I got a nice digital camera this year and I love it! But I don't have digital photos for some of these quilts since I gave the quilts away, so I apologize for the poor quality of the scanned pictures (couldn't have anything to do with the photographer, could it?!!) Click on any of the thumbnails below to expand the pictures.
Pam's Stash Quillow (October - November 1999, 49" x 67")
My friend Teresa Creech and I made this quillow (quilt in a pillow) for our friend Pam, who doesn't believe in buying more fabric than just for the one project she's working on. Teresa and I made this quilt for Pam before she had surgery and we made it entirely from materials that we already had -- just to show Pam that "Stash is Good"!!! Teresa pieced the front (Woven Basket design) and quilted the quilt. My part in this quilt? Piecing the back, putting the border on Teresa's orphan Feathered Star block and machine quilting it, attaching the star for the pillow front, and attaching the quilt binding.
Quilter's Sanctuary (December 1998 - March 1999, 42" x 72")
My family and I draw names for Christmas. In 1998 I drew my mother's name, and made this quilt for her. For Christmas she got a Pizza Hut box filled with quilt blocks (every year I swear that I will push for doing the drawing in July instead of Thanksgiving, so that I have time to finish the project before it has to be put under the tree!). The blocks are from the book "Stained Glass Quilts" by Zippy Designs. I designed the "window" setting and the border myself. If you look closely, you can see a cross made by the way the blocks are set in the main part of the quilt. I finished this quilt in time to exhibit it at the Interfaith Quilters Show & Sale in Longmont Colorado; after that, I let Mom hang it in her house for a couple of months, and then had to retrieve it so it could hang in the Colorado State Capitol during the summer of 1999. It's now safely back home again, hanging in the loft of my parents' house, which used to be an old country church.
Megan's Baby Quilt (1998, 46 x 58")
My niece Megan was born in 1998 and I made this quilt for her that Christmas. It's made of pastel flannels, and is constructed of alternating 9 patch and Snowball blocks. I did have a bit more notice about needing to make this quilt, but it still had binding clips on it when I wrapped it!
Kelly's Mariner's Compass (December 1997 - March 1998, 44" x 56")
In 1997, I drew my sister-in-law Kelly's name for the Christmas drawing. She and her husband (my brother) were remodeling their rec room in a nautical theme, so I made this quilt to put on the wall. (They've since moved to another house, but the quilt still has a prominent place in their family room.) I drafted the compass using the technique in Judy Mathieson's "Mariner's Compass Quilts: New Directions" book. The corner blocks are and center of the compass are from a lighthouse fabric by P&B Textiles, and I used Snails Trail blocks to make the waves in the border.
Countryside Wreaths (December 1997, 18" x 18" each)
I modified this pattern from Lynette Jensen to use 1" finished squares. I made two wall hangings out of extra strips of red and green from another project. The country style one (with the printed background) was given to my neighbor, and the other one (with the white on white background) was a birthday gift for my mother.
Royal Shimmer (1997, 40" x 40")
In 1997, the owner of Carriage House Quilts in Berthoud, Colorado decided to hold a challenge contest. Each participant was required to use the Hoffman Kaleidoscope fabric in the Royal color way. (Many of you may remember that the Hoffman Challenge fabric that year was the same fabric but in the olive/plum/gold color way). This was my entry in the contest. I adapted a Jinny Beyer design and used many different fabrics including some lamé and a Jinny Beyer border print, and I machine quilted it using Sulky Sliver metallic thread in various colors. The combination of the lamé and quilting thread makes it shimmer!! Click here for a close-up. I was piecing this quilt the day that Princess Diana was killed, hence the name, "Royal Shimmer". This quilt was chosen as the best of show in the challenge; I also entered it in our county fair in 1998 and in the Colorado State Fair in 1999 where it was judged the best quilt for the first time the maker had entered a quilt in the fair.
Frozen Flotilla (January - May 1997, 54" x 78")
This quilt was a mystery quilt "Under Wraps" designed by Debbie Caffrey. I participated in the mystery quilt offered by Carriage House Quilts in Berthoud, Colorado in 1997. After the last step of the mystery quilt was handed out, everyone brought their completed quilt tops to the store for a month long "People's Choice" contest, which this quilt won. It was fun to see how much the design was affected just by using different fabrics. I machine quilted this quilt; the background around each of the star blocks has sailboats and dense stippling. Click here for a close-up. The border is quilted with waves, fish, anchors and ship's wheels. Many people commented on how this quilt reminds them of ice and snow because of the cool colors, so I came up with the name "Frozen Flotilla". I entered this quilt in the county fair in 1997, where it was awarded Judge's Choice.My brother visited this page and sent me a note that I need to feature the quilt rack in the above picture.... Of course, since he made it! (He drew my name the same year that I drew his wife's name in the Christmas drawing, and the custom made rack is what he gave me!!) Click here to view a close-up picture of the rack; it's made of oak, and since I knew this quilt was going to be hanging close to the ceiling, he put the rail underneath the shelf instead of on top of it.
