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!!

Evania's denim and khaki quilt

Evania made this one all by herself, with a fun strip of two different reds to give it almost a flag-like look. She chose a fleece with stars for the back, and we creatively pieced in where it was not quite big enough at one corner - you can hardly see it!

 

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.

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!

Nine of ten

 Three of the quilts I made for the kids ended up going through the laundry in the last 24 hours (two of the girls' got hit when Ebby sat on them in a past-due diaper yesterday morning, and Reuben had another vomiting episode in the middle of the night last night), so when they were in the living room with the other folding, it started something, and each of the kids wanted to grab theirs, and the others and look at them all together in relation to each other. I so love talking through with them all of the thoughts and ideas that went into each of their very special quilts.

Leah thought we should take a photo of them all laying out.

We're missing Eben's. It's not completed yet, but is sitting in the living room just out of sight waiting for the quilting to be finished. But there are the rest of them!!

Avi's quilt

Almost forgot to post this one, because we finished it a long time before delivering it, and I didn't want my friend to randomly come across it before her daughter received it!

Here is another in the series of denim quilts for babies that we know and love. :) Nothing particularly out of the ordinary in Avi's quilt, besides some fun colors thrown into the mix! Gloria picked out the sweet deer patterned fleece for the backing and that set the tone for the accent colors in the denim.

Pieced fleece blanket - snowman

 We had so much fun making the pink one that we dug through, found another good piece from Tammy to use as backing, and put together another one! Rinnah helped even more on this one, doing some cutting to bolster our supply, and also doing some of the sewing to keep it moving. We got it done over three days!