Matched Pair O' Christmas Quilts ... Enough Fabric for Two!

I've had this little stack o' Moda Christmas fabrics for a very long time.  Not quite long enough to qualify the fabrics as vintage, but quilters will recognize this very sweet line of Christmas fabrics that is resplendent with roses.

I had enough fabric for two lap size quilts.
So I made two.

And they are a very nice size
for table toppers.

My dining room table was my grandparents.
There has been 85 plus years of living
around this table.

The table top needs a good size topper
to cover all that living,
and it truthfully could really use a refinish,
but why erase all that history?

I played my first poker game around this table.
And Papou could always deal
the littlest kid a winning hand.

Both of the quilts have the same sweet
green fabric with sprays of red roses.

And a band of white with some
little leftover bits for interest.

Both of these quilts .... 

... are available in my Etsy Shop
https://www.etsy.com/listing/169461182/patchwork-christmas-lap-couch-quilt?ref=shop_home_active

and

https://www.etsy.com/listing/169461386/patchwork-christmas-lap-couch-quilt?ref=shop_home_active

1970's Calico Quilts

These quilts were made with fabric given to me by a very dear woman named Dorothea.  She was an accomplished hand quilter ... and made each of her 6 children exquisite quilts in the 70's and 80's. She pieced by hand.  And quilted by hand.

Checkerboard Lap Quilt

But her arthritis got so painful she could no longer quilt.

I dated her son Chris and she was just tickled that I was a quilter.  As none of her children or grandchildren quilted or sewed she gave me all her fabric.

That Christmas I made Dorothea a quilt ... a quilt for the Quilter.  I used at least one piece of every single fabric that she had given me.

There are hourglass blocks, because there are lots of hours in making a quilt.

There are appliqued hearts, because quilters love to quilt.

There are spool blocks, because lots of thread is used.

And there are a few random crazy patch blocks, because quilters have to have a little crazy streak to cut fabric into little pieces just to sew them back together again.

She loved the quilt.  And was very touched.  That made us all very happy.

Chris with the Quilters Quilt for his Mom

Just finished is this little baby quilt ... very country, and very scrappy.  It was made with little unused pieces that Dorothea had already cut ... I just had to cut a few more.

The blocks are sashed with unbleached muslin squares alternating with calico squares ... I don't know what the pattern would be called, but I really like how it turned out.

Scrappy Baby Quilt ...

... with a darling scrappy 'make do' back

 So that is how I came to have all these sweet little calico's from the 1970's.  I made these quilts for my Etsy shop ... I know someone will love the 1970's calico's and the Little House look of these quilts.

A Short Tale of Two Quilts

I only had one quilt in mind when I started cutting fabrics ... a contemporary lap quilt with Flying Geese blocks.  After cutting all the 7 1/2 in squares to make the geese, I had a lot more fabric cut than I needed for one quilt.  So voila and ooh-la-la ... a coordinating baby quilt.

Lap on the left, Baby on the right

And just as a side note (because I go off on tangents so easily) the French really do say ooh-la-la with cute little regional variations ... the Parisians say it more ho-la-la.  And the Italians really do say Mama Mia ... I've heard it with my own ears.  Ok, back to quilts ...

A simple white binding

4 different fabrics for the binding
so each corner
is a different color

As per my usual, the Flying Geese quilt was laid out in EQ7.  I played around with having the geese flying in all different directions but decided I liked them flying in formation.

Making Flying Geese blocks is painless and fun when you use the full square method which I first saw years ago when Simply Quilts was still on the air.

Here is a link to '...laugh yourself into Stitches' web site.  She has a great tutorial on the full square method for flying geese.  http://chezstitches.blogspot.com/2011/03/no-waste-flying-geese-tutorial_17.html  Also, checkout Stitches quilting ... some pretty amazing work.

  

Just cuz, I made Hourglass blocks with the remaining 7 1/2 inch squares. I ended up with 4 blocks with the white fabric and didn't like the white randomly placed ... so made a design feature out of them with a Square in a Square block in the middle.  I really like the effect.

' 1/4" mark ' has a great tutorial on easy sew hourglass blocks.  She marks her sewing surface like I do so she doesn't have to mark the center line on each piece she sews ... big time saver.  http://quarterinchmark.blogspot.com/2013/05/tutorial-hourglass-block-without-marking.html 

The back of the lap quilt.