Traditions (September - November 1997, 42" x 54")
Every year the women's organization at my church holds a holiday bazaar. In 1997, I was asked to make a quilt for the silent auction. This is the quilt that I made, the pattern is from the book "The Wonders of Christmas" by Sharyn Craig.
Teddy Bear Baby Quilt (January - July 1997, 40" x 48")
This is a baby quilt that I made for the newborn son of the music director at my church. The pattern is from the book "Fast, Fun, and Fabulous Quilts" from Rodale Press and was designed by Fabric Expressions.
Allie's doll quilt (December 1996, 18" x 24")
I made this doll quilt as a Christmas gift for my neice Alessandra. Several years before I had made an outfit for her using these fabrics, and used the scraps from that to make the doll quilt. I used this quilt to practice machine quilting with metallic thread.
Reindeer wall hanging (October - November 1996, 21" x 27")
Someone donated this wall hanging kit to the women's organization at my church. I was asked to put it together for the holiday bazaar. The lady that bought it was tickled with it -- someone watched her look at it, walk away, and then come back and snatch it off the wall like "I gotta have this!"
Mountain Pines (1992 - 1998, 24" x 28 1/2")
I took a class at The Patch Works in Longmont, Colorado from a lady named Anne Olsen, who designed this wall hanging. It uses quarter log cabin blocks. The tree trunk is sewn to the "chimney" part of the log cabin before the logs are added, and the logs are pieced with branch and background fabric first, then sewn to the block The instructor had us bring our own fabric for the logs, but then we exchanged when we were in class so everyone ended up with a good variety of fabrics for the pine trees. I joke that the trees with a bit of orange have Pine Beetle disease (a common occurrence with the pine trees in the mountains of Colorado). I finished the top, quilted it, and then for some reason put it away for a while and finally got around to binding it in 1998.
Allie's Stocking (November 1992)
Another class I took at The Patch Works was a crazy quilted stocking. This technique is similar to foundation piecing; muslin is used as the foundation and you just keep randomly slapping pieces on until the covered part of the muslin is big enough for the front of the stocking. I embellished the fabric with hand embroidery, buttons, beads, and lace, and gave this stocking to my niece Alessandra for Christmas that year.
Kari's pillow (1992, 18" x 18")
The crazy quilt technique for Allie's stocking worked so well that I decided to make a pillow top to give to my sister that same Christmas. I adapted a pattern that I found in "A Celebration of Hearts" by Jean Wells and Marina Anderson, foundation pieced the heart in sections and sewed the sections together, appliquéd the heart onto a white-on-white background, and added lace, beads, buttons, and hand embroidery for embellishment.
Wood Block Puzzle (1992, 46" x 46")
The colors for this quilt were inspired by the colors that appear in the paisley Jinny Beyer print that I used in the border. I saw this pattern and decided to make it as an exercise in working with light, medium and dark fabrics. This is the quilt that I learned to machine quilt on. I used metallic thread and quilted wood grain lines on the puzzle pieces, stitched in the ditch for the log cabin background, and then free motion quilted all along the paisley design in the border print. This was a good way to learn how to free motion quilt, because I didn't have to do any marking on the quilt. Click here for a close-up of the border quilting.
Allie's sheep (1992, approx. 40" x 50")
My niece Alessandra was born a day before my birthday in 1992. I made this quilt for her and she still uses it! I found a cute sheep print fabric, and found the pattern for the quilt in Debbie Mumm's book "Quick Country Quilting".
Quilted jacket (1991)
My sewing career began when I started in 4-H at age 8, so it's not surprising that I would combine quilting and making clothes. The pattern from Back Porch Press showed using alternating light and dark fabrics, but I decided to arrange my fabrics in a gradient from light to dark instead. I chose fabrics from the stash I had at the time, all purple, teal, blue and green, of course! The jacket is completely reversible, although most of the time I wear it with the pieced side out.
Rainbow Rascal Ripples (1991, 49" x 64")
I gave this quilt to my son David (then age 2) for Christmas. The border and backing fabric are a Hoffman teddy bear print called "Rainbow Rascals". The pattern is a double Irish chain, and each column in the chain is made of light and dark solids from each color in the rainbow.
Tumbling Star (1991, 27 1/2" x 30")
One of the early classes I took at The Patch Works in Longmont, Colorado, was a class from Donna Norris on Optical Illusions. Donna taught us a technique for making tumbling blocks without having set-in corners. Of course, being the anal person that I am (thanks, Teresa), I wasn't satisfied with making a big rectangle filled with tumbling blocks. I used them to fill a 6 pointed star shape instead, and used extra tumbling block strips in the border. A common theme in my quilts is color gradients, and this is the quilt that started it all -- the block in the middle of the star is pink, surrounded by purple, then blue, then teal, and green tumbling blocks. I also did the color gradient in the tumbling blocks in the border. The hardest parts were making the little triangle pieces along the edges of the star, and figuring out how to cut the background pieces. I also tried stippling for the first time on this quilt.
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