Greek Square Quilt

My very "quilt patient" husband asked me one day why I give all my quilts away and why we don't have one for our bed.  So, I took the pillow in our room that I like and started shopping for coordinating fabric. 

       
Here is most of the fabric that I found.  As usual . . . I LOVE THE COLORS !!!


I took a basic quilting class a few years ago, and my friend taught us those basic skills while making many different blocks.  I fell in love with the Greek Square and decided to make a sampler with just that square.

While putting the top together, I saw a quilt one day with a quilting pattern that fascinated me.  The quilt had been displayed in the store for many years.  The employees did a little research for me and found the pattern.  It's called Chantilly, by Black Forest Quilting.

This is a very large, heavy quilt. 1/2 way through the quilting, my machine started acting up, a problem I have with the tension from time to time while free-motion quilting, probably because there is a lot of pulling and tugging.   I've decided to work on something else until I can get my machine serviced.







UPDATE:
I have since decided to add another border to this quilt, to make it larger.  I've learned that it's not easy to add to a quilt once you have put it together.  It's back on the back burner.

Clowns Turning Twenty

I  love this Circus Clown fabric. I've made 2 quilts with it.

 The first is a baby quilt. I quilted around the figures to make them pop.



For the second quilt, I used a pattern called "Turning Twenty" from FriendFolks .  It sews together fast.  You take 20 fat quarters, stack them 5 or so deep, and cut as directed.

 Although I hardly use patterns anymore, she has some cute ones on her website.

I did some experimenting on this quilt. I stippled the middle of the quilt except for the circus clown fabric which I outlined.


My favorite binding.

Potomac River Quilt

When I was young, my parents took us for walks and picnics along the Potomac River just outside of Washington D.C. The colors of green were so lush, and the river was strong and bold.

I made this quilt from a pattern called "Presently Plaid" of A Quilter's Dream. It is a very easy quilt to put together. I started with 25 fat quarters of different green fabrics and 25 of blue fabrics. The fat quarters were cut into 2 1/2 inch strips. The strips were sewn into rows of 4 with either all one color, or alternating colors, in other words the blocks were either all blue, all green, or blue/green/blue/green.

Card Trick Quilt

This is the quilt that I'm entering in the 2010 Blogger's Quilt Festival  over at Amy's Creative Side.

It is my first pieced quilt, finished in 2008. I had a hard time knowing where to start as a new quilter. I checked out books at the local library, and finally fell in love with this pattern. My progress was slow since I was just learning the "ins" and "outs" of quilting, not the best pattern for beginners. When I started the sashing, I became frustrated when my blocks didn't match up and I put the whole mess away for a season.

I purchased very little fabric for this quilt. The border was from an old duvet off my bed, the sashing and back were from a sheet, and a lot of the squares are from the "unworn" part of the boy's boxers (such cute fabric, I can never throw them away!).

The hand quilting took me several years and was very therapeutic. Apparently, I needed a lot of therapy during those years. I'm definitely beyond that! Now, my mind is going so fast with quilting projects, that I can't keep up with my ideas, not to mention my fabric purchases.


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Heather Ross Munki Placemat


Potomac River Quilt

 
 Greek Square Quilt

Brick Wall Quilt

Keep your teen-ager's blue-jeans and collect some cute plaid flannel along the way.  The character of the quilt comes from the the different variations of blue on the worn jeans.  This college quilt went to a cold climate, so I backed it with flannel.


Determined the width of the rectangles by how many you can get out of a pair of jeans, front and back.  After cutting all your rectangles (incuding plaids),  choose the sequence in which they will follow each other.   Sew one long row following your chosen pattern with all the rectangles you have cut.

Choose a good width for your quilt, and cut strips from your long original strip.  I chose rectangles  because I didn't want to be sewing through 4 layers of jean fabric.

Before sandwiching together with "Quilt Basting Spray" (available at most Walmarts),  starch and pressed the flannel backing.  The starch keeps the flannel from changing shape as you work with it.    The seams were thick with the jean and flannel fabric, so I chose a larger tile quilting design.  I used the widest "Scotch-Blue Painter's Tape" (one of my favorite quilting tools) to help with the tile quilting design.  The binding is scrappy.

A quilt creator loves to see their quilts being used!!

Olivia Apron

I love this Olivia fabric. An apron was one way that I came up with to accent the panel.

I added a tight stipple around the figures, to make them pop.

The larger, stone quilting design on the red fabric separates it from the Olivia panel.  I made 2 of these for gifts in 2009.  This year I'll make one for myself with all the corrections.