Grandma's Nine-Patch

When Grandma send me more of her orphans, I knew I needed to play with the 9 patches she sent.  Even though I wasn't going to start any new quilts this year.

I've decided it doesn't count because I've already finished it!

This is a small quilt - only 30 x 30.  I made one of the blocks so I'd have enough.  The green one is mine.

I used a walking foot to quilt this baby.  I think it only took about 2 hours!

I'm linking up with One Monthly Goal - This is my April Goal

One Monthly Goal: Nine Patch Baby Quilt

I am blessed to be a part of a family of quilters.  My grandmother, two aunts and my sister all share a common obsession, but what's truly lovely is that our shared art form takes all of us in different directions.  It's fairly easy to tell who's is who's just by colour choice and pattern.

My grandmother goes about her quilts a lot different than I do.  Piecing isn't my favourite part, so I do only as much as the quilt requires.  Grandmother, on the other hand, makes many many blocks and auditions them until she is happy.  The rest go in a box and then every couple of years a yummy parcel of treats arrives in my mail box.

I think that some year, I will devote a year to using these blocks - yes, a year.  There are hundreds.  You can click this link to see what I've already done with past Grandma Blocks.

Meanwhile, these 8 looked so particularly delicious that I pieced them together immediately (with a block I made which I hope doesn't look too out of place.

Since this isn't on my list, I want it finished very quickly and thus it is my One Monthly goal for April.  Preferably I want it done in the next two weeks so I can give it away immediately.

I'm linking up with One Monthly Goal

Zen for Dad

Date:  May 2012 - March 2013

Pattern:  McCalls Quick Quilts March 2008 (severely modified)

Reason:  I liked the pattern and I wanted to use some blocks Grandma gave me.

Special Fabrics / Best Buys:  Many of the blocks including the 4 in the centre were given to me by Grandma.  My Aunt who works at a fabric store let me know when the perfect navy came in to the store.

Thoughts:  Gave to Dad for his 60th birthday.  I hand quilted this one.  It's been a really long time since I've done that.

7 Down 5 to Go

These blocks are orphans my grandmother game me.  I love using her blocks.

Five Down - Seven to Go

More Potholders

Our church needs new potholders and hotpads.  I'm hoping to make a dozen.  These are the first two, both made with blocks my grandmother gave me.

Scrappy Lattice Garden

Date: 2011 - Feb 2014

Pattern:

Size:  86 x 86

Reason:  My Grandmother has given me hundreds of HSTs.  I'm always looking for good HST patterns.

Fabrics:  Half the HSTs are from my grandmother, the other half from my scraps.  The sashings are from fabric a friend gave me. 

Lessons Learned:  Hand stitching through batik is painful.  Just FYI

Thoughts:  My sister's MIL wanted practice tops to break in her new long arm.  I wish I had had more tops available for her when she asked :)

This quilt is on my bed.  It makes me so happy.  Who knew I love scrappy quilts so much . . .

PCC 6 of 6

Date:  January 2014

Reason:  My goal is to make 6 baby quilts for the Pregnancy Care Centre in January.

Fabrics:  Grandma has given me a lot of blocks and HSTs.  Hundreds in fact.  Here are 4 of those blocks and 4 of the HSTs.  Fleece that I don't remember the origins of and a strip of yellow flannel binding that was already ironed were probably also donated to me years ago.

Thoughts:  Once again because I am participating in the Building Blocks Quilt Along with Leah Day, I figured I should suck it up and so these straight lines are entirely done FREE MOTION.  I wonder If I have improved at all.  I've now done three baby blankets doing straight lines this way. 

PCC 5 of 6

Date:  January 2014

Reason:  My goal is to make 6 baby quilts for the Pregnancy Care Centre in January.

Fabrics:  Grandma has given me a lot of blocks.  More than 200.  Here are six of them.

Thoughts:  This is my favourite of the six.

PCC 4 of 6

Date:  January 2014

Reason:  My goal is to make 6 baby quilts for the Pregnancy Care Centre in January.

Fabrics:  A friend gave me finished and unfinished blocks as well as random pieces of the same fabric.  I used the previously made units to make blocks and made additional blocks from the fabric.

The bindings were end scraps from various bindings that various people have given me - four pieces in all.  (I am a magnet for other people's unfinished projects and scraps and for the most part, I LOVE it).

