Marie's

Marie was the only person that got to choose her colours.

Cheryl's

Cheryl is a huge fan of light neutrals.  One day I'm going to try to do an entire quilt in ivorys and whites!

Brenda's

My husband chose the cat print :)

Can anyone tell me what the star block is called?  I didn't take careful enough notes.

Change Pad

Date:  2006

Reason:  I wanted a pad that I could change diapers on.  I wanted something warm and easily washable.

Fabrics:  I used leftover sweater fabric from the previous post (used inside out for softness) and denim from my very large collection.

Thoughts:  I modeled this after "Chinese Coins" but it obviously isn't done correctly.  Note to self to do a 'real' Chinese coins some day!

I wasn't concerned about making this square.  As you can see, I didn't even try.

Six years later, I am about to retire this pad as it is not needed anymore.  I'm feeling a little sentimental about that.

Leslie's Quilt

Date:  2006

Reason:  The boss of the place I was working wanted a quilt to commemorate the different shirts that the business had designed over the years.  This is my first commissioned piece.

Fabrics:  I used my own denim stash and the shirts that she gave me.  The dark blue corduroy that I used for the back was from the local warehouse.

Lessons:  This was early in my quilting life:  PREWASH FABRICS!  (It seems basic now).  The darker denims discoloured some of the tshirt fabics.

At the time, the walking foot was what I used for quilting.  It helped ease the way across stretch fabrics (i use a darning foot now).

Use thinner batting for a denim quilt.

Thoughts:  Remember to take a picture at the end!!!

I kept track of my hours.  It came out to 32!

Charge more next time.

Phil's

I love the chaos of these paper pieced potholders for Phil.

Mum's

For my mother.  Paper pieced.  In my first year of quilting, I don't think it occurred to me to square up.

Jane's

Quilting for a quilter is always intimidating.  These are paper pieced

Ali's

Ali will ever be a purple girl.  I did two like this for her Christmas 2006.  This is paper pieced.

Jen's

One Christmas, everyone got potholders.  It was when I first started quilting.  I wanted to practice making individual blocks.  It seemed like a good fit to make them all into potholders.  These are Jen's.  I enjoyed using DMC floss to quilt them.

Junior's Quilt

Date:  July 2006

Reason:  The birth of my first born and the love of the ragged edge look.

Fabrics:  Fabric from a local warehouse.  They were prepackaged in lights and darks for $15/8!

Lessons Learned:  Be very careful when cutting the ragged edge.  It is quite easy to snip through the seams!

Lessons in Blue

Alternate Title:  Privately I called this quilt "Evil Quilt of Doom".  I was pregnant at the time.  Tears came often.


Pattern:  I drew this pattern four times before I was happy with it.


Date:  Top finished 2006


Size:  64 x 80


Inspiration:  Precut fabrics were donated to LBCQ.  I finally had a sewing machine of my own so I volunteered to take them home and play.


Special Fabrics:  Some of the fabrics were starched, some were super stretchy.  My favourite was a green fabric with bugs and the yellow fabric with frogs.


Lessons Learned:  When sewing 2 pieces together, the bottom piece will stay the same, but the top piece can stretch out a little.

To match seams, put a needle through the 2 seams.

When designing a quilt, attempt to put together pieceable squares that can then be fitted together. ( I was working with pre-cut squares that I was doing my best not to further cut down.  This resulted in a lot of T-seams.  For a beginner quilter, it was very trying.)


Thoughts:  A member of LBCQ machine quilted this and it was sold at an MCC auction for approx $70.

God's Promise: The Rainbow Effect

This quilt is made up of 121 4½ inch blocks, one 1½" black border and one 5" border.

Each block is made up of (4) 4½ x 1½ strips for a finished block size of 4".  This is a total of 484 strips.  Strips are put together within the block from dark to light.

You will need the following quantities of blocks:

1-  Black or very dark violet block
2-  Dark Purple Blue
3-  Purple
4-  Lighter purple
5-  Light purple with blue tones
6-  Medium/Dark Blue
7-  Blue
8-  Light Blue
9-  Medium greeny-blues
10- Dark Green with blue tones
11- Dark Green with yellow tones
10- Medium Green with yellow tones
9-  Light yellowy greens (army tones)
8-  Light yellows (perhaps with a little green)
7-  Strong yellows
6-  Golds
5-  Orange
4-  Pumpkin
3-  Reds w/ orange tones
2-  Deep reds
1-  Burgundy

Sew your strips together dark to light, four strip to one block.  I found it necessary to lay all the blocks out so I could arrange and rearrange until I was happy with how they looked.

Cut your black strips:  2 at 44½, 2 at 46½ and attach.

I used two different batiques for my outer borders to mimic the rainbow and I mitred them to continue the diagonal feel of the quilt.

Since this is the first time I've ever mitred a corner, I'm not going to try to tell you how to do that.  This is the video I used to learn the technique.  After that all that's left is to quilt and bind the quilt as you see fit.

Best Buys:  My Aunt chose the backing fabric, a cute purple wavy stripe with a gold tinge.  It was on sale at Fabricland for $5/meter!  The rest of the fabric was gifted to me.  Yay for shoeboxes full of scraps!

Lessons Learned / To Learn:  My edges are wavy and I'm not sure why.  I'd love to figure out what went wrong so I can avoid this for the future.  I haven't decided if I am going to wash this quilt.  I'm planning to hang it.