Evania's quilt

There's a tiny bit of the purple kitty-paw-print!

Evania's quilt was a true departure for me. I'd seen an idea in a book about little "improv" blocks, and decided to give it a try. I also wanted to experiment with letting the quilting of a quilt take a higher priority in the design of the quilt, and figured there was no better way to do it than with a solid light colored background. The color families still follow the general colors of the other kids' quilts - purple, green, yellow and pink, but with lots of lee-way within those general ranges. The pink square is made of the left over from the backing of Rinnah's quilt.

I used a variety of different patterns for the machine quilting. Some straight lines evenly spaced, some with a more rhythmic approach, and some randomly spaced. One portion has leaves and curving lines, and one (the last one, because I'm still not very good at it!) is a free-form of swirls and flowers.

The backing of Evania's quilt is a bright, cheery print to offset the mostly-yellow front (just in case she isn't as interested in my experimentation!) Instead of trying to hide the necessary seam, I highlighted it with a row of scraps from the fabrics on the front of the quilt. I was particularly pleased with how well the stitching on the narrow-wide part of the quilting ended up aligning with the stripe on the backing. I *tried* to do it, but wasn't sure how closely I could hit it since I was working from the front!

The binding on this one was a separate binding instead of bringing the backing over to the front. I had some 1" double fold bias binding left over from repairing a quilt for my mother-in-law, and from a quilt I had made for a client. The colors (dark purple and dark green) were just right for this quilt. I estimated, stitched it on, and then realized I didn't have *quite* enough, so finished it off with an on-the-grain double folded border in pink to get around the last corner. The binding was machine stitched onto the front and then hand-blind-stitched on the back side.

The quilt was machine pieced, cutting the pieces for the small improv squares as I went - none of them were pre-planned, and one of them was so lousy I didn't use it. ;) I used low-loft cotton batting and machine quilted it. It was finished *after* Gloria was born and after we'd started the adoption process for B and T! Nothing like impending future work to provide the incentive to get a project finished!

Leah's farm quilt

This was Leah's baby. She wanted to do a quilt, and specifically, a farm quilt. I immediately envisioned a simple patchwork representing the grid of farm fields from a bird's eye view. She had something very different (and more challenging!) in mind.

It turned out really well, and was a lot of fun to plan and sew together! I helped her with the cutting, but she did most of the sewing by herself. Most of the fabric was stuff I had on hand, but she purchased the chickens and the cartoony farm animals as well as the blue and the beans for the borders. She finished it in time to show at the Dakota County Fair for her last year as a Cloverbud.

Leah for Evania

Leah made this one from our box of pre-cut squares and a piece of leftover jersey knit, and gave it to Evania for her baby dolls. We don't know exactly when she made it, so this is an approximate date! It was her first venture into piecing all on her own, and the finishing of the border was also a first independent venture.

Elia's Quilt

Nothing out of the ordinary - just another one in our collection of denim baby quilts for the Engesser family! Leah helped me pick out the fleece backing for this one, and also helped with the layout and sewing.

Like the rest of the denim quilts, this one is a 10x14 grid of 4" (finish size) denim squares, mostly from worn pants, but a few from other items. The batting is 3 oz polyester (because I couldn't find 4 oz), and the quilt is hand-tied.

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.