Thoughts:  Usually I would get out the walking foot to quilt something like this but because I'm doing the Building Blocks Quilt Along with Leah Day, I figured I should suck it up and so these straight lines are entirely done FREE MOTION.  Obviously I need more practice, but still - pretty excited that it worked at all.  I found that rather than doing straight lines left to right or right to left, I preferred to move the quilt back as if I'm sewing a seam.

There is a heart stitched onto the back because I accidentally ripped the fabric after I had quilted most of it.  Yeah.  Winner.

The small prints were so dizzyingly busy together, a white sash was necessary just for a little separation and relief.

PCC 3 of 6

Date:  January 2014

Reason:  I want to make 6 quilts for the Pregnancy Care Centre in January

Fabric:  7 blocks Grandma gave me, 2 blocks Anne gave me.

Thoughts:  My daughter begged me to let her quilt so there she is carefully quilting with a walking foot.  She did not too bad :)

I latticed the different sized blocks on two sides each so I could cut them all to the same size for easy piecing.

PCC 1 of 6

Date:  January 2014

Reason:  6 baby quilts in January for the Pregnancy Care Centre

Fabrics:  A pillow case my grandmother made for me was picked apart and repurposed.  My sister gave the me fleece which I used on the back.  The binding was from two binding scraps that friends gave to me.

Thoughts:  This was both quilted in free motion and with a walking foot.  I tried to use different patterns of free motion quilting for each piece of the centre panel.

Fleece causes great amounts of excess fluff when cut.  Yay for a lint roller.

Bunket

This was one of my first quilts.  I was 16.  I made it with my Grandmother.  All of the fabrics were hers. At bible camp that summer, everyone signed it the week I was a camper (I also worked at the camp).  For a couple years after that new friends signed the back.

I only remembered I had this quilt last week when our family went back to that same camp so my girls could have some of the same experiences I did.  

I used a Sharpie on it, but alas after *ahem 15 plus years* some of the names are faded almost completely away.  I think the type of fabric had a great deal to do with which names faded and which didn't.  There is everything from knits to cottons to denim to sweater material and everything in between.

It's one of the uglier quilts you will ever see and one of the quilts I'm most attached to.

Tipsy Topsy

Date:  July 2012

Reason:  I needed a test quilt for new fill I am trying out.  A baby-sized quilt seemed the way to go.  Also, I saw Leah Day's modern quilt technique and thought it would be fun to put a "twist" on these traditional 4-patches (haha).

Special Fabrics:  Five of the blocks are from dozens and dozens that my grandmother has given me over the years.

Lessons Learned:  Finally, I think it's been established WHY I had such wavy edges.  Leah cautioned against putting too much strain on the edges and I've realized that I practically play tug-of-war to bind my quilts because I'm so close to done I can taste it.  When you add the fact that two of my waviest quilts had double machine sewn bindings, it's no wonder they looked rippled.

Tipsy Topsy looks much better.  Thanks so much, Leah!

Thoughts:  Although I didn't do the fabulous quilting method that Leah is teaching for this quilt, I definitely want to try it out because it looks amazing.

I'm already getting bored of the straight stipple so I need to think about how I can incorporate an all over quilt method to enhance the blocks, not just stitch over them randomly.

Also, I think a larger stipple would have looked better on this quilt.

Pink Baby

Date:  June 2012

Size:  30 x 30

Reason:  I took some pretty pinks from the blocks my grandma gave me because I knew they would make a cute baby quilt.

Fabrics:  Scraps from my stash, my grandma's blocks and a baby blanket of my daughter's.

Lessons:  My machine quilting is getting better!  Although I'm not doing Leah Day's tutorials per se, most of my quilting information comes from her blog:  http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com.  She has oodles of videos.  My opinion of machine quilting went from "pshh, not happening" when I saw her first video to "I could try it once" to "wheeeeee" after my first quilt.

On the half square triangle centre, I did a loopy style of stippling to hopefully emulate the flight of the butterflies that are appliqued in the centre.

Thoughts:  I still need to learn what I am doing wrong or how to fix my wavy edges.  Is it a quilting issue?  Am I a bad measurer?  Do I need to square my quilts better?  Probably it's all of the above.

I used a baby blanket we no longer needed.  I kept the 'satin' binding from the blanket to use on the quilt.

I traded this to a co-worker for some NuCerity.

Blue

My beloved grandmother enjoys creating more blocks than she needs for a project.  She then gives many of them to me for me to play with.  I made this wall hanging from the first such care package to go in my sewing / spare bedroom.  It matches the blue Storm at Sea she gave me for my birthday several years ago.