Granddaughter's Graduation Quilt

I never think it is too early to start working on a quilt that is going to be a present.  Our 4th grandchild is a junior in high school this year, and when she graduates, I'll be presenting her with her graduation quilt.  I've asked her to look at a few quilt designs and tell me about her favorite colors, but so far, not many ideas are forthcoming.  I know that she likes pale sage green.  Other than that, I think I'm free to make any kid of design I'd like.

There were a few remnants of sage green fabric in my stash and a few others that played well with that color.  I also pulled out a pile of off-white to add to the mix.  Later, I pulled out the bright turquoise fabric because it was a bit too shocking.  Well, it wouldn't be shocking in most quilts that I would make, but I know that she likes the more pale look.

I decided to do a quilt using half square rectangles.  I made one a few years ago and liked using the Block-Loc rulers.  It was time for them to come out and play again.  I cut 4" x 8" rectangles out of the colors and stacked them up to cut the diagonal line.  All of the greens were paired with the off-white pieces and sewn together.  I knew that I needed to make 240 for the size of quilt I wanted to make.  Here are a bunch of them tossed up on the wall.

And, here are the rest of the blocks on the wall.  There were reorganized to make a few diamond shapes.  I could have played with them for a long time and come up with a ton of other layouts.  But, I do have to sleep at night and these kinds of things keep my brain running at full speed.  So, this was the layout that was going to be sewn together.

I hope you like it so far!

CCQ Challenge 2025 - Give Peace/Piece a Chance

Our local quilt guild, Clark County Quilters, issued a challenge for 2025 called, "Give Peace/Piece a Chance!".  Here where the rules:  

(1) The size of the quilt could be no more than 120" in perimeter.  

(2) The quilt background should be pieced reflecting your idea of peace and you must include a peace sign somewhere on the front of your quilt.  

(3) All steps must be done by you.

I am always up for a challenge!  I remembered that I sketched up an idea for a quilt a few years ago, which was a hippy girl.  I found that sketch and started drawing a full size girl for this quilt, based on that idea from a few years ago.  It really helps to keep a sketchbook of ideas so that you can go back and visit things you saved.

The background was, of course, going to be lime green.  I pulled greens from my stash, including 3 pieces of silk.  These were all improv pieced into small log cabin blocks.  The blocks were put together into rows, using sashing pieces here and there, and trimming others to fit.  I left the background a little wonky, with the top width larger than the bottom width.  Here it is all ready to go.

I placed the drawing of the hippy girl on top to make sure the back was big enough.

Then I made the clothing and the face for the girl.  The pants were quilted with gold thread into peace signs.  The necklace peace sign was made of silver lame.  The necklace chain was silver trimming that was couched down.  And the glasses were made of copper lame.   I didn't take any pictures of the process, though.  Its a mystery to me why I remember to do this sometimes, and at other times, I get so caught up in the making of the pieces that I totally forget to take pictures.  When the creative juices are flowing, I'm in the groove, I guess.

The girl was appliquéd to the background and the face was highlighted by a little bit of colored pencil and inking.  Then,  I quilted the background with peace signs all throughout and lightly quilted the clothing and face.  It was faced.

It turned out to be 18" W at the top and 29" long.  I titled it "Peace Out".  

I hope you like it!

Crisscross quilt

I watched an episode on The Quilt Show that introduced me to an improv way to make a crisscross quilt.  I think the quilter used smaller blocks than I did.  I made it with some of my hand dyed and ice-dyed fabrics and a wonderful Marcia Derse fabric called "Spotted Graffiti". Anyway, here's the quilt and the instructions.

CRISSCROSS QUILT

51” w X 59.5” h

Made in improv style, this quilt uses large and small scraps to make a striking colorful quilt.

Materials
10 to 12 different fabrics, at least large enough to cut several 10” squares

Instructions
Cut 4 different fabrics @ 10” square
Lay them right sides up and cut a diagonal line free hand starting and stopping at 1” from the corner
Cut a second diagonal line parallel to the first one and starting and stopping at 1” from the corners.  Make it slightly curved, but not super curvy.

