More Baby Quilts

Last post about long-ago-completed quilts, and then I'll be posting about current projects. :) All of these were baby quilts that I made for different friends.

This one was made using panels that were intended for a "fabric book." I hand quilted it, around each of the letters and objects, and then a squiggly line around the border. I completed it in July 2007, just a couple of weeks after the baby girl was born. It's about 40" x 40".



Next up, quilts I made for another friend's twin boys. The boys were born in June 2007, and their quilts were completed in September 2007. Here's a picture of both quilts:



She wanted the two quilts to be similar, but different, so what we decided was to use the same pattern and the same fabrics, but to switch the positions of the blues and the yellows. You can see some of the fabrics better in this close-up, which also shows the hand quilting I did (outlines in each block and stars in the sashing & border). Oh, and she's a math teacher, which is why we went the sampler route - she wanted a variety of shapes for the twins to look at and learn from. :)



This next one, I seem to have forgotten to take a picture of once it was actually finished. Oops. I do have a picture of the top, though. This was for a baby girl born in June 2008; quilt finished in September 2008. (Yeah, I have a tendency to get things done late...but babies don't notice, right?) Finished size 44" x 56", and even though you can't see it, I machine quilted it in the same style as I did my sister's wedding quilt (the last one in this post).

A few more projects

Still recounting old projects, just to build up the content on my blog here. I should be finished posting these after this and one more post. :)

This next picture is just of a top, not a completed quilt, but I don't have any idea when I'll get around to quilting it. It was a BOM quilt that I did at my local quilt shop back in 2005-2006. I finished the top in October 2006. I learned a good bit while doing it, and it really helped me grow in my confidence in choosing colors and fabrics. One day I'll finish and enjoy the quilt!



The next one was for my friend A, and I didn't actually make the blocks. A's grandmother had made the blocks, using material from her own aprons and her daughters' dresses. She had never put the blocks together. A got the blocks from her mom and had me piece them together, add a border, and quilt it. It was a challenge for me, as it's a queen-sized quilt and I was doing it on my little machine, but I got that quilting done. :)



The last quilt for this post is one of my favorites. It was my wedding gift for my sister and her husband, who married in January 2007 (the quilt wasn't done until May 2007 though). My sister chose the pattern & fabrics, and the quilt is about 48" x 64".



Here's a close-up, so you can see the fabrics as well as the quilting, which I did by hand.



Coming tomorrow: some pictures of baby quilts, not including the one I just finished tonight. :)

Auctioned Projects

Up until last year, the school where I teach had always done a silent auction as a fundraiser (last year we switched to a different fundraiser instead). I donated at least one item most years, including two quilted items.

This one was for the 2005-2006 school year's auction. I think I finished it reeeally close to the day of the auction. I saw a quilt someone else had done in this pattern and thought it looked cool, so I figured out how to do it for myself. I wanted to make it, but I didn't have any desire to keep it - auction! :) I don't know if the block has an official name, but I call this a "half log cabin" quilt.



Although I know the family that got the quilt loved it, I discovered that the school's auction isn't really a place where a quilt will draw a bid anywhere near its actual worth. So the following year, I went with a smaller project. This is a simple tote bag that I designed; I used the school's colors in the ones I made for the auction (I actually made two of them, though I only took one picture...they looked alike!).



I've made several other totes using different blocks. They work up pretty quickly, and I've given a few as gifts. The one below is my own, and it's the bag I use to take my Bible and notebook and anything else I need to church each week.



More to come! :)

Baby Quilts

It's fun to go through pictures of my old projects! :)

The next quilt I finished was another baby quilt, this one a nine-patch for my friend K's son. They decorated his room with a baseball theme, and K chose the fabrics and pattern she wanted for the quilt.



For the quilting on this one, I did an X in each nine-patch block and a baseball in each solid block. You may need to click on the image below to see it bigger.



I finished that quilt in March 2006. It was machine pieced and hand quilted, and the blocks are 6" squares.

My friend K has since given birth to a second son, and his quilt is in progress. (He's 9 months old now...I got behind on my quilting because I just didn't feel like doing any of it while I was pregnant myself. Since my daughter was born in January, I've been quilting like crazy.) K again chose the fabrics, and we went with the same nine-patch pattern. This time I'm quilting sailboats instead of baseballs, though. Here's the completed top; I'm about 1/3 of the way through the quilting on this one.

Two More Early Quilts

The second and third quilts I finished are below. They were both completed in December 2005.

This rail fence quilt was made for my cousin and his wife when they were expecting their daughter, who's now three years old. It's made of 6" blocks, machine pieced and hand quilted.



Here's a close-up of the quilting on that one - I used a variegated thread and loved how it turned out. You can also see the fun fabrics more clearly here.



The next one I finished was the first one I made for myself. Actually, come to think of it, it's the ONLY one I've finished for myself so far! :) Quilts for me keep getting bumped back by quilts for other people. But that's okay.

Anyway, this one is a log cabin, and I called it a "learning quilt." For one thing, I forgot about strip piecing and cut every. single. piece before I remembered that I could've sewn long strips to simplify the cutting. For another, my seams are vastly different in size, so that the first blocks I made are significantly smaller than the last ones. Finally, before I quilted this one I took a one-night class on machine quilting, and this was the first quilt I did by machine. It's not perfect, but it's held together so far and works great as a lap quilt. The blocks are 8" squares, and the sashing is...I think 2" wide, but I don't recall for sure and am too lazy to measure before I post.





More to come! :)

National Quilting Day

I've decided to celebrate National Quilting Day by starting a quilt blog. :) Posts over the next several days will be about quilts I've made in the past, and I'll work up to what I'm working on currently.

A little about me and my quilting history to start off with, though: I'm Amanda, a 28-year-old teacher in a small Christian school, a new mom, and (what you care about if you're reading this) a quilter since 2003. I took a beginning patchwork class at my local quilt shop (The Quilting Patch) in the spring of 2003. I didn't finish that first quilt until two years later, but since then I haven't really stopped quilting. Here's a picture of my first quilt, completed in June 2005. It was machine pieced, hand appliqued, and hand quilted.