Tag Archives: quilt

Quilt #69

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I finished this quilt. Did I tell you I keep a log of all the quilts I have ever made? My grandma told me to do that when I was in my early twenties, and at that point I had made few enough that I could remember them all and to whom they were given. For that reason, I know that this is the 69th quilt I have made. It is the first quilt I have tried to sell, though. I have another site called Honor Caregivers in which I share the stories of great people who take time out of their lives to care for other humans. The site that hosts it charges an annual fee to allow the site to be ad-free, so I have decided to consign this quilt in the hope that it will support my other passion project being ad free. When I told my mom about wanting to transition to ad-free, she sent me money to pay for the first year, so I’ve already had a lucky leg up there.

Hopefully this quilt will support my site next year. If not, I’ll just put it in Peach Days after Labor Day, and then give it to the next baby to show up in the family. Either way, win, win.

Happy (Belated) Graduation Baby Sister

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Abbie Graduation Quilt-1Many, many years ago, when I was eighteen years old, my mom was pregnant with my youngest sister.  She thought it would be a great idea for me to see the baby be born, since I was likely to eventually be a mother myself. My mom had had several good experiences with epidurals, and thought that watching a calm, pain free birth might help me not be afraid when it came time to have my own kids.

When the birth night came, my mother called me to the hospital. This was her eighth child, and the doctor had given her a treatment to get her labor going.  She progressed quickly, and when I got there my mom was ready for an epidural.

While they were inserting the epidural, my mom progressed extremely rapidly.  After the epidural was in, my mom began screaming in pain, and then began bearing down to push the baby out.  I would say this was about a half hour after I got to the hospital. My baby sister made an exciting entrance into the world before the epidural took effect.

I decided that if it hurt like that, I would NOT be having children.  Six years later, I did have my own daughter. Let me tell you, it took well over an hour. Over sixteen, in fact.  But I am getting away from the real point of this post, which is that another eighteen years later, my baby sister graduated from high school.  So I made her a quilt. This is a rainbow zig zag, because she has a colorful personality. I put a zebra print flannel on the back, and bound it in black.

Unlike my sister when she was born, this quilt was very late. Thankfully, she graciously accepted it anyway.

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Next Project – Great Grandma’s Double Wedding Ring Quilt

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Great Grandma Rooks Quilt insides-2

I don’t know the entire story of this quilt, and it fills me with questions. How old was my great grandma when she  made it? How long did it take her? Where did she get all of this wild fabric?  I feel like my grandma may have said the fabrics were her old shirts and dresses at one point. I called Grandma this week to ask her some details about the border, which was sewn on by machine. I thought she told me once that she sewed the border on, but I can’t remember now, and she can’t either.
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There are a few things I do know about this top.

1. It’s very colorful and mismatchy.

2. I like it a lot.

3. The pattern is called a double wedding ring.

4. Double wedding rings are very hard to sew.

5. It was pieced probably before I was born, and all by hand.

6. It sat in my Grandma’s closet for a long time.

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I think the quilt came to me with very interesting timing. It started like this. My sister in law loves quilting  and family history. A few years ago, she gave me a miniature double wedding ring template for my birthday. The template is acrylic, so I could cut the pieces with my rotary cutter. I thought that to start I would try making a 3 ring oversized hot pad for my mom for Christmas.

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By the time I was done mangling my three ring hot pad into existence, I realized that I don’t have the skill level to make a full wedding ring quilt—much less a miniature one! I decided that if I tried it again, it would be with a teacher and a class.

While I was still finishing my wrinkly piece of mischief, my mom and grandma were cleaning out a closet, and found this top and gave it to me. I decided that if our ancestors are watching over us, Great Grandma was watching over me, waiting for me to try a wedding ring quilt so I would not judge her craftsmanship.

It’s not perfect, but it is whole. I am so glad it came to me. It took me two years to get up the patience to think I could hand quilt it, but I have got it basted and ready now. I took these pictures to chronicle the hand work inside, because that is one treasures of this quilt that will be hidden once it is quilted.

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See You Soon

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Just a few weeks ago, one of my best friends dropped her oldest daughter off to college. I had decided to make a her a quilt, and it seemed like it would time right. I decided to call it “See You Soon,” because I was hoping to finish it before Peach Days. I don’t always name quilts, but when you enter the Guild show they give you a form to fill out, which includes the quilt’s name.  If you don’t name it, Lynette says she’ll name it for you!

With getting kids and myself back into school, and going on a ladies kayak trip, I ran out of time and finished it the day after Peach Days was over.

This quilt was a challenge because I wanted to do an unusual border. I saved some blocks to do that, but when I put the border on it looked absolutely horrible. I ended up cutting them off.  I took the center with me to JoAnn, and auditioned some fabrics with my daughter and my other friend. A random lady came by, too, and said she liked the same one everyone else had voted on.

I am really happy with it, and I hope it reminds her that we all look forward to when we’ll see her daughter again soon.

For my Sister

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This is a quilt I made for my sister in 2017. She was working on Nursing School, and it was really just time I made her a quilt. She has a bright, colorful, loving personality, so I wanted that to be reflected in this quilt.

An experienced quilter once told me at guild that she cuts her scraps into 2.5″ and 5″ squares to use in projects later. When she told me that, I started doing it, and ended up with many of the squares in this quilt coming straight out of my stash. I did buy a few half yards of solid color to help it tie together overall and have a bit of a theme.

This year, my sister graduated from nursing school, and recently passed her NCLEX. I could not be prouder of her, and I’m so glad I made this quilt for her to wrap her in my love while she finished her nursing school journey.