Snuggling

Here is another picture from our trip to PA: Lorrie, Zoie, Barb (Bobbi) and Maiah snuggling on the couch with Zoie's quilt and Evan's quilt. I'm so glad that the kids are enjoying their quilts!

Zoie's Quilt

When we were visiting Patrick's family last week, we took some pictures of Zoie's quilt. I made this quilt for my niece Zoie, based on colors in her nursery and a ladybug theme. It was finished in 2004.

Zoie's quilt is a patchwork of various-sized blocks in lavender, green and yellow with ladybugs and butterflies and an eyelet ruffle edge. I tied this quilt since the bugs would have interrupted the quilting too much.

Zoie and I with her quilt.

Evolution (2)

After three weeks of working on Caleb's quilt, the patchwork top is in two large peices, and I am ready to start assembling and quilting.
I spray-baste each top piece to the batting and backing fabric. (I love the spray stuff! I've never felt good about doing all the work of sewing it once just so you can sew it again and rip all the first stuff out. Yuk!)
Now that I have all three pieces of the quilt sandwich together, I can start quilting.

Evolution of a quilt ...

As I start a new quilt (for my Erin's newborn son, Caleb), I'm attempting to document the story of how that quilt was created. I started thinking about this quilt in October when we found out that Erin was having a boy (scrap the purple quilt I was thinking about and start over!). Erin picked out a theme for Caleb's room, and I started looking for fabric and thinking about a design. (This part took a while because I was also working on Evan's and Piper's quilts.)

After the thinking, and the fabric shopping (which really can go on forever, even if I'm not in the middle of three other things ...) and washing all the fabric, I decide on a pattern and do the math to figure the number and size of the blocks. In this case, I decided to do a patchwork of 2 1/2" squares, with a single, wide border. (For a crib-size quilt, that's 300+ squares.)

After checking the math, I start measuring and cutting.

Then I lay it all out and rearrange until I'm happy enough ...
and then the sewing starts. All these steps in reality are mixed up - going back and forth as necessary. Sewing is actually a process of pinning, sewing, ironing and then doing it all again. My iron is downstairs and my sewing machine is upstairs, so it's a good workout! There is a lot of sewing - smaller seams to start, and then longer seams as the block groups get bigger.

Evan's Quilt

Evan's quilt is all done and off in the mail! I made this quilt for my nephew Evan. It is a crib-sized patchwork of 3" blocks in green, yellow and blue. I mixed ginghams, plaids and stripes with a star print and solid white. The quilting is a diamond design in the center and rows of diamonds around the borders. The back is the blue star print. This quilt did not have a specific theme - just fun for a special little boy.

Finishing

Finally! I'm adding the binding to Evan's quilt - the last step, and then I'll be done. I'm so excited to be finished, and to give baby Evan his quilt (while he's still a baby). This project has been a really interesting learning experience because I learned a new way to assemble the quilt. Since it was a new thing, and since the guidelines I followed were designed for larger quilts, it took a little longer to put this quilt together. I was hoping it was going to make it faster! But I'm glad that I did it - in the future I'll just have to modify the technique a little to better fit my quilts. Hooray for finishing!

Corbin's Quilt

Here is Corbin (6 weeks?) with his quilt, which was completed in February, 2005. It is a random patchwork of 6" blocks, designed to go with his nursery theme (All-Star/sports).

Lily's Quilt

Lily's quilt is my version of the traditional Trip Around the World pattern. It was designed to complement the nursery decor that Lily inherited from big brother Noah (see Noah's Quilt, below), but emphasizing the more feminine colors in the set. I even used a couple of the same fabrics from Noah's quilt. I had so much fun picking fabrics for this quilt that I couldn't bear to repeat any of them - I had to have room for as many as possible! I finished Lily's quilt in the spring of 2005.

I got to visit Noah and Lily in December, and see their quilts again. The quilts are now 5 and 2 years old, and I think they look even better now that they've been loved for a while.

Noah's Quilt

Noah's quilt was the first baby quilt that I finished (early spring 2002). It was quite an adventure! I've never used a pattern for my quilts (not that I'm opposed to patterns), and on Noah's I didn't have much expierence either. I designed it based on the colors and theme (Noah's Ark) of Noah's nursery. This quilt was so much fun to make, and it is extra special to me because I made it for a very special boy!

Patrick's Quilt

This is Patrick's quilt, finished spring of 2002. (One of the first quilts I finished.) It is an extra-long full size and it is pieced on both sides (learned my lesson on that one!). The top is denim and the back is flannel. Both the jeans and the flannel are mostly pieces that used to belong to me or people we love, which makes for fun stories.

Coming soon ...

I am currently finishing another baby quilt; this one for my nephew Evan. He is now four months old, and he'll probably have his driver's licence before I finish! I'm sorry Evan. I wasn't sure if I would be able to continue to make quilts after Elijah was born - taking care of a baby is a full time job! But I am glad that I convinced myself that I could do this one, even if it has taken a long, long time. PT and I are going to work really hard on my sewing space this weekend to make it useable. Since Elijah is mobile now, using the living room floor for my quilting projects just isn't working - leaving pins lying around is bad news! So I am hoping that next week I'll be sewing up a storm (safely, upstairs) and Evan's quilt will finally get to him. Of course, then I'll be starting on the next two ...

Piper's Quilt

Piper's quilt was finished in December, 2006, for my beautiful niece, Piper Louise. Piper's mom picked colors and other bedding for her nursery and I designed the quilt to match. Aren't the colors great? (I wish they showed up better in these pictures!) I love them - Lin, you did a wonderful job on Piper's room. It is beautiful.

My mom often helps a lot, but this one was truly a team project. Mom did all the hand sewing and embellishment in addition to helping with all the construction and quilting. Thanks Mom! I think it is wonderful that Elijah and Piper have special blankets that Nana made.

Piper's quilt is made of 8" blocks, embellished with hand stiching and ribbon, with a 2" binding. If you'd like to see a cute pic of Piper with her quilt, check out her blog.

Elijah's Quilt

Here is Elijah (almost 3 months old) with his cowboy quilt. Thanks to my mom, who did the patchwork with me, and Fran H. who did the quilting and binding as a baby shower gift. I love how the colors turned out, and the small inner border of red bandana print. Fun!

Elijah's quilt is a random patchwork of 5" blocks. The back is a cowboy print with complementary borders. This quilt was finished in June, 2006.

Check out more picture of Elijah with his quilt on his blog: with Erin's sweater, and finally sleeping with the quilt.

Welcome!

Hi! I've started this page to post pictures of my quilts and maybe even some thoughts as I make them, for those of you who are interested. I'll be updating this page less frequently - the quilts just aren't as cute and fun as Elijah! I will try to find and scan pictures of the quilts that came before the digital camera, but it may take a while. Enjoy, and I'd love to see your comments!