonals with Shoo Fly in corners

Quilt Wanda made with Scripture in center square - Isaiah 40:31 NLT

"But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength.  They will soar high on wings like eagles.  They will run and not grow weary.  They will walk and not faint."

Skirt, Shorts and Blouse for Trenna Travis

I know, I know, I didn't get these pictures up right away as I planned to, but the last two days I've been hand quilting on that quilt for Laura Gunn in hopes of getting it done right away for the quilt show it's going to.  But these are the clothes that we (my sister, Emerald and I) made from the new line of Michael Miller fabrics for Trenna's photo shoot in LA with a model that will make these look fabulous.

Michael Miller Sewing Room Photos by Trenna

Trenna Travis, a fabulous designer and friend, asks my sister, Emerald and me to make items for the photos she takes of Michael Miller Fabrics for their catalog. We whipped these accessories together - the ironing board cover, mug caddy, Square Deal Pin Cushions and Henrietta the Turtle Pin Cushion (both patterns by Heather Bailey).  I took some pictures before running them over to her house, but her lighting is way better than mine as you can see below.

Monday and Tuesday we get to make some clothes for another photo shoot in California on Wednesday.  Praying for good weather for you, Trenna. ;-)

Christmas Gifts

I'm a mean mom who, instead of having my kids buy each of their siblings (or even just one of their siblings) a present, require them to MAKE a present for the one sibling they give to.  I got this idea from a lady at church whose kids did this.  They could buy the materials, but the gift itself had to be made. We started this the next Christmas - in 2004 when there were only 3 kids old enough to participate.  Gifts vary, some are sewn, some made from wood, and one from PVC pipes.  One of the best things about this is the thrill that the children get in giving that gift to their sibling and watching them open it.  I'm glad we do this, although in reality it is a LOT of work for the adults helping them.

Anyway, these are the presents that I helped my kids sew for each other.  One child was too young to be in the rotation, two made boxes from wood for their older brothers to carry Magic the Gathering cards in, but the rest were sewn.  Here they are:

Panda Purse that Sterling made for Fiona.  As you can see from the assortment of some pandas around it, Fiona loves Pandas.  The purse pattern I made up, trying to duplicate a picture of a purse I saw on-line.  I see errors in it, but Fiona doesn't, and I guess that's what's important.

Duffle bag that Fiona made for Monica.  We made a pattern based on a bag Fiona got for Christmas one year from Santa. That bag fits perfectly under the seats of the 15-seater van.  You'd think that a van that big would have room for luggage, but it really doesn't, so a perfect fit is wonderful.

Monica made Karina a "Gum drop Pillow."  This one was easy - there was a pattern by Amy Butler.  We of course jazzed it up just a bit with an embroidered and appliqued "K" and "Karina," as well as a handle on the side for carrying around.

 

Donovan made Gideon a fleece/flannel blanket.  Gideon chose the fabrics, but I think that part of the reason he liked those particular jungle prints is that his baby blanket is an assortment of jungle prints.  It's amazing to me that sometimes out mistakes turn out to be wonderful additions.  I ordered the flannel fabrics probably 6 months before we designed the layout, and when we went to cut the fabric, there wasn't enough of the zebra stripes.  We were missing 2 squares.  One square (top left), I pieced together, but there wasn't even enough to piece another square, so we embroidered his initial and name on a red square and put it in the bottom corner, which Gideon loves.

The next two pictures are not ones my kids made, but the tool buckets that I made for Gideon and Porter who are both obsessed with tools.  Other presents they received were different "real" tools that were all wrapped individually to put in the tool buckets.  I found a "garden bucket" pattern somewhere that was made for a 5 gallon bucket.  I used that as a guide, but re-figured the dimensions for a 2 gallon bucket (which happen to cost more than a 5 gallon bucket - go figure!) which was a better size for two little helpers. 

