Grandmother's Flower Garden

 

It's finally finished! My great-grandma (dad's mom's mother) started this quilt many, many, many years ago. When she died it went to my grandparents' house, and when my grandma died (even though my grandpa does some quilting), it got passed to me. Most of the flowers themselves were completed, with two or three that were missing the outer row or just one hexie. I think I was in late high school. I thought it was really ugly, and my quilting skills were still just beginning (I preferred straight seams in the machine) and I wasn't really sure how to hand-piece hexagons.

A few years later I decided to give it a try - I didn't want to invest too much extra time, so instead of doing the classic join with a border between the flowers, I just began stitching the flowers together directly. By hand. (Because I still don't know a better way to join hexagons!)

But I didn't like how it looked, and after getting it about 80% of the way done, set it back aside again. And had ten children.

But THEN, Covid hit! And with it, stay-at-home orders, and with the new routines that provided for our family (our favorite was Andrew Peterson reading aloud his Wingfeather saga a few chapters a night), I got it back out again and decided to cut green hexies for the border between the flowers, UN-did all of the joining I'd done, and then re-joined all of the pieces by hand little by little by little. To finish it around the edges I decided to make new half-flowers, which were created from my own collection of scraps.

I chose a pink flannel for the backing, and the binding is a scrappy binding using three different greens.

I machine quilted the layers using free-motion quilting. The flowers were done in four different styles (shown below) and the green borders I did a meandering vine with a leaf in each hexagon.

This iteration of the flower quilting breaks the center into sixths and follows the hexagonal shape of the "petals" for a honeycomb appearance.

This version swirls in the center and does two rows of curved concentric petals, kind of like a zinnia.

This iteration was a "rose" in my imagination, with wavy lines creating a swirl that starts in the center and works to the outer layer.

And the last version was a daisy form, with a single row of long, skinny petals radiating from the center.

Seraphina's quilt

 Another denim quilt! Although we'd planned to do two others this Christmas as well, but we don't have enough denim squares!!!

 We got to use a few olive green squares that we had that tied in really nicely with...

...the adorable mouse and strawberry print on the back!

A new baby in the family is always a good reason to make a quilt. :)

A record for me

This is intended just for me (and my kids, if they're ever interested) to keep track of the projects that I've made over the years. I'm excited to have all the photos in one place, and to be able to jot a few notes about each one as I go.

As my kids have grown up, it's been neat to watch them participate. Already Owen, Leah, and Bobbi have made quilts with me already, and Rinnah just finished up her first full size one a few weeks ago! Evania tackled two different small projects, and Gloria's made her own throw size denim quilt. (Eventually I'll get photos of those up!) Ebenezer says he wants to learn to sew, but it will be a while before I'm ready for that!!

Ebenezer's quilt!

Reuben has helped a bit - that's his signature scribble!

 I've been working on this for close to four years - one benefit to it taking so long is Ebenezer has gotten to watch the process from start to finish. I remember at  one point early on he was so taken with the idea that he walked around with a smaller piece of fabric, holding it against himself saying, "My quilk! My quilk!"

Ebenezer is one of two of the kids that has a twin size quilt instead of a throw size - partly because I wanted that size for the proportions for what I wanted to do, and partly because I knew he would NOT be a baby anymore by the time it was done. Ebby thinks it looks like a cross roads!

I enjoyed playing with a variety of different quilting methods in the different zones of the quilt.

This is a photo Eben took of the quilt. :)

A star grid in the reds...

...swirls around the blue dot fabric (which, incidentally, glows in the dark)...

...and a whole mixture of things on the intersecting grid where it all comes together. It was really fun to have a reason to use some of the 1.5" squares that I've been collecting! All of the kids' quilts have the purple paw print fabric in them somewhere (except Krassi's, which has a green paw print and is a copy of Owen's quilt in a different colorway...and Evania's has both the purple and the green), and if you look towards the right of the above photo, you can see the 1" square of it in Eben's quilt.)

Luke 22:54-62

 This was created as an art piece for one of the weeks leading up to Easter. Our pastor reaches out to the artists in our church on a regular basis to invite us to let different Bible passages inspire our creativity and share it with the rest of the congregation. I don't always have time to participate, but with this one, I could see so clearly in my head what I wanted to do that I took the opportunity.

The quilt grew from scraps and a few purchased fabrics on the living room floor while I was teaching math to Gloria, and other similar tasks!

I'll add some more photos once I get it back (it was displayed on Feb 26, and will be again on Easter Sunday).

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”  Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.” ~ Luke 22:31-34

Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.”  But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. ~ Luke 22:54-62

Alex's quilt

 So, a week before Christmas, Matt says to me, "We should make a bed size quilt for Alex*!" 

*Alex is Owen's friend who's been living with us since August.

So, why not - many hands makes light work, right? So Matt and I laid it out that night with help from Rinnah and Leah (the benefit of putting in hours over the years here and there getting squares precut!) and the next day, Evania, Gloria, Rinnah and I started sewing. A few minutes here and there all week long, and we got the top done, laid it all out with Leah and Rinnah helping again one evening, and got half of it tied. Matt got the rest tied the next morning (Christmas Eve), while I worked on preparing our fancy dinner for the evening. Alex came up at one point that morning and asked if we had a big blanket that he could use because although he has three, they're all throw size so none of them cover his whole body. I said, "Sure!" and went upstairs and grabbed the first quilt I made for him to use. We were all laughing as he went back down to his room...even Owen who was also in on the secret, and made it up later that afternoon to help with sewing on the binding so it would be ready to give to Alex that evening!!

We think he liked it. :)

One interesting tidbit is that we used up a stack of 34 larger size squares that I think were left over from the quilt that I made for Matt back when we were dating! They're a larger size than our current 4.5" square cut size, so they have languished unused for years. Now they're gone. :) Yay!!

J's quilt

 This is the most recent baby quilt we've made with squares cut from old jeans.

We were a little playful with the label and decided to have the frog hold onto it for us!!

We alternated red and green ties for this quilt, and included just a few red corduroy squares from a favorite pair of Eben's pants that disintegrated.