There was one last Flying geese block left so it was incorporated into a strip on the back to give the reverse side something interesting ... and I love not so many scraps left at the end of a project.

Soft tonal fabrics with not much pattern ... love these colors together.

Available in my Etsy shop.

Don't know if anyone will be interested in companion
lap and baby quilts, but thought it might be a nice "Mother and Child" gift for a new mom

.https://www.etsy.com/listing/157783016/summer-sale-10-off-modern-baby-girl?ref=shop_home_active

https://www.etsy.com/listing/157783706/summer-sale-10-off-modern-lap-couch?ref=shop_home_active

Aqua Blue and Lime Green and Two Very Different Quilts

Aqua looks good with just about every color ... but my favorite is with lime green.  I've yet to meet something aqua that I was not immediately drawn to.  My heart's desire is a pair of aqua cowboy boots ... someday, sigh.

The circles quilt I made a couple years ago as a wall hanging in the laundry room to hide the electrical panel.  The walls are a soft soft lime color and the floor is black and white check so it looks really zippy. I'm going to try and make a Christmas wall hanging with lime green and red (same plan as I had last year ... one of these year's anyway).

The chevron zigzag quilt is a girls quilt I just finished for Etsy.  I made the chevrons using a square two-patch method because I wanted the lime green strip a wee bit smaller than the aqua strips ... you don't have the option to vary the widths with the half square or triangle method.

The squares are 6" and the circles are roughly 3" and
the circles are pieced with the freezer paper method.

Anyone who has done their own quilting is familiar with Leah Day's website The Free Motion Quilting Project.  http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/

I did the quilting in a 'stream of consciousness' way using several of Leah's patterns.  It was a blast to do!  With the heavy quilting it causes a trapunto effect on the front and I hand quilted around the circles to give them even better definition.

The batting is 100% polyester because I wanted to minimize the puckering since it's a wall hanging.  For the quilts I keep warm with I don't like heavy quilting because it makes the quilt too flat (learned the hard way) and I always strive for just the right amount of wonderful quilty puckering ... it's that quilty puckering that makes a quilt so comforting, and warm.

And back to the other aqua lime quilt ... the back is a wonderful Michael Miller gingham that I got years ago.  I have the same pattern it in pink too. They make a wonderful quilt backs.

The strip is made with the little leftover bits from the zigzags.  I really like pieced backs ... and I really like not having scraps left. There was next to nothing left on this quilt.

While we're on the subject of zigzag quilts, thought I would share my sad story of the blue and white batiks ... indigo bleed.  Augh! This quilt was originally intended to be an Etsy quilt, but that beautiful deep rich indigo batik bled into the white.

Chagrin for me ... but not for my brother and sister-in-law ... it's their new boat quilt.  It'll be a great quilt to have for sitting back deck when the evenings are cool.

I did use 3 color catchers in the wash which I think helped
minimize the bleed, but didn't stop it altogether.

Aqua quilt on my aqua screen door.

Here it is on Etsy ....

https://www.etsy.com/listing/156288053/girls-chevron-zigzag-quilt-baby-toddler?ref=shop_home_active

A Man's Quilt

Some fabrics just cry out "don't cut me".  I bought this fabric when I had the idea to do a landscape quilt because it has so many textures from nature ... leaves and grasses and rocks and mountain peaks.  I never made the landscape quilt.

The strong horizontal graphics on this fabric whispered in my ear
"don't cut me, I'll make a wonderful modern quilt".  I agreed.

This is the strip with the mountain peaks.  They remind
me of the Flatirons outside of Boulder Colorado.

A strip of circles seemed just the thing to add.
Each square is 8.5" finished with a roughly 7" circle.

The circles are pieced which is my favorite way to do a circle ... they go fairly fast and always perfect.

This quilt is for my Etsy shop and I made
it specifically for the man in someone's life.
It's strong and earthy and straight forward.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/152770901/modern-couch-lap-quilt-great-guy-quilt?ref=shop_home_active

And a PS to the girls, it's a pretty quilt,
it'll look nice in your living room :}

A Simple Little Nine Patch Quilt

You can never go wrong with a nine patch baby quilt, especially a nine patch set on point ... it makes a good case for less is more.  I find the simplicity very comforting.