Laura Gunn's Quilt Preview

I have had great dreams of getting a gazillion pictures up for you to see all the things I've made, or at least those that I've taken pictures of, and although my sweet hubby is very willing to show me how to resize a photo so that I can insert it, I have not yet coordinated my schedule for doing this with his.  To his credit, he has shown me several times before, but me remembering how to do something on a computer that I don't do frequently, well, it just hasn't moved into my long term memory, since up to this time it hasn't been important enough for me to retain.  I sat down just now and tried to do it without him and it worked!  ;-)

This is a quilt I am in the process of making for my friend Laura Gunn with her beautiful line of fabric "Painter's Canvas" as well as some from her new line that comes out next month, "Edges." I'm calling it "Grandma's Afghan" since it duplicates the colors and shapes, as well as we can with a different medium, an afghan her grandma made for her.  I will be finishing up, quilting and binding it in the next few weeks and hope to have it sent to her by the end of this month since she's planning on taking it to the quilt show on May 17th.

Private Lessons

With the closing of Fabric Nosherie, I have thought what might be best to help all those loyal customers, is for me to offer private sewing lessons.  To make it easier for you, I will come to your house to teach you, and if you do not own a sewing machine, I can bring one for you to use at the lesson, though the machine I normally use is much more basic than those that were at the shop, though I may buy a Baby Lock Grace since they are so easy to learn to sew on.  Private lessons will be $45/hour.  There will be a limit on how far I can travel - somewhere in the 30-45 minutes from downtown Webster Groves is what comes to my mind.  I still haven't figured out all the logistics, but will be happy to discuss questions you may have.

Let Me Tell You a Little About Myself

Hmmmm, what to say about myself. . . .I don’t know why it would be hard for me to come up with something, I love to talk.  Ask me a question and I’ll answer it. 

Let’s see, I was born and raised here in Webster. The house I live in is the same one I grew up in which my husband of 18 years and I bought from my parents after they lived there 37 years. I’m the 8th of 12 kids and the mother of 7, 3 girls and 4 boys.  Yes, they keep me on my toes and I have lots of stories to tell, but they are all smart, cute and wonderful in my humble, but correct opinion.  I enjoy scrapbooking, (even attempted to sell it for 9 years, though why it took me that long to realize I was not a salesman, I have no idea), dancing, drawing, painting, stamping, cross stitching, crocheting and have a list of other things I still want to learn, but I don’t seem to have the time to do much of any of those things right now for some reason.

My mother, a phenomenal seamstress, taught me to sew. I made several dresses under her tutelage.  If we didn’t have a pattern for a dress I designed, she showed me how to adjust a pattern we already had to make it. I got my first sewing machine for Christmas just before I turned 16 and when I was a senior I was making costumes for my dance company as a little business.  I took that sewing machine to college with me and made myself clothes. I made my wedding dress, shorts for my husband and me, matching dresses for my baby girl and me.  I couldn’t have lived without it.  Just before my oldest was born, and while I was working with the teenage girls in my church up in Michigan where we lived, those girls and the other leader made a baby blanket for my daughter which I got to help make.  It was a split rail design and I discovered a new love - piecing quilts.  Each of my seven kids has a pieced baby blanket and when they turn 8 (old enough to not drag it around the house), they get a large quilt that matches. I recently learned that I’m 6th generation professional seamstress on my maternal line.  Interesting, though that wasn’t what motivated me to pursue this interest.

I began teaching kids to sew in 2004 (besides teaching my own kids - which doesn’t count), just a class once a year.  Shannon, with Fabric Nosherie, asked me to start teaching kids classes at the shop when she was still preparing to open.  I gradually moved to teaching more and more classes and I LOVED it!!! I loved the teaching, I loved getting to know each of you (even if I can’t put names with faces), I love and miss the ambiance in the store, I miss hanging out with the people that work there, I loved everything about that place!  I considered it a real blessing to teach people this valuable skill.  My fabulous kids, my sister and my wonderful husband have made it possible to spend my time there.  I couldn’t have done it without them.

Hmmm, it wasn’t so hard for me to talk your ear off after all.