Noel Carolyn Payne's baby quilt

 

Noel was born July 4th 2011.  I could have gone with a patriotic theme for her baby quilt, but somehow I thought she would probably have enough of that in her lifetime.  She has 6 sisters (one is waiting in heaven for the rest of the family) and 1 brother.  I decided bunnies for her mostly because her oldest sister Kate got bunnies on her baby quilt.  Some of the fabrics in the quilt were used in the other childrens quilts and dresses I made along the way.  It is hand quilted and I finished it on September 8th just a couple of hours before we had to leave for the airport to come back home.  Noel wasn't very verbal in her appreciation of the quilt, but when I laid her on it to try it out, she snuggled right down and went to sleep.  Perfect!

Kate's Flower Garden

 

 Kate turned 12 on September 7th.  I thought it was about time she had a little more grown up quilt.  She chose the blocks -- Lily of the Valley, Wildflower, and Morning Glory -- and the colors -- blue, yellow, and green.  Although it was somewhat difficult, it was actually harder to get a decent picture of it than to make it.  It was finished on August 29th and she seemed to be very happy with it.  The blocks would have been nearly impossible for me to piece, so I opted to applique them.  It needed about 7 inches to make it long enough, so I tried the little squares from scraps in the quilt.  I think it turned out pretty good.  It is twin size and machine quilted.

Wedding Quilt

 
Since Christopher VanRy was here so much as a teen, we kind of think of him as one of ours.  So, with the announcement of his engagement, I went to work thinking and planning a quilt for him.  I have made quilts for his brother Kirk and both of his sisters, Katie and Melissa.  All of theirs were queen sized log cabins and not wanting to break that tradition, his is a queen sized log cabin too.  As always, time gets away from me and I thought for sure I would not have it done for the wedding, but I finished it that afternoon.  It was delivered at the reception on Saturday, June 18th.  We've painted the outside of the house since then... you can refer to one of the other blogs for that project.

Amy's Sofa Quilt

 

I am embarrassed to say that Amy picked out these fabrics and I made the quilt top more than a year ago.  She wanted a log cabin, only scrappy.  In the mean time, she got rid of the old sofa and now has a new one.  Hopefully the colors still work.  It has been sitting patiently waiting for an open window of time to quilt it.  So, with Anson and Lorin's quilts done and the next one needing to be done in 6 weeks, I thought it a good time to get this one finished and outta here.  The quilt top was very pretty and I think I am getting the hang of this machine quilting thing.  I really did like the oak leaf and acorn border.

Here Kitty, Kitty

     Little girl's love animals.  It seems that they are either dog or cat people.  Lorin is a cat person.  She wanted cats on her 4-year old quilt.  This was a blast to make.  I really had a lot of fun.  The 4 blocks in the middle are Cat's Paws (sometimes called Bear Claw's -- but it's Lorin's quilt, so they are now Cat's Paws).  The applique cats were purchased in a die cut set and I love them.  The 2 cat's in the window blocks I got from the internet.  I sure hope she likes it!

     The sashings are strips from a fabric that had several different lines of cats -- on a wall, in the window, and in the garden.  I thought they added the right touch.  Of course, being a girlie girl, she wanted pink and purple.  How can you resist that?

     Although you can't see it here, the big purple border has alternating cats and "meow" quilted in it.

                         

Superheros!!!

My grandson Anson is late in getting his four year old quilt. This is mostly Grandma's fault, but I think it was probably worth the wait. This is hands down the coolest quilt I have ever made. Maybe the coolest quilt I will ever make. I know there will be prettier ones and most definitely technically more challenging quilts, but cool, I really doubt it. What I learned from this quilt is that really simple quilting is not only OK, but sometimes the very best thing. I had a lot of fun with this quilt. Every step just made me grin because it was turning out so well. Hope you like it!


 

Strawberries, just strawberries

Lily wanted strawberries on her 4 year old quilt.  Ok.  So, this one took quite a bit of thinking and I think I really like what I came up with.  I decided that I would have blocks 1-9 with the corresponding number of strawberries in each.  The pink striped material I found down in Penn Yan at one of the Mennonite shops.  Then I took a pattern called the flower basket and made blocks and added strawberries to the middle. 

I love my Baby Loc!  I love that tear away paper called Golden Threads.  I love in-line quilting!  It was a fun quilt to make. 

Star Wars Quilt

Evan wanted a "StarWars" quilt.  I think I came up with what I hope will be right up his alley.  I became an expert paper piecer putting this one together.  I really love how all the star blocks look.  I have to admit, I thought the material I used for the sashings was blue.  It wasn't until Amy was helping me sandwhich it that I learned it was purple.  I knew I loved that material for some reason!  The quilting was a little difficult because I decided to follow the patterning in each block.  But I do like the affect.  I quilted a loopy line and star pattern in the last border.  I was really glad I decided to use black thread on the top because although you can see it, it blends nicely.

I also used a product called Golden Threads Quilting Paper in the last border.  I LOVE IT!!! And, would highly recommend it to anyone who does any amount of quilting.  It tears away perfectly.  It would be great for hand quilters too.  I just can't say enough about it.  The quilt was finished and delivered 17 January 2011.

Funky Log Cabin

 This Funky Log Cabin was made for Melissa VanRy Sheh as a wedding gift.  The wedding was in June and here I am just finishing it.  In my defence, I have been on 3 vacations since the wedding, finished 2 other quilts, pulled off a weekend retreat for 175 women, and took care of Rod and I, each post minor surgery.  So, I guess it's not really so surprising that it is just now getting done.  The most valuable thing I learned from this quilt was to make sure the back is securely taped down before adding the batting and top and to stick with my Warm and Natural batting.  The back isn't as nice as I would like for it to be-- it got some folds in the process, but it's going out just the same.  Somehow the wildness of the fabrics work.

Fishies 7/2010

This quilt is a belated birthday present for my friend Coreen. She is Hawaiian and loves tropicals and fish.  I started this quilt more years ago than I want to admit.  I did the cross stitching and then tried to quilt it, but it was awful so I took all the stitching out and it has sat since then.  I didn't like the borders I had on it so I took them off and put these on.  Then I fired up the Baby Lock.  I think it came out great and I can't wait for her to get it.

Barbie Princesses 6/2010

June 19, 2010
Barbie Princesses Quilt - Pink and Purple
Ruthie Payne

Ruthie wanted a Barbie Princess quilt in pink and purple.  OK, so how do I do that?  I talked to some friends and fellow quilters and they told me about a product called Printed Treasures.  This is treated fabric sheets mounted onto paper that allows you to print images onto it and then add it to your quilt.  The treatment on the fabric ensures the printing to become color fast.  Then I simply went to the internet, downloaded stills from the Barbie princess movies, printed them and started construction.  I had a little trouble printing, but I think it was more due to the advanced age of our printer than anything else.  The photos in the quilt are really indeed color fast (it has already been washed) and sharp.  I am pretty happy with the result.  I chose to use only one pieced pattern in the quilt, a pinwheel, and use a different pink or purple for each square.  This is also the 1st quilt I have attempted to machine quilt.  And, I learned a few things in the process.  I have learned that I probably want to keep the quilting fairly simple for the time being and getting many more continuous line quilt patterns is a must.  I also learned that the Babylock  Espire is a wonderful machine.

 This is an enlarged view of the center.  It's not very clear here but hopefully you can get an idea of how it might look.  I think Ruthie is going to love it!  It goes in the mail tomorrow.