Resourcefulness quilt

As part of our home school curriculum, we use a resource called "Character First" which highlights a different positive character trait each month. This particular month we were studying "resourcefulness" and decided to put it into practice by making a quilt all using pieces we already had here at home.

The base of the quilt was made from a box of 2.5" cut squares. Some of these were ones I'd cut, but the box was one I'd inherited from my grandparents when my grandma died and grandpa eventually sold his house when he remarried. This quilt, although somewhat garish, is special on many levels - some of the fabrics are mine, some shout "grandma and grandpa" to me (like the hay and eggs, or the blue with the little trucks, trees, and mailboxes on it!), and it's all put together with the creativity and teamwork of Owen and Leah. Not only did they use resourcefulness in making something beautiful and useful out of a box of scraps, but when there were fabrics that didn't have enough for a full row, they adapted. Sometime this meant using that fabric for one of the shorter diagonal rows, and sometimes (like in the red row in the close up) it meant using many different red fabrics all together.

The borders for the quilt were also made from scraps, with the widths chosen purposely to use every inch of available fabric. We were excited to use the 2.5" squares themselves to make a third border, and then, since the proportions were not what we'd been hoping for, we found another fabric to widen it a bit. The backing was a piece of flannel I'd had for years, and the batting was pieces of leftover we had laying around.

Machine pieced (by me, Leah, and some by Owen), machine quilted, low-loft cotton batting.

Unassigned denim quilt - for Evie!!

This denim quilt is one that we made without any one assigned to it, and still it sits. I think we'd considered giving it to friends of ours if they had a boy, but they had a girl instead. A few interesting parts of this one - we had started it back when we still serged the quilts and had the serging facing out. I *think* this was actually the project where the serger quit working the way we wanted it to, so the project went on hold.

Years later (and even that is a guess!), hating to see a half-finished project, we decided to abandon the full serging and just find a way to use the pieces that were already serged without any others. The fleece for the back of the quilt was an impulse purchase - it is still one of the most beautiful patterns I've ever seen. Amazing colors - classic, yet with the punch of green and orange to make it interesting, and beautifully shapes and patterns. It's perfect.

So who knows who this quilt will belong to. (I have an inkling, because as I'm posting this realtime 5/30/16 I just found out about friends of ours who are expecting their first!!!) We'll see how that all works out. ;) ~*~ Sure enough - this one ended up going to Nathan and Anne's darling baby girl!! ~*~

Machine sewn, hand tied, poly batting.

Krassimir's quilt

Krassi's quilt was originally meant to coordinate very closely with Owen's, because they were going to share a bedroom, but finding the same colors nearly 10 years later was a challenge, so I decided to go with the same pattern in totally different colors. I also was nearly out of the purple paw-print fabric that I'd used in each of the kids' quilts so far, so when I found the green version, I was delighted, and set the rest of the quilt off the color established in that one.

This was machine pieced and quilted, and made with low-loft cotton batting.

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.