It was a record 81 degrees in Jefferson yesterday, and yes, it’s still February! Amazing weather! Makes me anxious to get something planted in the garden.
What sort of quilty things have been going on around here? Well, there is an annual quilt show in Jefferson, and it happens in January. So over the Christmas holidays, I decided to make a miniature quilt to put in the show. Not a lot of time to make it in, because I had to send in a picture 2 weeks before the show! But I made the deadline, and here is the final product:

I ended up with a third place ribbon, so that was a nice bonus. The quilt show was very well organized, and there were lots of vendors with good stuff to buy! If you’d like to come to a quilt show and do some antique shopping as well, we’d love to have you next year–January 25-27. Here’s a link to pictures from this year’s show.

Check back for an update on my newest project–a geometric maze quilt!

I love the 5 x 7 folded cards from Shutterfly, and found a deal today!  I used the code “karma5″ to get 5 free cards, and paid about $1 per card for shipping.  Very much better than buying cards at the store.

Also, they had a $10 offer if I would share my card with you, so I thought I’d try that too!  So here goes:

5×7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

How’s it look?  These flowers are called celestials, and they are truly heavenly!

It’s a common scenario:   Wednesday night at church, you find out there is a baby shower on Saturday.  First you had heard about it!  You want to give a handmade gift, but time is short.  I put together this baby quilt pretty quickly over the course of two days, and  I thought I’d share the pattern with you.

Your quilt does not have to be so loud as my fabric choices, which were actually recycled lining from a garment and scraps from another.  You could just as easily choose a pastel solid and a coordinating print, and have a more traditional looking baby quilt.

What should you buy?

3/4 yard each of a flannel print and matching solid

1 yard for backing (this could be the same solid, or a different one.  The backing will become the binding, and show on the edge of the front.

WASH FABRIC  & DRY IN DRYER – this is very important, so that your quilt doesn’t shrink the first time they wash it (ask me how I know!)

Hopefully you have a rotary cutter, acrylic ruler, and a cutting mat–but if not, you could mark the strips with pencil and cut with scissors.

What do I cut?

Fold your dried fabric with selvedges together, and cut selvedges off.  Then cut strips width-wise that are 2 1/2 inches wide.  You should be able to get 9 strips each from the print and the solid.  Set the backing piece aside for now.

What do I sew?

Sew one print and one solid strip together, right sides together.  Repeat with the other strips.  Open the sewn strips and press the seam allowance with your fingers towards the darker fabric, then press gently with the iron, taking care not to distort the shape of the strips.

How do I make blocks?

Cut the strips into 4 1/2 inch blocks, always checking to make sure your cuts are square with the length of the strips.  If it becomes crooked, trim it to be square again before cutting the next block.  You should have 81 blocks, but you will only need 80.

How do I assemble the quilt?

Make two stacks of 20 blocks to look like the diagram, right sides up.  Pick up the right hand block, and lay it on top of the left hand block, wrong sides together.  Sew together.  Repeat with all the rest of the blocks in your stacks.

Sew your 2-block units together so that you have a row of 8 blocks.  Make 5 rows.  Make sure your blocks are following the pattern–the solid should look like the letter “L” lying on its back.

Now take the other 40 blocks, make 2 stacks of 20 as in this second diagram,

and  sew them together to make 5 other rows.

Lay your 10 rows out on a bed, alternating between first diagram and second diagram rows.  They should look like the photo above, with zig zags going diagonally across the quilt.

Press the rows so that the seam allowances of first diagram rows goes one direction, and second diagram rows going the other direction.  Then as you sew them together, they will nest next to each other and be less bulky.

How do I put the backing on?

Remove the selvedges from your backing fabric, then press well.  Lay it on a flat hard surface wrong side up, and center your pressed quilt on top.  Trim as needed so that you have  one inch of backing fabric beyond the edges of the quilt on all sides.  Fold the extra backing towards the quilt so that the raw edges touch, then fold again to cover the raw edge at least 1/4 inch.  Pin in place.  You should have a border of backing all around the quilt about 1/2 inch wide.   Stitch the border in place on all sides of the quilt.

How should I quilt it?

