Rinnah's quilt

Each of the quilts I've made for my children have this paw print fabric in them somewhere. On Rinnah's quilt, it's just this one pinwheel.

Rinnah's quilt was a departure from the somewhat limited pallettes of the first three that I made. Leah's was, perhaps, starting me in this direction, with the addition of one extra color and allowing for some of the yellow, green, and pink to be prints, but Rinnah's is, as is appropriate for her personality, an explosion of color. I had seen this concept for a quilt one year at the State Fair and was intrigued by the pinwheels forming from the simple squares made from four identical trapezoids.

Something else I tried for the first time on Rinnah's quilt was piecing scraps for one of the borders. I was very pleased with how this not only used up little pieces that aren't good for much else, but also made a really fun frame to the quilt. Just a solid would have been too mundane for this quilt.

The backing was also a departure for me from the solids that I've usually used. Leah's used the kitty print on the back, but this was a little more adventurous.

This quilt was machine pieced and quilted, following 1/8" in from the perimeter of the pinwheels. I used my favorite cotton batting.

Ruthie's quilt

Ruthie Joy's quilt uses some of the leftover batik canvas that I used to make something for Owen when he was first born. Finding a good match for the back led to these funky owls. ;)

Machine sewn, hand tied, poly batting, 10x14 grid of 4" denim (and batik canvas!) squares.

Lydia's quilt

Another denim quilt for a dear friend. These are so much fun to make because they go together relatively quickly (since we keep the squares ready-cut), and each one has so much personality.

This one is, like usual, a 10x14 grid of 4" finished size squares, backed with fleece, and hand tied with yard over a lightweight poly batting.

Frank Lloyd Wright wall hanging

This wall hanging hung half-finished on the wall of my sewing room for years before I had the time to complete it. It was fun when we designed our addition to choose a place where this piece could belong. The quilt itself was inspired by a book my parents gave me for my birthday when I was in high school. It was also the inspiration for the little wall quilt I made for my grandma after she saw this one partially completed.

I don't remember exactly when I finished it, but it was after Reuben was born in 2009 and before Rinnah was born in 2011.

This was machine pieced (a challenge with the 1/4" finished size strips!), and machine quilted onto a fusible batting.

Leah's quilt

Leah's quilt was actually started after Reuben's quilt, as the tri-color one I'd started for her (after setting the pattern for the yellow, green, and indigo with the baby quilt Matt and I made for our first who ended up being Owen, I started one like that for Leah, but didn't finish it until after Reuben was born, so I decided to give the solid one to Reuben and add a bit of pattern and a fourth color (pink!) to the quilt for my little girlie!) Hers was finished in March of 2010 when she turned 3 years old.

I really enjoyed digging through my stash of left over fabrics, and pulling out some of my favorites. Some of the fabrics in her quilt are remnants of little dresses I'd made for her or for Kaitlin, or have other special memories associated with them.

This quilt is also noteworthy as the first time I pieced fabrics for the back of the quilt in a not-meant-to-be-unnoticeable way. I only had so much of the purple kitty paw print fabric that I wanted to use for the backing left, so I finished it out with a square of the lighter lavender-blue that I'd used for the sashing on the front.

The batting in this one is 100% cotton low-loft batting - my favorite for machine quilting because it is not bulky, and I also like the way it washes in, giving the quilt a cozy, hearty feeling.

Sophia's quilt

A bright, bold front (high contrast) and a bright, bold fleece backing make for a cheerful quilt for our friends' third child. If I remember correctly, we picked out the fleece for the back before we knew if Baby was going to be a girl or a boy, figuring we could pick out any of the colors for the yarn ties as was appropriate. Little did we know that Sophia was the second of what would become FIVE sisters!

Four inch denim squares, in a 10x14 grid, over light weight polyester batting and fleece backing.

Reuben's quilt

Reuben's quilt was originally started for Leah when we were still thinking we'd only have two children, and wanted both quilts to be simple geometric patterns with the same three colors. The original blueish-purple that we'd used for Owen's wasn't available anymore, so I substituted a lighter color of a similar hue. I had intended to make that the color of the backing for the quilt, but switched to the green when I decided to give it to Reuben. The outer border on Reuben's quilt is the paw-print fabric that I've used in each quilt.

This quilt was machine pieced and quilted, and used low-loft cotton batting.