Take one of the center pieces and rotate it from the top to the bottom of the stack
Sew the triangular pieces to the center pieces, making sure that the triangular pieces are the same fabric
Press away from the center strip

Trim to 9” square

This stack yields 4 blocks
Continue stacking 4 fabrics at a time, making sure they are mixed up and different than the first pile
Make a total of 36 blocks (9 stacks of 4 fabrics)

Cut 4 different fabrics @ 5-3/4” square
Lay them right sides up and cut a diagonal line free hand starting and stopping ¾” from the corner
Cut a second diagonal line parallel to the first one and starting and stopping at ¾” from the corner
Take one of the center pieces and rotate it from the top to the bottom of the stack
Sew the triangular pieces to the center pieces, making sure that the triangular pieces are the same fabric
Press away from the center strip
Trim to 4-3/4” square
This stack yields 4 blocks
Continue stacking 4 fabrics at a time, making sure they are mixed up and different that the first pile.
Make a total of 24 blocks (6 stacks of 4 fabrics)

Sew the top together
Lay out the squares to your liking, leaving 6 spots for the smaller squares
Use 4 of the smaller blocks to fill in the 6 empty spots
Arrange the stripes all in one direction, or in a crisscross way.
Sew the horizontal rows together and press alternating rows in alternating directions
Sew the vertical rows together and press the seams all in one direction
Baste around all of the outside edges to stabilize the seams

I found a picture on Instagram that I thought would be a fun way to use this pattern, with smaller blocks and different fabrics on each side of the center cut.  It's 9 blocks x 11 blocks.

Anyway, have fun using up your larger scraps!

Garden Lady #10 -- Final - Wintergreen

This is a continuation of 5 previous posts about the making of Garden Lady #10.

The final few steps were to add a facing around the edges, sew on a sleeve and a label. 

The finished quilt measures 40 "W x 55-1/2 "H.

She's called "Wintergreen".  And she is the final quilt in my garden lady series.  

I hope you like it.

Garden Lady #10 - Part Five

This is a continuation of 4 previous posts about the  making of Garden Lady #10.

I decided that I wouldn't add a lot of distracting flora and fauna to this piece.  The idea of a bird feeder and a chickadee would have been a stand-alone figure that didn't seem to fit with this piece.  I still wanted the holly and red berries, but not much else.

I quilted the piece on both my longarm and my domestic sewing machine.  I find that I can use more delicate thread on my sewing machine for the face and finer details.  After it was quilted, I stitched down the wings and added the belt.

I made a small sprig of holly by sewing together 2 shades of green fabric and fusing and gluing them to a solid back piece.  

The berries were made of two layers of red fabric fused together.  I embroidered a stem and glued the applique pieces down.  then I made some tacking stitches.  

I hope you still like it!

Garden Lady #10 - Part 4

This is a continuation of 3 previous posts about the making of Garden Lady 10 - Winter Interest.

I wanted to produce the background by painting the fabric and then embellishing it this time.  I started with PFD white fabric, laid it out on black garbage bags and using Inktense blocks, diluted fabric paint, diluted acrylic paint, and splatter techniques, I did the first pass, and let it dry for a couple of days.

I put this up on the design wall after it dried and put the pieces already made on top.  I'm sorry to say that I was stuck for days trying to figure out where to go from there.  My quilting friends, relatives, and searches on Pinterest gave me ideas, but I didn't have the inspiration I needed. 

After another sleepless night, I had the genius idea to take it back off the wall and do some more painting to darken the lower section to make it grounded.  I put it back up on the design wall and liked it much better.  I still had to decide what to add that would be of winter interest....holly, chickadees, bird feeder, red belt, red berries.... 

Anyway, stay tuned to see what else I did for Garden Lady #10.

IMPROV OMBRE - QUILTED VERSION

There are previous posts about the making of the Improv Ombre quilt from leftover "Lipstick Cowgirl" fabric.  But this one is all about the fabulous quilting by Corrie Coldwell of C2 Quilting.

Here's what she posted on Instagram:

Well, her quilting is what makes it gorgeous.. just take a look!

I finished it with a facing and just love it.  Don't you love it too?