New pantos!

I was looking online for a baseball panto for Terri's quilt, and she liked this one best.

Since I didn't want to pay shipping for just one panto, I had to keep looking.  While looking, I learned that a friend is going to be a new grandma, so this was perfect for the as yet not even started baby quilt.  African pull toys.

Another snowflake panto! Get those winter quilts out and ready to quilt!

Dad's quilt for Lindsay

Lindsay had contacted me about making Nissen's quilt earlier in the year.  This time she and her sister needed a quilt for their father who was recently given a difficult diagnosis.  This is a small quilt, about 48x58" and about as fast of a quilt as it's possible to make.  Lindsay and her sister came to my house and sorted through my collection of "Nickel Squares".  So called because they are 5" squares.  I prompted them to choose fabrics that reminded them of their dad.  Either the color, or the print in the block.  I then sashed all the blocks with black to make a frame for them and quilted it with an edge to edge design.

This reminded them of swimming with turtles in Hawaii.

Dad loves dogs, so there are several dog fabric blocks.  There are also hearts to show how much they love him, nurses to represent both sisters whom are nurses.  What a great way to show your support of someone going through a difficult time.

Terri's baseball t-shirts

Okay, so technically they are her daughter's shirts, but Terri is the one who made them into a quilt.

And what a quilt!  Most of us take the shirts, and cut them down to a uniform size.  If necessary, build them up with extra fabrics, and maybe add sashing strips between the blocks to frame them.  Not Terri, at least not this time.  She made the shirts into blocks, or made blocks into sashing strips.  Quite amazing.  I love the checkerboard border too.

The quilting design is called "Flaming Baseballs".  Perfect on this quilt.

Green ladders by me.

This is another of the charity quilts that started out as the mystery that didn't get solved.  I spent a day sewing with friends, and decided to take this project along with me.  Plan A, prior to measuring, was to incorporate these with the little squares that were leftover.  Then I measured and realized that wasn't going to work.  (More on the little squares at another time).

 I ended up taking these assorted green rectangles of fabric and then sewing them together into strips.  When I left my friend's house I still wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, but I started to play around and decided that I liked this idea.  All the strips are different lengths, so I figured out which was the longest and added fabric to the ends to build the rest up to the same size.  All the while I was piecing this quilt top, I knew that it needed to be quilted with my Swirls board, and I love how it turned out.  I used Superior Threads Rainbows in the top, a color called "Jester".  Lots of purple and pink and many other colors.

The backing is a piece of leftover flannel from making 2 walker bags for my mom and a friend from work oh so long ago.  It was the perfect size, and great to get it out of my stash.  I know, sacrilege, but I'm not a big fan of flannel.  Don't even get me started on Minkie!

This one went to the Portland Police Sunshine Division today.  Just in time to be passed out for the holidays.

Winken, Blinken and Nod by Sharyle

 I can't say why Sharyle is making this yet, but...  She's made an attic window block to frame the panels of Winken, Blinen and Nod, then it's quilted with an edge to edge star pattern.

 You can't really see the attic window effect in a close up shot, but I also wanted to show the details.

No, the backing isn't grey, it's a perfect match of the same lime green in the front, but in Minkee fabric.  I love how the quilting design really shows on the backing.  This also gave me a chance to realize that I had completely missed quilting a 6" square in the bottom corner of the quilt.  Due to the way the pattern is quilted, I had just missed that when I was trying to not quilt off the edge of the quilt.  Back on the machine, and a quick finish in that little spot.

Reindeer by Jan

Isn't this fun?!  I love the reindeer, but have sadly erased the full shot.  I have SID around the entire deer and his ribbon, then used Glide "Military Gold" thread for the quilting in the rest of the quilt.  Swirls in the background to make you think of snow and wind, a pine needle design in the border and lots of little circles in the "ornament" that you can't see the fully.  Trust me, it's way cool!

Table runner by Jan

Jan is another customer that I have yet to meet, but I'm hopeful that soon we shall.  Here is a table runner that she mailed to me with the the dreaded "Do whatever you want" for quilting.  Okay, not dreaded, but thought provoking.  I decided to play with the quilting on this and used some different fills in all the blocks.  No quilting in the border, it is so narrow that by the time the binding is on, only minimal quilting would show.

I love how the diagonal lines in the red squares almost make a leaf shape.