Two options here:  you could use embroidery floss to tie the quilt in the corners of the blocks (or every other block).  Or you can quilt it on your machine.  I chose to quilt down the middle of the white print sections of my quilt, making a large zigzag pattern on the back.  Before quilting or tieing, baste the two layers with safety pins 6 inches apart to prevent shifting of the layers.

I hope this pattern proves useful to you–and enables you to make a handmade gift in a hurry!

Scrappy Star Quilt – reminiscent of the “What do you have in your hand” philosophy

Farm animal quilt blocks–fabric purchased from England!

In my last post, I alluded to the fact that lots of changes have been going on around here–and that’s the truth.  After almost 21 years of living in the Fort Worth area, and my husband working with a congregation of the church there, we have pulled up roots and moved.

Where, you say?  Why, to Jefferson, Texas!  You mean you’ve never heard of Jefferson, Texas??  Me neither, until 6 months ago.  It is in far east Texas, almost to Louisiana, about 20 miles north of Interstate 20.  A lovely, historical, antique-y sort of place, with a really good barbeque joint.

So, here we are in a new (to us) house, in a new (to us) town, making new friends, and finding out just exactly where we fit in to this picture.  Given time, I’m sure it will feel more like comfortable old houseshoes than a brand new pair of boots.

However, this post is also about a quilt……a complicated quilt, that I’d been working at off and on for awhile……..a quilt for a lovely baby girl, who was born the night we left town.  Was her quilt done yet?  Noooo, it was packed away with all the other belongings.  I had given her lovely mother a sneak peek:

                                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and told her I would finish it as soon as things settled down.  Well, they eventually did settle down, and a deadline emerged due to an upcoming trip back to “Big Town”.  So I finished the quilt (finally!), and we were able to deliver it to the new family in person, which was infinitely more lovely than bringing it to the baby shower anyway.

I was honored to see that it was featured in this precious baby’s photo shoot.  I had given them instructions that it was to be used, not just packed away or used for a decoration, and I believe they’re doing just that!

P.S.  Yes, those ice cream cone shapes are the border of this quilt–definitely a challenge!

 

Lots of changes going on in our lives these days–but that’s a whole ‘nother post.  Here’s a simple “Magic Nine Patch” quilt I put together for the latest baby to come in our congregation.  His great-grandmothers already made him what I consider to be an heirloom quilt, so I felt like this one should just be an everyday quilt, something you can throw on the floor without guilt.

 

The backing is a cute little print that my sister bought at a garage sale, and I have yards and yards of it.  It features little boy and girl sailors, and the best part about it is–it’s reversible, so you don’t have to worry about getting it upside down!

I know after dark is not the time to be taking pictures, but I was experimenting with the camera, and this shot of the Valentine tree turned out pretty well!  These little felt hearts by Purl Bee were just what we needed to brighten up cold gray winter days.  (They are so small, you may have to click on the picture and enlarge it to see them better

I have toyed with the idea of making a small Christmas quilt to hang here for years…but they all seemed too Christmas-y–something you would feel compelled to take down as soon as Christmas was over.  This is my version of a quilt featured on the Purl Bee blog, and I like the way it makes you think of Christmas trees, but then is still quite appropriate as winter continues on.  It is a scrap quilt, so I just brought out all my dark green scraps.  I did, however, purchase two fat quarters to add to the scraps, one of which is a batik fabric I chose to represent blue spruce trees:

 

That fabric reminds me of the blue spruce trees in the Sangre de Cristo mountains in New Mexico, where we used to visit every year.  They were a very distinct shade of blue, different from all the other pine trees.

I think this quilt turned out well, and it will be gracing the walls at least through February.

 

It’s time to get going with the blog again, now that I have a little more free time on my hands!  And it was definitely time for a new header picture.  This one is my blue spiderweb quilt on the clothesline.  It looked so decorative hanging out there, I hated to bring it in.   When the leaves change in a few weeks, we may need a new header picture to suit the season.  In the current header, you can see my purple fall asters blooming off to the side.

We honored a teacher in our congregation who has been teaching for over 50 years by making her a quilt. We got the kids to draw the blocks, and I set them together. I found just the right fabric at Hobby Lobby that complemented the marker colors. She was so pleased! It will be a treasure for years to come.