Quilts for Boston

I was looking at the Boston Modern Quilt Guild blogs and admiring the quilts they are assembling from the donated blocks when I spotted one of the blocks I donated!  Woohoo!

The blog I found the quilt on is called Dresden Lane. Laurie was nice enough to let me borrow her picture of her quilt.  (Go over and say hi to her!)  My block is the third one over in the second row (a Scrappy Star Variation).

Somehow I feel a little bit famous!

Sewing with Kids, Part Two

I made another quilt with my Kindergarten kids!  This one is for one of the Kindergarten assistant teachers.  She is having a baby in August!  We are all thrilled for her!  We are having a shower for her before work tomorrow.

Last week, I had each of the kids make their own design in a rectangle.  I used the rectangles as the outer border on the second side of the quilt (I hate to call it the back!).

The first side of the quilt is inspired by a quilt made by Amy at DuringQuietTime.  I loved the New York Beauty blocks as a sunshine.  I just enlarged the idea with more scrappy borders.  I quilted a swirl in the sun, outlined the rays, and put some swirls around the sun.  The rest of the borders were just meandered (except I wrote my name in the green border with the quilting-I don't think you can see it in the picture, though.)

This is the second side.  You can see the sun quilting and the kid's pictures.

Here are some of the kids' pictures.  It is hard to take a photo of the edge of the quilt!

This is where I wrote my name (and a heart!).

Three more days of school!

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Making Quilts with Kids

In my day job, I am a Kindergarten teacher (seven more days!).  Every year, I make quilts with my little friends.  This year, a childrens' book author, Patricia Pollaco, came to our school.  She is a fabulous storyteller.  One of the stories she told was about a quilt that each of the babies in her family was wrapped in.  The quilt had a heart on it and the part with the heart touched each of the babies.  My kids all remembered the story today!

I have been teaching for quite a few years and have made many quilts.  Some of the quilts are hanging in the hallways and classrooms of the school.  A few of them have been given to student teachers.  A few of them are now retired and live at my house.  This year, we are making two smaller quilts.  

This one is for our wonderful room mother/team mother.  She coordinated all of our parties and presents and teacher appreciation.  She is awesome and we really appreciated all of her help.  She is leaving in a few hours and will be gone for the summer in Australia.  

So we made her a little quilt to remember us by.  Each of the children contributed to the project. Some of the children got to make the sunflower with handprints. All of them got to make fingerprints and turned them into what ever they wanted to.  My co-teacher, Trish,  actually did the fingerprints with them.  She labeled each fingerprint and handprint.  I  did all of the sewing and quilting.

We presented it to her today.  I think she was pleased and touched.  

I'll miss her (and her cute son) next year!

I quilted swirls for the sky and spikes for the grass.  The applique is raw edge with quilting to hold it on.  This is a wall hanging so I didn't wash it before I gave it to her.

Ready to give!




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Crabby Baby Quilt

No, not for a crabby baby!

The couple I made this quilt for last year are now having a baby in July.  Their wedding was on the beach last year and they chose a beach theme for their nursery.  I just got back from the shower and boy did she get a lot of ocean themed gifts!  

This quilt is my interpretation of the ocean/beach theme.  I finished it at 10 am and the shower began at 11:30 (plenty of time!  Gotta love a deadline!!!)

I tried to make the beach, water and sky.  I used different quilting stitches in each color, too.  The crabs came from Patches, a local quilt store. We live in Maryland so crabs are on many items.  I ironed them on and quilted around them as I went.  


One of my favorite things about this quilt is actually the back.  I used minky so it is very soft and has a nice weight to it.  I absolutely adore how the wavy quilting and the crabs show up on the back!  So cute!

I quilted the pebbles with pebble quilting!  Ha!

 I got to use some beachy and watery fabric from my stash.  I did buy that fabric with the cute little blue crabs.

 As I was making the quilt, I cut each layer with both layers right side up on top of each other.  Then I used the curve method to sew them together by bringing the part under the foot together about an inch before you sew it.  No pins!

I did have to rip one out and try again as I must have pulled it too hard and it was a little ripply.  And I ripped out some of the quilting that was really horrible because I forgot to put down the presser foot (it is hard to tell on my machine with the darning foot-is it like this on all machines?).  Ahhh!  Adventures in sewing!

The back is not this poofy-just the light I guess.  Can you find the crabs?

I used a light blue crab as the label. Thanks to my daughter for holding the quilt!  See her cute shoes?

 I love to make baby quilts!  The good news is I have a few more to make!

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Quilt Blocks for Boston

I made three quilt blocks for Boston.  The Boston Modern Quilt guild is collecting blocks to give to survivors of the marathon tragedy. We have all been saddened and shocked by the actions of the two brothers.  Someone from my guild is collecting blocks from us tomorrow. I used the Boston Marathon colors of yellow, gray, blue, and white as requested.  I hope they can cheer someone up!

A beautiful day for a wedding!

We are having perfect Spring weather this weekend!  Just beautiful!  My whole family was at the wedding of my son-in-law's sister.  The flowers were blooming, there was a fountain gurgling, lovely green grass- just perfect! My little grandson was the ring bearer (not that they let the five month old hold the rings!) and both his parents were in the wedding.  My granddaughter made friends with the flower girl and they had a lovely time running and dancing.

I gave the newlyweds a quilt, of course.  It is my Madrona Road challenge quilt and has been done for a while but I couldn't take any good pictures of it (I was laid up for awhile).  So here it is:

Madrona Road Challenge Quilt

Side One

This is the flipside of the quilt-I actually quilted from this side.

I used some curved straight line quilting and some fun curvy fillers.

All rolled up and tied with a bow!  I remembered to label it.

I really do love having a quilt with two sides!  Sometimes the back is my favorite side!  Anyone else?

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