EOCQ-Gallery

"Flags" for Jody's mom's birthday

Jody made this fun quilt for her mom for her birthday. Jody shared with me that her mother was born in July. Same month as me, so I asked the date. Same date. Uh oh, the year? Yep, we were born on the same day.

Hard to see the quilting design, but it's perfect. Just a simple "S" curve that goes in rows of 2 across the quilt. Representative of the flags blowing in the wind.

Marni's baby quilt by Josette

Lucky little Marni gets a quilt from her grandma Josette. Quilted with the Modern Squares panto. Great block design. I think that's what I'll do for my next charity quilt.

I love the bumblebees in the border.

Cole's ski bibs made into a "t-shirt" quilt.

Another new one for me. Kim, Cole's mom, brought me 7 of his ski bibs from high school, one sweatshirt, and his letter from West Linn High School. I'd never done bibs before, and the only concern was the narrowing at the shoulders and the neck. I appliqued them to some white background, and it worked great!

Kim also told me that lower your bib number indicates a higher ranking in your league. So, his first year, he was ranked 61st, but climbed up to #15. Well done!

Finished "Wizard of Oz" by Michael

The completed quilt.

The outer edge. Usually, I write pretty detailed instructions as to how to quilt a quilt. Sometimes these are simple "Use this panto graph", "____ free hand design". But the customer has (hopefully) a pretty good idea of what their quilt will look like when it's finished. Here's what I wrote on Michael's check in sheet. "Beth to play. Glide threads throughout. Angular designs in outer border." Let me point out that Michael has been bringing me quilts for many years now, and I think that he's trusting of my skills. I would NEVER do something like that for a new customer. We've got to establish a relationship first. I do love how the outer edge turned out though. Not only is the it the place where you can really see the quilting, I just like how it looks. I really wanted to use red thread in the bobbin for Ruby Slippers, but I also knew that any tension issues would show with that, so I went with neutral grey.

It's the Emerald City! Just some stitching lines that sweep up towards the cneter.

Dorothy's ruby slippers and her gingham dress above the Witches hat. I love how the beginning of the yellow brick road surrounds the red poppy fields, and makes it look like eyes.

Here's the full yellow brick road.

I'm not sure what the grey parts represent, but I still love them and the center star. I believe that Michael said that he is sending this one to Sister's for the quilt show, and I hope that they will display it low enough that people can see the piecing in this. It's amazing!

Michael's explanation.

"It’s just my own interpretation of the story/movie, from the center out: it starts in sepia and then the clouds and storm rolls in, which leads to colorful flowers (Munchkinland where the color first appears in the movie), then the yellow brick road that goes all the way through the woods and the poppy fields to Emerald city, with Dorothy and the witch going round and round. The gray represents the witches castle, opposite of the Emerald City."

"Wizard of Oz" by Michael

This quilt is in two postings because I took some "before" photos that I wanted to share. Above, is the unquilted quilt from the front. Pretty cool, I think.

And a close up of the center star.

Michael does paper piecing, where you actually stitch the quilt fabric to a piece of paper. Each piece of the pattern is marked with a number, and you piece it starting at #1 and going on. I honestly think I see numbers 112 and up in this photo. This is just one of the 6 "yellow brick road" blocks. This doesn't include the other blocks in the quilt.

Baby quilt by Lisa

Lisa is a new customer. Her friend was married last year, and is expecting her first baby soon. Lisa chose these fabrics which are the same colors as her friends wedding, then I quilted it with the Modern Squares panto.

"But I miss them too." for Randall, by me.


This quilt started after I showed my darling husband, Randall, Toby's quilt. His comment when I told him that it would be going to the Humane Society? "But I miss him too." I changed this to missing "Them" too because I found several of our former pups in the fabrics used in this quilt.

This has to be Toby as a puppy

Marshall was a Corgi

Here's our Emma girl

A shot of the quilting.

Two puppy quilts by me.

Wouldn't you think that as a quilter, I'd be better at counting blocks? Seemingly the answer there is "No." I had made Randall's quilt, but then found these leftover blocks. In addition, I'd recently heard that the Portland Police had to lose one of their K-9 officers.

I made this one first, with the plan to give it to the police. Loved the puppies on newsprint fabric for the background.

Then I found 5 more blocks from Randall's quilt! Good grief. I can't believe that the 9 blocks in these 2 quilts are the same, as is the background fabric, because they ended up looking so different. I think that I quilted them both with the "Flopsy" panto, and then gave them to the K-9 unit.

Mystery by me.

Sadly, I don't recall the name of the novel that this quilt came from, but it was the last of the Barbara Graham mysteries. I'm still hoping she'll write more. In my head, she can whip out a novel in the same amount of time it takes for me to whip out a quilt top.

I quilted this one on March 24, which would have been my dad's birthday. I did my usual look around for police officers to give it to, but there weren't any where I was looking. Then I drove to Newberg, OR for an errand, and found an officer parked with his radar gun. I waved at him as I pulled in to park near him, reached over to pull out the letter that I included to explain the quilt, and by the time I got the car door open, he was after a speeder. Drat. Bet the person who got the ticket wishes that I had gotten there a few minutes earlier too.

I'm on my way home, one more stop to make. As I was driving down the street, I saw a parked patrol car. Pulled in ahead of him, and went "stalking" the officer. Found 2 others parked nearby, but they must be on break. Tracked three officers down in the middle of their lunch. I apologized for interrupting them, but then gave them the quilt. I so loved the look of surprise on their faces. It just makes my day to do that. Thank you to all officers.

Leigh's little houses.

These are so sweet! "Houses in a row where flowers grow, Hearts show and Love Flows... There's no place like home!:

Some of the houses got siding or shingles on the roofs. Others, like this one, received a background fill.

Here I just used the plaid stripes in the tree to follow for the quilting.

The Palm tree is the one that really got me started on doing some quilting in the applique.

Native American (#1) by Leigh


Gotta love this. When Leigh dropped this quilt off she says "I don't really like it. I'm making another one." When I pulled this out for her to see today she says "I love it!" Amazing what a difference quilting can do. I should have asked her to name all of the animals, but I'll see what I can try to figure out. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am. As with all of her quilts, all hand appliqued wool. Amazing.

Haven't a clue.

I am guessing a Thunderbird?

Coyote?

Must be a whale.

Nope.

No way.

Huh uh.

Uh oh

I'll do better on the next quilt!

So basically I can potentially name 2 of the animals in the quilt. Leigh, you'd better jump in and tell us what we're looking at!

I asked Leigh if she could let us know the animals, and here is her response.
"You are sooo funny!! Hey, I went through the pictures and came up with the following animals: top left is a Robin, then the head of a serpent, then a wolf,.... Can't remember the next row but the other animals were a grizzly, two eagle heads, Thunderbird, whale, and that is what I remember. You're right, the next quilt the animals are easier to identify!!"