The quilt with the interesting history

 This one isn't *totally* done, but done enough to be used, so I'm running with it, and will post again when it's completely done.

Many many years ago, probably in the 70s, my maternal grandmother, who as far as I know was never really into sewing, started piecing this Lone Star quilt top. Not an easy project to tackle! But, so I was told, she completed the pieced top and then had had enough, so it didn't get finished.

Eventually, my mom met my dad and they were married, and his mom was a quilter. So somehow, my maternal grandmother passed the quilt off to my paternal grandmother, who dutifully took on the job of quilting. She layered it and added the backing, then basted it all by hand, and began the slow work of hand quilting. 

Eventually, her hands and eyes got beyond the point where hand quilting was an option, and by then, I was a young teenager who was into sewing and quilting and fabrics, so *I* inherited it. Of course, by the early 90s, the colors that Grandma had chosen in the 70s were atrocious. I thought the quilt was so ugly, BUT also really loved the Lone Star pattern (one that to this day I have not yet attempted, finding that I prefer right angles!) and the sentimental quality of a quilt that both of my grandmothers had worked on - that can't be the sort of thing that happens every day!

Fast forward over 20 years, and the thing is still sitting in my closet in an old cushion cover. For some reason, it came to my mind this past summer (partly, I think, because the colors in it so beautifully match my daughter's bedroom!), so I dug it out and determined to finish it. It's funny how tastes can change. I no longer at all think that it's ugly, and am so glad I didn't get rid of it years ago! I also decided that I'm not as much of a purist as I used to be, so did not feel the need to finish the quilting by hand, but rather decided to play up the multi-personal, multi-generational aspect of the quilt, and finished it up with a combination of standard machine quilting and some free-motion quilting. Six months later, it's ready! 

I didn't really plan out the whole thing, but rather did each little remaining chunk piece by piece. On the two narrower borders, I tried a meandering free-motion feather pattern that I wanted to try, and that I also thought was a nice nod to the more formal feather that Grandma F. had hand quilted in the central yellow squares.

I then started with a "ribbon candy" pattern in the pale green border, and decided mid-way through to switch to script and capture the history of the quilt in writing. "This quilt has an interesting history...it was pieced by Grandma Kelbe...hand quilted by Dottie...and finished by me for my daughter, Leah."

Then, I told Leah that she could pick what I wrote on the two wider yellow borders. She picked "A Man said to the Universe" by Stephen Crane (one they came across in their literature/history class at school, and it fits in the space perfectly), but hasn't decided what she wants on the other border. Once she decides, I can put it on there. In the meantime, it's going to live in her room, and not on my in-process quilt rack!

Owen's memory quilt

 This was a fun surprise present for Owen for Christmas! It's all of his old soccer shirts (well, most of them), and a variety of other significant pieces of his childhood, all tied together with a cotton soccer print and backed with an amazingly soft red fabric, that was a pain to work with, but well worth it for how much he loves it!

Wedding quilt

This was a fun project done for the midwife who delivered our first four babies. It's always kind of scary cutting up something as special as a wedding dress, but once it's started, it's kind of fun! There were a few different layers of fabric to work with here, and in different sizes. Figuring out how to design the pieces was an interesting challenge before the work even began. The block-pieced sashing includes fabric from the groom's and groomsmen's shirts and ties!

I will have to look back to see when I actually completed this project. In the meantime, I'm just happy she remembered to send me photos!!!

Genz quilt

I don't have a finished photo of this one, but this is pretty close to finished. It was made for a sewing client from her daughter's high school and college t-shirts as a graduation gift. The biggest challenge here was finding a good size to use. As you can see, we ended up using a standard square size and then making it out of a single shirt, horizontal or vertical half shirts, or even quarters of the square as necessary to get everything to fit and to highlight the best parts of each shirt. The one piece that wouldn't fit within our unit we sized to the unit plus sashing and made it the center point.

Machine pieced, hand tied, polyester batting (eventually!)

Nona's quilt, twin size (SewingBAG)

And a twin size version. This project was such a delight. So many little variations, and so neat to know that many family members were able to hold onto these special memories of their "Nona."

Machine pieced, hand tied, polyester batting.

Nona's quilt, lap size #3 (SewingBAG)

Another lap size quilt, again very symmetrical.

Machine pieced, hand tied, polyester batting.

"Nona's" quilt, lap size #2 (SewingBAG)

I honestly can't remember if we tied this one with some red and some periwinkle, or if this was just photos testing out both to get preference from our client! As you can tell from the upper photo, this quilt is not quite complete at the time of the photograph.

Machine pieced, hand tied, polyester batting.

Nona's quilt, full size #2 (SewingBAG)

On this version of "Nona's" memory quilt, we used the batik to define the corners, and a few other pieces in a more symmetrical layout than some of the others (see the green stripeish one and the denim.)

Machine pieced, hand tied, polyester batting (8 or 6 oz).

Nona's quilt, full size #1 (SewingBAG)

This was one of two full-size quilts. The outer border was a fabric that "Nona" had in her collection - everything else in the quilt (except for sashing and backing) was her clothing. The navy/teal batik and the peacock print were truly marvelous pieces that really defined the quilts. Because there was a lot of the batik, we used it as an organizing element - here in a diamond shape through the quilt.

Machine pieced, hand tied, polyester batting.

Nona's quilt, lap size (SewingBAG)

This was another memory quilt for one of my sewing clients. "Nona" had a fantastic wardrobe, and many children and grandchildren who wanted this cozy way to remember her. A whole series of quilts was made from this selection of clothing, so a wider sashing was used to make the clothing items we had to work worth go farther. This one had some embroidered squares stating clearly who the quilt was made to honor.

Although this one was a "lap size" quilt, it was still quite generous. Each in this series was hand tied with a silky periwinkle yarn that matched the sashing fabric, and used polyester batting (likely 6 oz for this one.)

The first memory quilt (SewingBAG)

This was the first "memory quilt" that I made. A client approached me with the idea - it was made of his dad's old clothing as a memento for his mom after his dad passed away. Incorporated into the grid of 6" (?) squares of clothing were five 12" denim squares, each embroidered with the names of their children and grandchildren and framed with the red plaid that we chose to visually tie the quilt together and also to use for the backing (wrapped around for the binding as well.)

This quilt was machine pieced, hand tied with red yarn, and used polyester batting (8oz?).

Flannel and t-shirt memory quilt (SewingBAG)

 This is one of many "memory" quilts I made for clients of my sewing business. This particular one is a combination of college and high school t-shirts and a collection of flannel pajamas that the recipient's grandmother had gotten for all of the grandkids for Christmas every year. We pulled in some of the flannel pajamas onto the quilt top to make enough material, and also used some of the solid parts of the t-shirts to do the same (and to unify the color scheme - the green is a good example of this - I also used the green as my inspiration for the cotton fabric I bias cut for the binding.)

This was machine pieced, hand tied with polyester batting - probably an 8 oz weight. The back of the quilt (top photo) was a new adventure for me, piecing together all of the random bits and fitting them to make a correctly-sized rectangle.