Katy and Ryan's Wedding Quilt

My friend's daughter got married this weekend near Richmond, Virginia.  We went down to Charlottesville on Friday and toured Montpelier, got up Saturday and wandered around Charlottesville.  They were having a farmer's market and they have a nice pedestrian mall with little shops to wander around in. 

Here is my hubby with a bedazzled couch we found 

on our wanderings:

We drove over to Mechanicsville Saturday afternoon for the wedding.  It was lovely and I cried through the whole thing! I made a quilt to give the bride and groom (who I don't know very well-I am good friends with her mom) and I took some pictures of the process along the way.

So, when I think of making a quilt for someone, I make a few sketches and try to imagine what they would like and what I am capable of making (ha!).  In this case, I wasn't sure what the couple would like.  I spent a few days second guessing myself.  I even sewed some squares together, thinking maybe I should try to be more traditional, not everyone likes modern.

But in the end, I went with modern.  I hope they like it.  I hope they love it.  But if they only use it for picnics or throw it in the guest bedroom, I am okay with that.

 Here is the front of the finished quilt.  It is 72 inches by 60 inches. Big enough to snuggle under but not really bed sized.

I went with one of my favorite color schemes: yellow and gray.

Finished!

 Here is my original sketchbook with the math notations so I could figure out how much fabric to cut.  I settled on a giant improv star.

I cut big pieces of both colors and started sewing.  It took me a few days to get the top done.  About midway through, after I rejected using the totally unrelated squares from above, I figured out the back.  So I pieced that as I was finishing up the front. I chain piece as much as possible.

I lost my design wall when I lost my sewing room (my son moved back home) so here is the quilt on my living room floor.

I actually finished both the top and the back at about the same time, which is a new one for me and quite nice.  It meant that I was ready for the next step.

I did something else out of order (for me) and that is I made the binding next!  I had some wonderful yellow stripes that worked out perfectly-I had just enough!  I made it before the basting and quilting.

After pondering the quilting design, time (or lack of time) won out.  I quilted a meandering loop-de-loop all over the quilt.  Then I popped that already made binding on.  Tada!  Done days ahead of time!  (Also never happens!)

I took the quilt with us on the trip with big ideas of taking great pictures at a historical place but.... of course I left it until the parking lot at the reception!  My nice friends help me take the pictures.  

Done!

Best wishes to Katy and Ryan!

My friends Sherry and Paul held the quilt up for me!

Back

Front of the quilt.  I turned the rectangle near the top left into the label.  I quilted their names , the date, and my name there.

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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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