John Deere Baby Quilt

This quilt was not commissioned by anyone. It was a case of love at first site in the fabric store. The front is regular cotton and the back is a snuggly flannel. I love the cute little cows, horses, sheep and tractors. I have two little boys who love everything John Deere, so my eye is automatically drawn to the fabrics that John Deere produces. They really have quite a big selection of a lot of fun things for babies and children.



I had noticed in my browsing a red barn-wood print that ended up going perfectly with this quilt as a binding.


I have recently changed my method of binding as well. I still machine attach one side and then blind stitch the other, but after a little research and noticing that the aging binding on the quilts of my older children was beginning to wear out, I decided that from now on I'm going to use bias binding whenever possible. I found a great tutorial here and have been using the instructions to make the continuous-cut bias tape for all of my past several quilts.

This quilt is currently at Lucky's Grill, waiting for an owner. The price for this snuggly little guy is $50.

T-Shirt Quilt

A friend asked me if I could put together some old t-shirts of her dad's into a quilt. Most of the pieces were already cut from the shirt. There were a few that came from jerseys, duffel bags and hats. Her dad used to coach high school football and now works as a scout for college football.




I fused each piece to Wonder Under (I love that stuff!) and then squared up the edges of each one. I left a one to two inch border all the way around most of the shirt fronts . Then I fused the pieces onto an 18 inch square of quilter's cotton and satin stitched the edges.

When I started this project, I thought that I would end up with a throw-sized quilt. It ended up being 93"x103" which is King sized!

I didn't quilt this project. I have mostly used my machine to quilt baby quilts and the occasional twin sized quilts and I have found that the bigger the quilt is, the more of a headache it is to quilt it on my machine. My friend will take it to a long arm quilter to have it finished.

I have found a local quilt shop that offers lessons on their long arm machines and then allows you to rent them in four or five hour blocks. I may look into doing that sometime next year.

Blue and Brown Cuddle Quilt

This quilt is made from super soft and warm Cuddle fabric. The customer bought a kit from a craft store and then asked me to put it together for her. I used a high loft batting and both the front and the back of the quilt are made with Cuddle. It was a chance to try out basting spray again, and I don't know how you would sew Cuddle fabric without the spray! It's so slick! This was a sew and flip project, or I've also seen them called quilt-as-you-go.


The end result is an extremely soft blankie that none of my kids could resist stroking whenever they passed my sewing desk. I'm eager to try more projects with Cuddle fabric and I have a few ideas of things that I will do differently next time.

Monster Quilt is Finally Done!

This quilt started out as an experiment with applique. I have wanted to try it for a while but have been too intimidated. I got the idea for a monster quilt from Little Birdie Secrets. Their monsters inspired some of mine and the remainder I made up. Each piece is hand drawn, cut out and fused, then machine stitched. There was a ton of time involved in the making of this quilt but it was a lot of fun and I love the end results!








I also used this quilt as an opportunity to try out a few other firsts, namely basting spray and stipple quilting. The basting spray was nice and I think I'll be using it again in the future. The stipple quilting took a while to get used to. I had trouble getting the tension right and there were issues with the top looking great but the back being too tight. Also, I learned the value of good quality thread. I thought that I was using good stuff but after it broke innumerable times and I finally switched to a different brand, I was much more pleased with the results.

All in all, it was a great learning experience and I'm very proud of the end results! I think that for a quilt that started out as just an experiment it turned out very well. If I was asked to make one of these for someone, I'm not sure what I would charge because I worked on this quilt off and on for over six months and didn't pay attention to the total amount of hours put in, but I'm sure there were a lot of them! If you're interested, let me know and we'll work something out.

Red, White and Black Quilt

This is a "cheater quilt" that I finished a few months ago. For those of you who don't know what a cheater quilt is, it is a quilt that looks like it is pieced but the pattern is actually printed onto the fabric. Some cheater quilts look really, well, lame, but this was a cute pattern and I think it turned out fine.


It also has the distinction of being the first of my creations to end up with an overseas customer, so yay for that!

Cowboy Quilt

This was commissioned by a grandma for her grandson. Both the front and the back are flannel so it's super comfy! I threw in a couple of Tee Pees that I made from the scrap. It's so gratifying to see when people are pleased with my work.

Sports Quilt

This is a quilt that my sister's friend commissioned for a boy in her family. She wanted a sports quilt with absolutely NO soccer. My only instructions were that the quilt should be in tones of blue, brown and green and include baseball, football and basketball themes.




I thought that it would be interesting to turn the blocks on point. It was my first quilt done on point and though it was a lot harder than I thought it would be, I am pleased with the outcome.

Yellow and Green Bees and Dots

Superheroes

I made this twin size quilt for my oldest son a few years ago. It is foundation pieced on a big piece of muslin and then machine quilted in the ditch.


The dimensions of this quilt are 69" x 83".

Bees and Dots

This quilt was made for the daughter of a good friend and yes, I was pregnant when I made it. The purple fabric has brightly colored polka dots and the blue fabric has cute bees and flowers. The back of this quilt is a marbled medium purple and the dimensions are 39"x50".




I currently have two similar quilts in the works; one has a bright yellow instead of pink and the other uses the green fabric instead of pink. Both use the same green, blue and purple nine patch and have the marbled purple flannel on the back. I will post pictures of these quilts as they become available.

Blue and Yellow

I made this quilt while I was pregnant with my son Jack (surprise, surprise). I got the idea from seeing the two fabrics next to each other on the shelf at the store. I thought they looked great and deserved to be showed off!

The back of this quilt is a marbled yellow flannel, the same shade as the yellow on the front.



The dimensions of this quilt are approximately 46"x62" and it is available for purchase for $55. It is currently available for your viewing pleasure at Lucky's Grill. Did I mention that the burgers there are great?

Stripes

I made this quilt for my son Adam while I was pregnant with him. (Hmmm. I'm beginning to see a pattern.) I also made nearly identical quilts for two of my girlfriends' babies.


The dimensions of this quilt are 32"x48", which make it a little small for a baby quilt but length and width could be easily added. I used a primary-color-polka-dot flannel for the back of this one.

Jack's Trucks

I got the idea for this quilt while I was pregnant with my son Jack. My youngest son (at that time) was fascinated by all things with wheels. I wanted to try out paper piecing and just happened to have a paper piecing book with these patterns in it. I should have made the quilt for the son who loves trucks, but he already had lots of quilts and a pregnant mommy needs to make something for the baby in her tummy, right?



I originally planned to use big buttons as the wheels for these trucks, (very securely fastened buttons) but in the end decided to paint them on. I think that the painted wheels turned out nicely.

The "Jack's Trucks" inscription was hand embroidered, but now I have a fancy machine that will do that for me.




This quilt measures 39"x47". I would be willing to make another, but because of the time needed to piece each individual block, I would need to charge $150-$200 to make it worth my time.