T-shirt Graduation Quilt for Parker

Many long years ago, Parker's mom asked me to make a memory quilt that I think is probably my favorite that I've ever made! At the beginning of his senior year, she asked me to make a t-shirt quilt for Parker for graduation. THANK YOU for giving me such a long time line! It makes it much easier and more doable for the quilter. Things happen as you are putting things together and the last thing we want to do is give you some shoddy workmanship that doesn't live up to our standards just because there was a time crunch.  Believe it or not, mistakes happen, but plenty of time helps make it so those unplanned design elements can turn into something even better. Yes, I did have at least one of those, but I doubt you would pinpoint what it is now. I don't know if I could beyond saying I know I had to do some rethinking on my background fabric and that I had itty bitty scraps of the background green left over.

Front

Back

Parker's school colors are green and gold, but he has played on several sports teams, so in using the colors from the shirts, I made the back scrappy as she wanted.

An all over large meander made it simple to hold everything together and avoid sewing through the decals as much as possible. Some of the printing was typical screen printing, whereas others were letters or numbers sewn on. To be able to feed things under the needle, I needed to be at the front of the machine to keep an eye on things. A pantograph from the back could have run into some difficulty there.

When it was all done, I added the quilt label and it was done in plenty of time before graduation.

Stack of 13 - Who says 13 is unlucky?

 After only about 6 weeks of it being up and running, I had a stack of 13 quilts ready for charity - to be donated to a women's shelter for domestic abuse. What a good feeling.

Still being new to the quilting world, I was surprised and very flattered that this picture was then made the group cover photo on one of my Facebook quilting groups for a while (the administrator likes to switch it up often showing off member's works). Since I will never be "rich and famous" as I had wished to be as a teenager, I'll take my little moments of fame where I can. ;-)

Shannon's Quilt Remake

When I was teaching sewing at Fabric Nosherie, Shannon, the owner, borrowed our hand quilting frame to allow customers the chance to put a few stitches in a quilt she had made once upon a time. As she was closing her shop, she said she was sick of looking at it and gave it to me. The quilt was an odd size - long and thin, and the quilting was not much and not well done, so I unpicked it and redid it.

The center portion in the center was the original part, consisting of the almost horizontal stripes, the squares with circles and one vertical stripe on one side and two vertical stripes on the other. My need for symmetry couldn't handle that. Digging through my stash I found some more fabric that went well with the colors and added another stripe on the one side and two stripes on the other. The fabric that was the back I cut and made the corner triangles, setting the original quilt at a jaunty angle.

I quilted on my longarm using a pantograph called "Spoke Greek Key" by Urban Elementz.

Here I was trying to show what a pantograph is. The pattern is printed on a long paper. While standing at the back of the machine, you move the machine, tracing the pattern with a laser light. As you move the machine from the back, how you move it is sewn onto the quilt from the front.

I must say that I really like the way this pattern works on this jaunty quilt. If the original quilt were straight up and down, the quilting lines would, I feel, conflict with the lines of the piecing. But because they are not vying for the same attention, they really look good together.

Disappearing 9-patch variation, in red/burgundy and green/forest, first one

I ran across a variation on a Disappearing 9-patch that intrigued me. After begin gifted a bunch of fabric from my friend, Rachael, I decided to make a nice twin sized quilt using this method. I would use really big blocks to make the 9-patch so I could make it more easily. I think they were about 15" squares to begin with. (The link is below. She came up with it, she gets the credit. And besides, her tutorial is easy to follow, no sense duplicating efforts.)

https://beyondsockmonkeys.wordpress.com/tutorials-2/accidental-quilt-block-tutorial/

I would use half the squares for the front and half for the back. Perfect. Unfortunately, what I didn't know is that, although there were 2 types of squares made from this method, there were actually 4 types - half of them were mirror images of the others. So I wouldn't get a twin out if it, but two lap/large baby blankets. Ugh! Not my plan, but, Oh well. It was going to be for charity anyway.

For the quilting, I used a pantograph, "Hall of Mirrors" by Urban Elementz. This quilt, though planned for charity, my mother-in-law asked to buy. The fabric on the back and in the small blocks on the front brought back sweet memories for her. I guess I used delay tactic so answering. I didn't know what to charge her. The fabric was given to me. When my husband asked if we could give it to her, how could I tell him no? Merry Christmas in July, Mom (or whatever month it was).

Pink Hearts Bargello Baby Quilt

 Fabric passed on to me by Wanda some years ago. The fabric for this was sewn together in strips and cut in odd sizes. I thought long and hard about how to use these. The idea most often in my mind was some kind of rail fence type thing, but it didn't come out evenly, using all the fabric, and being one who hates to waste anything, I wasn't loving it. Plus the fabrics were very busy. One day it hit me that a Bargello quilt might be just the thing.  It was. With all the hearts in the fabrics, it had to be a heart pantograph (Andi's Ribbon Heart by Urban Elementz). I love the effect!

Pink Baby Quilt for Charity

 Quilt 10. Baby quilt for charity. Fabric for the top donated by Jamie. Quilted using the Modern Twist by Urban Elementz pantograph pattern.

Scrappy Blue and Yellow Quilt

 

Quilt #9 found a home quickly for a mother/grandmother suffering from dementia. The fabric for the top was donated by Wanda, and the back was leftovers from the top, fabric donated by Trenna and from my own stash.

Green and Yellow Scrappy Quilt

Quilt #8. Pieced top and back from fabric donated by Wanda and Trenna. Binding has a faux piping or flange which I really like.  I was proud of my quilting on this. Rather than simply following the pantograph pattern (Dave's Puzzle Border by Urban Elementz), I shifted the way the rows lined up. I learned some things about lining things up and if I were to do it again, I have some ideas to improve, but that's the point, isn't it? To improve and learn something new?

 

Front

 

Back

Close up on the quilting and binding.

Yellow & Black Construction Quilt

Another charity quilt I made from donated fabric (thanks Jamie and Trenna). The whole time I made this quilt I thought about the little boys I babysat, Mark and James and how much they would love this.

 

The quilting is a pantograph called Kindle from Urban Elements.

I love the Charlie Brown back that matches the tracks fabric on the front.

A Dozen Bouquets Quilt

Here's the remake/update of the Flower Bouquets quilt I made in March 2020 that I promised to give you this week. I renamed it A Dozen Bouquets in November 2020 after the update.

The Story: A friend wanted this quilt for his mother, but needed it to be a California King size rather than a twin. Hmmm, an opportunity to learn a couple new things. OK. Let's do this!

I would have to unpick the binding and add 12" borders to all sides, plus add batting in the middle. After speed watching some YouTube videos and mulling it over for days, it came together in my mind.

One difficulty lay if matching fabric.  Anyone who has bought fabric for a project, then changed what they wanted to do with the fabric they bought has probably encountered having to match colors that are no longer available. I had a little fabric left from making the quilt plus the stuff I trimmed off from the back after quilting it the last time, the binding strips I could used (no longer enough to do the new binding), plus about a yard of coordinating fabric that I never used. I found 1/2 yard of dark green that went with it and then added white to fill in the rest.  I spent about 15 hours piecing and sewing those borders together and onto the quilt and adding more batting. Then it was ready to quilt.

Since this quilt was an opportunity to learn new things, I decided to try my hand at turning a quilt and matching a pantograph on the mitered corners. I then filled in the rest with echoes, lines and swirls. Threw on some white binding, a quilt label and it was done.

Note to self: It's is much easier to make a quilt in the correct order than change it after it's done. I'm glad to have tried and learned something new, but quite frankly, I don't think I want to make a habit of doing this kind of thing again.