See You Soon

Posted on September 4, 2019 by Jenny

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

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Jenny

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.

R2D2 Quilt

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Jenny

This is my R2D2 8Bit Quilt. No, it is not worth $2. 8bit is an 80’s video game style which is now vintage or low resolution, depending on what camp you’re in. This quilt was inspired by an 8bit Star Wars quilt I saw on the internet several years ago. I can’t find the original link now, which makes me sad.

I made this for my true love. He and I are what you call “nerds in love,” and as you can see from the photos, our love tokens also attract our baby nerds.

Post Christmas Post

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Jenny

I always have blogger frustration in the fall as I finish projects that I have been excited about all year and cannot post about them because, “What if the recipient accidentally saw?!”

When I gave this quilt to my sister, she cried. I was very satisfied. She has often lamented that she wished someone would give her a nice quilt. I was inspired by this quilt:

By a Blogger Crafter from across the Sea (I assume). I loved her modern layout and color choices. I also needed something to distract me from the endless flying geese and squares of the quilt for my dad, so when I got sick of working on the repetitious one, I would make a star from my guild’s block of the month for the one for my sister.

When the time came to piece them all together, I took them to my local quilt shop to borrow their design wall. In the end, since they are not open during my late night quilting hours, I laid it out on my bed, and it ended up having wide borders with nothing on them. That didn’t bother me, though, because the borders hang on the side of the bed.

I found out that one of my guild friends rents time on her machine for less than the shop I used last time, so I quilted it on her long arm. She was a wonderful teacher, and I highly recommend Judith Davis, of Primrose Creations. She took this photo for me with her iPad.

And here you can see the result on my sister’s bed, because I ran out of time to have a proper shoot with it before I gave it to her. Those pesky busy holidays.

My next block of the month for this year is this America the Beautiful Quilt, by McCall’s. They did it as a series, and then in a magazine at the end of the year they included the entire pattern, which is a great deal for the cost of a magazine. I have started working on it, but I am pausing for a little while because I am in the middle of a forest of blocks I can’t see for the trees.

Quick Easy Project, Paired with a Long, Arduous, Hard Project

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Jenny

What is this, you might ask? Let’s zoom out about eight months:

Back in February I went to some political breakfast with my dad, where he saw a quilt very similar to this one. Tired of purchasing endless raffle tickets and never getting his own quilt, he asked me to make him one. So I did! I have made 37 quilts, and this is the first queen sized one I have made. I will admit, there were some boring parts, but I have a great sense of accomplishment now that it is done.

Instead of the traditional tag on the back, I tagged it along the bottom in free motion quilting. It says, “Over 750 pieces of love for my dad,” because he used to write me letters when I was far away, and instead of newsy gossip I wanted to hear, he would write, “I have this many cows, this many businesses, etc. blah blah blah.” So I wrote an approximation of how many pieces went into this top.

I rented a long-arm machine at Let’s Quilt, in St. George, and chose a stars and swirls pantograph. It was pretty challenging, so don’t look too closely for neat, precise stars.

Close-up, you can see how it is really just a bunch of flying geese sewn together and set en pointe.

After I finished, I wanted something quick and easy to throw together, so I made these hot pads. They are probably my favorite hot pads I have ever made. Thank you, bias binding!