Quilts pictures for TFWY and his Better Half

This one is going to be "photo heavy". Sorry about that. But TFWY asked to see some pics of my quilts and I got a bit heavy-handed with the camera. This is now kind of a "quilt diary" of sorts. The captions are below the photos


This is the first quilt I made. I pieced it completely by hand. The small squares are about 3" on a side, so the large yellow bits are 9 x 9 inches. It's a fair large quilt, the major problem being the fabrics. The yellow is awesome, some of the softest 100% cotton I've ever purchased. The problem is the little squares are everything from wool, poly-blends and some 100% cotton. The fabrics pull on one another in the wash and some of the squares have torn and need to be replaced. It's awesome warm and soft, however. I did a terrible job on the binding, and some day hope to rectify that.



This is the 2nd one I ever did. Again a bit of a problem with fabrics, not as much, however. About the same size, the binding was done much better, although it was purchased binding, not made myself.


This one I made for my daughter when she was much smaller. The quilt fits nicely over a child in a single bed - it's not really the right size for a single, but it covers a child nicely, and it's easy for little hands to haul around in the house when things are chilly. This one has no binding, I machine quilted it, and had "turned" it by sewing the backing onto the front, then tucking it back around to the back. If you don't understand that, it's ok - I do not recommend this - but I was in a hurry

Here we have an example of an actually finished "UFO". This one sat in my cedar chest for about 10 years after I pieced the top. The top has the distinction of having no 2 squares alike, and all the inside fabrics on the squares have fruits or vegetables on them. I call it "Veggie 1". There is, in fact, a Veggie 2 - exactly the same. Unfortunately, Veggie 2 sustained some damage during a moving house, and so needs to be repaired before I can quilt it.

This is still a UFO - I haven't quilted it yet. It is the result of a "Friendship Square Swap" from the early days of my internet usage. 8 of us women each made 8 identical squares using the same pattern and the instructions to use "blue and white" fabrics, then mailed one of ours to each of the other 7 ladies on the list, keeping 1 for ourselves. As you can see, one of the ladies had a bit of a problem with following instructions. I made the center square just to fill out the rest of it.

Here it is, friends - The Monstrosity. This is the quilt that refuses to get finished. The pattern was from a "Mystery Quilt" set of patterns. You get instructions in small sections - this one had, I believe, 10 sets of instructions. First set tells you approximately what type of fabric to use, the next tells you how to cut out the fabric, etc. I love this quilt. I hope some day it will let me finish it so I can use it.

This is the one I consider so far to be my "masterpiece" - not because a Lone Star is all that hard to piece, but because this quilt was designed specifically for a friend in Texas - a musician with a penchant for oddity like wearing tye-dye sox and T's to gigs. You can't see it in the picture, but in the gold outter border, the shapes of his guitars are quilted (Gibson and Fender).

I hate quilting with a hoop. I HATE HATE HATE HATE quilting with a hoop. This is a baby quilt, that hoop is 20" diameter. The backing fabric is bright pictures of zoo animals and birds in the same bright rainbow colors as the pinwheels and compass on the front. Once I'd FINALLY finished it, it also had the bright orange for the binding. It looked way sweet, it was for a co-worker for her first grandchild.



Another quilt for a gift. The recipient, however, has gone missing. This quilt was a collaboration between myself and Lea - same as the Lone Star. I did the design, cutting and piecing, she did the hand-quilting. Below is a detail with better idea of the colors, since my camera sucks.

The fabrics used in this one (other than the black) all had something specific to do with the guy for whom it is meant. DAVID!!! CALL ME!!!!!!!!!!

This brings us to the end of the line - at least of those I have photos for here. There's one more finished top in the cedar chest, but I didn't dig it out. It's called "THE LOUD QUILT" for reasons quite obvious once seen. This one here is called "the fish quilt." If you look at the photo below, you'll see on the right side a paper-cut-out of a goldfish cracker that I had blown up off the internet to use as a quilting template. Below that is a detail of how the fish is quilted into the large-ish deep turquoise diamonds inside the white squares.

Well, Dan? That's all I've got. Hope it inspires as you required. *grin*

707 Days