When I was contemplating starting a blog, I read Pioneer Woman's tips for a successful blog.  The one that keeps sitting on my shoulder is "blog every day".  Every day?  Yikes. This is my 3rd post for the merry month of May.

So I've decided this is a blog-let as opposed to a blog.  With a blog-let you are free from the every day rule when, say, for instance ... you catch hEXiE MaNIa!!

I'll post about my hEXiE MaNIa!! the next few days.  And some of my other distractions that are keeping me at a 3 post per month average.

Matching Baby Quilt Gift Set ... and the last of my jungle print fabric

This is the last of my cutest ever! jungle print fabric ... which  I made into a set of three quilts ... a crib size toddler quilt,  a small newborn or car seat size quilt and a square 'on-the-go-mom' quilt for laying a wee one down wherever she might end up.

L - R:  Crib size, square mat and for the car seat

This is the kind of fabric you avoid cutting into small pieces ...
different sized squares for each quilt 

The large crib quilt has a modern back.
The small quilts have a simple white dotted swiss back.

There are Monkeys! and
a momma Hippo with a babe on her back

The center of the square quilt ...
Giraffes and a Dino with a cap

And a momma elephant with her
babe ... in a party hat!

The sewn on binding with a white piping strip ...I really like the finished tailored look.

For the quilty girls, I learned to do the flanged sewn binding with the fabulous tutorial by Thirteen in '13.
http://www.52quilts.com/2012/05/tuesday-tutorial-susies-magic-binding.html

I like a narrow binding so I cut my pieces a bit smaller ... 1.5 inches for the flange piece, and 1.25 inches for the yellow binding.

These quilts are for sale in my Etsy shop

https://www.etsy.com/listing/150578817/three-matching-jungle-print-baby-toddler?ref=shop_home_active

A Great Big Voluptuous Dresden Plate Quilt

I broke into my stash o' Kaffe Fassett fabrics for this quilt ... and oh my gosh, is it ever pretty.  I'm quite taken with it ... I love the citrus colors and the significantly over-sized Dresden plate.  Just makes me smile.

The Dresden plate measures 34" across.

The background is a solid white ... the 'stripey effect' is from the sun shining through and showing the back fabrics.

I added a Free Spirit fabric for the back with ...
AQUA! and FLOWERS!
and the combination just sent me over the moon

But what really made my heart sing was the quilting.

I took a lot of time to detail the Dresden plate... outlining the petals
and doing a free motion floral motif.

Oh my gosh again ... I just love it.

The Dresden plate really shows well on the back.

With my favorite little piece of yard art,
a garden fairy with a butterfly on his finger.

This quilt is available for purchase in my Etsy shop.https://www.etsy.com/listing/130911754/spring-summer-lap-quilt-throw-citrus?ref=shop_home_active

Country Quilt ... A quilt for The Simple Life

With each passing year, I am more and more drawn to simplifying my life ... I'm removing gotta do and gotta have from my vocabulary.  There are things that need to be done to have a somewhat ordered life, but very little anymore needs to be a gotta.  Life is good without lotsa gotta's.

I had a blast making this quilt ... there are no points that I gotta match.  And no pattern I gotta follow.  I didn't pay much mind to which fabric went next to another one.  And I just love the result.

The colors and fabric choices were drawn from the wonderful fabric that is on the back ... blues and browns and tans and peachy rose.  These are comfort colors, just like there is comfort food.
This quilt just makes me want to wrap up.

The backing fabric is a South Seas Import fabric that I call
Country Cupboards ... a print of a full up cupboard.

The fabric is split with a creamy panel down the middle.
I like the stripey effect

Close up of the shelves.
There are little hearts.
I pretty much love anything with a heart on it.

The free motion quilting ... an edge to edge overall
pattern of swirling swirly loopy flowers.
The batting is 100% cotton so there is nice quilty crinkle.

The binding is machine sewn down.
For years I poo-poo'ed machine sewn binding.
Another gotta I got rid of ... I quite like the machine binding.

This quilt is another quilt available on Etsy.
I made it with Mother's Day in mind ... it should be someone's mom's quilt.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/128265303/traditional-country-patchwork-lap-quilt?ref=shop_home_active