Another memory quilt

Now that January is over and the rush at work is pretty much over I can get back to what I love....

quilting and sewing and being creative.

I went on my very first retreat and had an absolutely wonderful time, so wonderful I forgot to take pictures.  I did start and finish DH Christmas quilt, still not quilted, but a flimsy.

 

A friend at work lost his mother and father last year within 6 months.  I offered to make him a memory quilt when his mother passed away, but he never found the right time to ask his father for some of his mother's clothes.  Then when his father passed he wanted me to make one quilt from both of their clothes.

I had a hard time coming up with any ideas, the clothes he brought was... well not the best selection for a quilt. The other problem I had was there were 9 children, an uneven number.  I like for memory quilts to have a story, so I had to come up with something.  I didn't take any pictures before I loaded it on the frame, wish I had so I could see the whole quilt while quilting.  Live and learn.

Just a few pictures of the quilting so far..

 

 

I purchased a few

of Judi's templates,

http://greenfairyquilts.blogspot.com

and used one on this quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, better get back to work having fun and finish this one, I have several more to work on. 

 

Linking up with Sarah at http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

Christmas Quilts

Grab your favorite drink and maybe a leftover piece of Christmas pie and let me show you what I've been up to and why I've been so quiet.  I finished piecing the Texas Star quilt (sorry no picture yet), but decided after it was finished that my DH probably wouldn't like it.  Not the design, the colors, although it is a beautiful quilt.  I will quilt it and keep it for myself, and no I didn't plan it that way.

I did finish the quilt for my oldest son and for once he loved it.

The pattern is Bleachers, an Angela Walters design for Empty Bobbins.

This is the lap size.  My DH saw this and ask for one, which is very unusual.

I bought his fabric but was unable to make it because something else came up, more about that a little later.  So my DH received fabric in a box. LOL

My son holding his new couch quilt.

He has a red couch (yes, red leather couch)

so I thought black, grey and red would look great in his new apartment. 

One more because I just love it.

Secret, I bought Little Black Dress fabric to make me one.

Thanks Angela for a great design.

You might want to grab another drink, because this might be a long story

Now for that something else that came up...

 I received a email from a lady, around Thanksgiving, asking if I could make

10 quilts, yes 10 quilts, for her.  Her FIL passed away very suddenly this year and she wanted quilts made from his clothing for his children, wife, mother and sister.  She wanted them as Christmas presents.  Okay did your mouth drop like mine did.  My first reaction was...

WHAT??? You want them when??  I was trying so hard this year to do my shopping early so I wouldn't have so much stress.  Relax and enjoy family time.  But (there's alway a but) as I went to sleep that night I dreamed about those quilts (I say dream but I know it was message from someone above).  I emailed her back and told her I would attempt it but I didn't know how many I could finish but I would do my best.  I knew I had to use a pretty simple pattern, so I choose Amanda Jean's Fair and Square pattern. 

 I had 6 pieced, enough for the children, and I decided to quilt those before I pieced the others.  I had told her I would only be able to quilt them with pantos because of the time issue.  Well something happened when I went to sleep that night, yep you guessed it, I had another awaking and knew how they should be quilted.

Forgive me now because I think there are going to be a lot of pictures to follow.  I love how they turned out. 

    

This man was a husband, a son, a brother, a father and a grandfather.

I wanted these quilts to reflect that, since these were memory quilts made from his clothing.

 I quilted the words "son", "brother", "husband",

"father", "grandfather" in the borders. One has feathers, another I used pebbles and swirls, another had a motif.  The quilting on the bone fabric doesn't show up very well but it did look good.  I think the sun has forgotten to shine in Tennessee so no outside pictures.

I love how they all turned out.  The one I was working on was my favorite until I worked on the next one and then that one became my favorite.

Each one has his birth year and the year of his death.

I have so many more pictures, I'll show more in my next post. I had to make them in three different background colors.

Just one more of the whole quilt.

How did I do?  I was only able to finish 3, I was disappointed I didn't finish all of them, but I thought it was worth the extra quilting.  She was surprised and happy with them and understood why I couldn't finish all of them.  I will get back on them right after Christmas.

As one of my Christmas presents I get to go on a Retreat this weekend.  My very first and I am so excited.  It is actually a 4 day retreat but I have to work on Monday, so I will go for 2 days.

Thank you for visiting with me and I hope you enjoyed your drink and pie.

See you next year.

Linking up with Sarah at http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/

and AmandaJean at http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/

Thanks AmandaJean for a great pattern.







Made some progress on my Texas Star quilt this past weekend.

 

Just three more blocks and the pieced borders.

 

 

A friend ask me to make her granddaughter a tutu

 

and t-shirt for her birthday pictures.

 

Can you guess how old she will be?

 

 

I didn't get a picture of the tutu, maybe later.

 



 

PEEK

Just a peek of what I have been working on.

 

This is what is on the frame right now.

 

 

 

I have finished most of the background fill.

 

Now working on the sashing.

 

Loving how it is turning out.

 

I love it most of all because it will be MINE!

One of those "to me from me" presents.

 

This is up on the design board

 

 

I bought this kit in Paducah.

