Baby Quilts for Woody & Nathan

Cousins, the grandsons of my friend and neighbor, were born less than a week apart!  That was 5 years ago, and of course the boys are the best of friends.  So, I made 2 quilts with similar colors but different patterns.

First was Woody's quilt, a wonky tilted square.  Then Nathan's, a slightly less crazy square in a square.

And finally, for Nathan's big sister, a doll quilt from the scraps.

Granny Squares

Worked on this quilt off and on for about a week.  It is a large lap quilt, (54 X 62) for naps or an extra blanket on the bed at night.  Quilted with a 4" grid with a flat 100% cotton batting, it's warm and snugly.  It has 420 2" squares, 300 setting triangles, and I worked on it in bits and pieces over 7 days.

The fabrics included a charm pack and some clearance yardage purchased online.  Then some scraps to add some darker color into the mix when it was looking a little too light colored.  The binding was pulled out of my box of leftover bindings; 2 1/2 inch strips already folded, that gets tossed into the box whenever I have a piece left over from another project.  It includes a bright from a baby quilt, some Christmas fabric, a batik from a wedding quilt, and other scraps of treasure.

I didn't have a technique for making the blocks of the Granny Squares, I simply cut piles of 2 1/2 inch squares, white setting triangles, and then pieced each one right at the sewing machine according to the whim of the moment.  When placing them in the quilt, I just tried to mix up the colors,  The reds appear to have been the strongest color statement in the quilt, so I tried to spread them evenly around. 

Sunny Side Lattice Block

A charm pack named Sunny Side by one of my favorite fabric designers, Kate Spain. A new block tutorial by Jenny at Missouri Star Quilts, an afternoon with no quilting deadlines......

I put a soft, thin poly batting, so it's very fluffy but thin, drapes nicely.  A good quilt for laying on a table, or wrapping up in. Quilted in the ditch between the blocks, then 1/2" apart on the lattices.  About every 1 1/2 inches along the borders, crossing seams at the corners.

Brown and Yellow 24-40 or fight

The history behind this quilt block is some political slogan from 1844 where President James Polk was lead to victory over the Oregon Territory. Or something like that.  I don't know, it doesn't make any sense to me but that's the name of this quilt block anyhow, and I like it in quilts for men.

A wall quilt, in browns and yellows, for my Father-In-Law.

25th Wedding Anniversary

Made this cheerful little quilt for the 25th wedding anniversary of  my dear cousin Patty and her husband Alex.  4-patchs and squares, alternated with simple plain blocks, arranged in a circular pattern (called barn raising in quilting terms) using a collection of fat quarters and scraps from the stash.

Flower Pounding and Fabric Painting

This was a fun fun project!  I used regular white muslin for the large blocks, and prepared them by pounding them with geraniums, roses, bougainvilleas, and all sorts of other leaves, grasses and flowers from around my yard.  After they dry and get heat set and washed, they became canvasses for hand drawn and cut stencils (cut from freezer paper) painted with oil based paint sticks.  For a stencil brush I used a toothbrush and brushed the color on in circles. A quilt like this cried for some hand quilting, and the colors suggested bright Mexican colors to m, so I dug into my Mexican Themed scraps for the borders and sashing.

Both flower pounding and the oil sticks technique re learned in a great 6 week class I took at he art museum, taught by Jane LaFazio, (http://www.janelafazio.com) a published quilt artist whose creations are often seen at local and even national quilt exhibits.  

Baby Girl Snowballs

Made this quilt in 2008 to welcome a first baby to a friend and co-worker.  Her nursery was decorated with lots of polka dots, so I decided on a snowball pattern.  Pastels, and a collection of fabrics from fabric of the month club.