Category Archives: Quilts

A Bookcase Quilt for Jade

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Dear Vi,

I wanted to show you the quilt that I made for the daughter of a very dear friend two years ago. I’d made Jade a baby quilt when she was small, but she was turning 12 in 2018. Not a little girl anymore. It was time to make her a quilt that would carry her through her teens.

I don’t know what took me so long to post these photographs. This quilt is two years old, now!

Jade loves to read, if you haven’t guessed already.

I had so much fun choosing all the fabrics for the book spines and making things to put on the shelves! Everywhere I went, I had my eye out for just the right scrap or piece of trim.

There are a lot of things to look at in this quilt.

As I created each shelf, I imagined Jade laying on her bed with a book, or examining the quilt and discovering all the treasures I’d sewn into it.

I even tried some techniques I’d never done before. Broderie Perce, anyone? Broderie perce is a technique where each flower is cut out separately, laid out as you please, then sewn together to create a picture. In this case, a bowl of roses.

I put the bowl of roses on the shelf for a very specific reason. When I first told Jade I was making her a new quilt, she asked me for a “roses” quilt. Which she obviously didn’t get. This little bowl is a nod to that request.

The conditions weren’t the best the day we set out to photograph it. The light was all wrong, it was windy, the browns of early spring hadn’t yet given way to the colours of summer…

We did the best we could.

Someday I’m going to make one for myself!

Until next time…all my love.

Two Quilts for Two Sisters: warming the heart with hearts and chains

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Dear Vi,

Last spring I made two quilts that I haven’t shown you yet, and since it’s getting close to the end of the year, and considering these are the only quilts I finished in 2017, I thought maybe I should get their pictures posted!.

The quilts were made for two adult sisters in my family.

I wanted the two quilts to share common elements while also speaking to the personal tastes of each sister, so I chose a versatile pattern: the Irish Chain with hearts.

The first quilt is made with sweet floral fabrics for a soft, comfortable, old-fashioned feeling.

It is the most basic of the Irish Chain versions: a simple 9-patch alternating with a plain square. Except instead of a plain square, I pieced a heart using the same fabric I’d sewn the 9-patches with.The quilt is finished with a mix of machine and hand quilting.

The center of the hearts are hand quilted, as is the looped row of hearts running along the bottom edge of the quilt.

The 9-patches are done in straight-line quilting, and I practiced my free-motion quilting by making loops and hearts in the borders. I’ve only tried free-motion quilting a couple of times and I really enjoyed it. The stitching isn’t perfect, but neither am I, lol!

The second quilt is a Double Irish Chain in a soft grey neutral palate.

I tried to enlarge this so you can see the print. It’s very sweet, and reminds me of France, for some reason. Perfect, because its new owner is bilingual!

I hand quilted hearts into the plain squares. The chains were done with my walking foot.

The soft, neutral tones in this quilt were a challenge to photograph. I apologize for the poor lighting.

It was a pleasure to make both quilts, and I know they are being enjoyed.

Now I think you’re all caught up, as far as finished quilts go, anyway!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours from me and mine. May you always have a warm quilt to warm you, body and soul. ♥

 

 

Hands2Help, Vogue 9057, row quilts, novels and knitting

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Dear Vi,

Put your hands together and wish a happy 7th anniversary to the Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge!

Sarah has graciously reminded us that this weekend is the first linky party to show our progress on our quilts.

Yes, I’m one of “those people” who wear socks with their Birkenstock sandals. I wish I could say I’m sorry, but I’m not. I choose function over fashion just about every time, much to the dismay of certain fashion-oriented members of my family whose names I will not mention, lol!

I’ve gone through my box of orphan blocks and picked out 12 that go together fairly nicely. Add some sashing and a nice, wide border and soon it’ll be a lap-sized quilt perfect for donating to the chemotherapy ward at our local hospital. Since chemo makes the patient so ill – and so cold – it will be very welcome, I’m sure.

And remember in this post where I said I was going to sew a top?  Well, I did, and here it is:

Vogue 9057

It actually turned out pretty nice, and I’ve even worn it out in public a couple of times. It does have a few issues, though…mainly that the neck is too wide. I need to put in some back shoulder darts to keep it from sliding down and showing off my bra straps.

The next time I make this pattern, I’ll cut the neck & shoulders a size smaller, then grade out for the body. You can always cut the neck bigger, but you can’t cut it smaller, so there you go.

Oh, and you’ll notice that I haven’t hemmed it. That’s because I can’t figure out how to hem the points. Ha!

What else…

The quilt guild I belong to is doing a row-by-row round robin, and I’ve really been enjoying it. Each person has chosen a theme for their row quilt, and each month we pass along our work to the next person on the list, and then make a row according to the “owner” specifications.  This is the row I made this month for Beth. I think it’s my favourite so far. Sam certainly likes it!And are you wondering where I’m at with the novel?  (insert big heaving sigh here)I’ve been working on my query pitch. OMG who’d have thought writing a query pitch would be harder than writing the entire novel?  Eee gads.

So while I’m pondering how to entice a literary agent in under 200 words, I’ve been knitting. What else would I be doing? Don’t I always knit when I hit the writing doldrums?

This is a sock knit in the most lovely yarn called Regia, which is made in Italy for the German Schachenmayer yarn company. This particular skein is from their special edition Kaffe Fassett design line. Doesn’t it just scream “spring?”

What a mishmash of a letter today. But it pretty much sums up how my life has been going this last month.

And to top it all off, I complete forgot the A-Z in April challenge!

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you’re doing better with the mental organization than I am these days, lol!