If I can get it finished it will be DH's

Christmas present.

The pattern is Texas Star by Whirligig Designs.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

 

 



Connecting Threads' give away

Connecting Threads, a super great online quilt store, is giving away a $50.00 gift card.

All you have to do is set up a wish list and e-mail it to Santa or since he is busy, maybe a good friend.

Share on your blog or Facebook. 

Here is the link if you are interested

 http://www.ConnectingThreads.com/cfCart/viewWishlist.cfm?wishlistid=E1D567FB-0831-2643-0A5E4B0645A1AA0F&media=WLBL. 

I put EQ7 on my wish list, it will probably still be there after Christmas,

but of course it is a "wish" list. 

Connecting Threads  has great shipping (no shipping cost if your order is $50.00 or more),

great customer service.  Check them out.

So glad it is Friday

I was never able to take more pictures of the wedding quilt.  Sandy's winds

would not calm down enough.  I can, however, share more of the blowing in the wind

pictures.  I love how this quilt turned out.  In my last post, I explained this quilt was a

wedding present for a couple that were married on the beach. 

A friend of mine asked me to make the married couple a quilt in earth tones.

I threw a little black in to the mix, just because I like black. 

 I found

some wonderful batiks, although it may be hard to see, some of the fabric have sea shells on them.

My friend, Ann at http://bunkhousequilts.blogspot.com/, had made a quilt from this pattern and I just loved it.  She had quilted shells, dolphins,etc in the light squares.  I asked if I could use hers for inspiration.

She was very sharing and answered questions along the way.

This was the best picture without the wind blowing the left side

around my quilt holder upper's legs.

Close up of the quilting.  I really enjoyed quilting this one.  Just had fun.

Had to include the couple's initial.

The pebbles got easier as I went along.

The couple loved it

and plan on using it as a wall hanging.

(Hope they have a large wall.)

Like so many, they don't want to

"mess it up".

I hope it will always remind them of their

wedding day on the beach.

Just one more, because

I love looking at it, love the colors, love the quilting, and love that they loved it.

Thank you, Ann, for sharing, inspiring

and helping. (Ann is in the middle or at least at the end of a cross country move.  I hope she is doing well and I can't wait to see her blogging again)

Linking up with Sarah

http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/ and

Amanda Jean http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/

Since I have no remodeling jobs this weekend, hoping to finish quilting the one on the frame.

And you know what, it is MINE, all mine.  Can't wait until it's off of the frame.  I thought I had a picture

on my phone and was going to give a sneek peek, but it must be on my camera at home.

Have a good weekend.  Hope everyone on the East Coast is fairing well.

I know cleaning up and rebuilting is a hard long drawn out process.

Been there, done that.

I am still having problems responding to comments,

I do read every one and appreciate them very much.

Thank you for visiting and take care.

Where did it go?

Wow! What happened to the month of October?

 I finished helping my oldest son remodel his house.

Then my parents started having more medical issues and Stevie has had some

medical issues and on and on and on.  The whole month gone.

I did find time here and there to work on a few quilts.

I made this commission quilt for a Tina, a lady I work with, as a

wedding present for her friend.

The wind was blowing so bad that it was impossible to get a good picture.

I'll try again when Sandy (hurricane) goes away and the wind dies down.

Tina wanted me to make the quilt in earth tone colors and she wanted it

to be beach related.  Her friends were getting married on the beach in Florida.

The first thing that came to mind was a quilt my blog friend, Ann at

http://bunkhousequilts.blogspot.com/ posted.

I e-mailed her  and ask for the pattern name and asked if she minded if I used her quilt

as inspiration, in other words make one very similar.  She used beautiful blues and greens, I used

earth tones.  I had so much fun with the quilting.  I outlined the design in the middle and then quilted the pebbles, all of the browns are quilted in swirls.  At first I thought, OMG what was I thinking this is going to take forever.  I might have this finished for their 10th anniversary.  I kept at it and the more I did the faster and better the pebbling got.

I love the way it turned out.

Funny story, I showed it to my DH and he said "Alright, finally one (quilt) for us"

I felt good he could actually tell there was a  "W" in the center square.

He was so disappointed the "W" was not for us.

Don't feel too sorry for him, he doesn't know it but Santa will be

delivering a quilt to him.  He has no clue the one on the design wall is for him.

Here is a little close up of the quilting

Promise to post more pictures.  Thanks to Ann for sharing her quilt and giving me the inspiration.

I hope everyone in Sandy's path is okay.  My sister was here last week helping me remodel (yes, another

remodel, I think I need to turn in my controller hat for a hard hat) our parents bathroom.  She was suppose to fly back to NY last Friday, but we ran into some problems ( rotted sub floor) so it took us longer than we expected.  We replaced the sub floor but that put we way behind.  She changed her flight to  yesterday so that I would not be left to finish up.  Then here comes Sandy.  Her flight into Baltimore was canceled on Sunday.  She worked it out to fly into Cleveland, OH and rented a car to drive to NY.

She made it fine, no major problems, although I think she probably looked silly in carpi's

and sandals in the snow and rain.