Project: Finishing a Grandmother's Quilt

This is the first time I've been asked to finish a project. I was contacted by a friend about their grandmother passing a while back and leaving a quilt top. She asked if I could get in contact with her family member who had the quilt top and see if we could come up with a way to finish this for their families to enjoy and remember their grandma. So, for the first time, this project is not wholly my own but I got the opportunity to finish it with the quilting. Here is the quilt top:

It's about a queen sized quilt. We decided on the middle color as the backing and binding color:

And here was my rough sketch for how I was going to quilt it: a pattern of some kind in the cream/white areas and then straight lines in the patches of little squares:

We found this floral design that we chose to be the middle design 

(instead of actual circles like in the picture above this one):

I sewed the backing pieces together and basted the layers all together.

Then, I started in on the straight lines/squares and in the middle of the quilt to keep everything flat.

When I finished all the squares, I did a little happy dance:

I went to work on making the stencil for the flower that would go in the other blocks:

And traced them on with washable marker:

Once I started free-motion quilting the flowers, things started speeding up (back view):

Again, this is a queen sized quilt to laying it out was a fun task ;)

(back view all quilted):

I trimmed it up:

Bound the quilt with the same fabric as the backing and got it in the wash. I loved looking at the finished result up close (using color catchers to get the washable marker out):

Here's a finished all washed and dried view (front):

Back:

This quilt was in time for fathers day and happy tears were shed.  What a great opportunity and experience.

Project: To bring some comfort part 2

As you can guess, this is a continuation of sorts from the last post. Here is the second quilt I decided I could make for this family:

I decided I would cut this layer cake into 5" squares and 

then when I dissected it, it was just a simple 9 patch. 

I think the only "hard part" for this quilt was putting the like 

colors together to make the 9 patch work well. So I started and pinned it up on the design wall:

I was running out of room so I only pinned up the ones with the colors and the white block in the middle (having two quilts going at once is a little space consuming on the walls):

  

I then just sewed the nine patches up pressing seams to the dark side (also that helped when I was putting blocks together so the seams would line up and nest with one another):

It was slowly taking shape :)

Once all the nine patches were sewn together, I sew the rows of 4 together and then the 5 rows together.

I chose to go very simple and modern for the quilting on this one- straight lines on either side of the edges of the blocks. I trimmed it up and this is how it looked (courtesy of my husband holding it up so I could get a good picture of it):

I found a red fabric I had and knew it would be the perfect binding on this quilt to really give it a pop!

(before wash)

After wash:

Final size: apporx 54"x 64"

I hope these quilts are of some comfort to these girls.

Project: To bring some comfort part 1

My husband had sent me a text during the day that a co-worker had passed leaving behind two young daughters. He wondered if I could make a quilt for each of the girls. I hopped right on that and found simple but beautiful quilts I wanted to make and had some fabric I've been anxious to use.
Here is the first one:

The fabrics I had was what is called a layer cake, which means they are precut 10" squares. Doing my math, I decided that each of the long strips were going to be 5"x10" and the sashing in between was going to be 2.5" strips. The fabric I used is called "Whisper" that I bought from Missouri Star Quilt Company:

So, I cut each 10" square in half once and put them in a pile:

Penny LOVED to hand me pieces as I pinned them up on the design wall (without the sashing strips yet):

The next step was to sew each row together going vertically in preparation for the long sashing strips. Then I pinned up the sashing strips and started to sew 1 sashing strip to 1 row of the printed fabric.

After that, I sewed each row with a sashing strip to the one next to it and so on until they made a beautiful quilt top:

I had the right size cotton sheet in a beautiful purple that I decided to use as the backing for this quilt. I spray basted all three layers together and then traced the stipple stencil all over the quilt:

Then came the free-motion quilting :)

I wasn't always perfectly on the lines but stayed in the same close area.

Once the quilting was all done, I trimmed up the quilt and prepped it for binding. I had a lot of extra pieces (5"x10") and chose to cut them into 2 1/2" strips and sew them together (there was almost double the amount I needed). I went ahead and did a straight line for the binding to keep it simple:

And I LOVE the way it turned out.

These are pre-wash photos (so you'll still see the marker from the stencil):

Then, into the wash it went! All the marker came out (thanks to my color catcher sheet).

(excuse the mess...)

Final size: apporx 54"x 64"

Next quilt is on the next post....