Baby Quilt: Denise Schmidt stairway

Even with the iPhone, I am bad at documenting the few things I actually get around to making these days. Sorry for the imperfect picture.

This is my latest quilt made for Desmond Henry, the one-month-old son of one of my best and oldest friends, Maya. The pattern is from Quilts, Baby! which I borrowed from my mom. They recommended making every-other row white but I wanted to use all of the DS Quilts patterns that I've bought from JoAnn Fabrics. I know this line is controversial, but I love it. We don't have a good fabric store around here, which I consider a major travesty, so finding great patterns at JoAnn has been wonderful. This is the second quilt I've made with these fabrics, so I'll try to photograph the earlier one.

This pattern was great. It was really fun to get everything cut out and then laid out in piles in order. Putting it together was addictive. I would finish one row and then think, "Ok, just one more." I was working on it while another friend was in labor and I was anxiously awaiting updates, so I was happy to have something to occupy my mind and my time. Anyway, it's a great pattern and I love the way it turned out. I can't wait to send it to Maya.

My Round Robin Blocks

My Wednesday sewing circle recently got together to reveal our round-robin blocks that we made for each other.  We started this project in March.  Each of us put together guidelines for a 12-inch finished block, made one block ourselves to start our quilts, then passed the boxes along.  There were 11 of us in the exchange, so we each ended up with 11 blocks.  We all got our boxes back this week at our holiday get-together, and we all got to see all the block sets.

Everyone had unique guidelines - some people chose a fabric or two, some chose a theme or color scheme, and some chose the same block to be made in different fabrics.

My blocks were designed around this focus fabric, the bird print on the left. I found this in Peapod Fabrics and just fell in love with the colors and designs of the birds. I asked everyone to use at least one piece of the bird fabric in their block. Then I made this simple block, with the birds framed in the black, pink and gray fabrics.

Here are the blocks I got back from my talented and imaginative friends!  Two people made birdhouse blocks, framing the birds, and two used flying geese motifs...

 ...the beautiful Ohio star is from a friend who is also from Ohio and there are blocks with names like "Darting Birds" and "Hovering Hawks", and  one block was an intricate paper-pieced block (upper right).

 Some people used mostly the fabrics I provided, and others incorporated new fabrics, like these Australian fabrics forming the points of this star below.  And the bottom block is a color variation of my original one, to round out the cycle.

Everyone was really pleased with their blocks and we all agreed that it was fun to follow the guidelines for each block and try different things.  Now I will make another block (or maybe more) and figure out how to put them together into a quilt top.  Our goal is to have our quilt tops done by Easter 2012.

I won!

I'm getting hooked on browsing quilting and sewing blogs lately, and it's paid off!  I entered a giveaway on the blog of "Quilt Dad", aka John Adams, and I won a fat quarter bundle of these fabrics.   All I had to do was comment on a post. I think I'll be entering more giveaways now!

So, what should I make with these fabrics??

Design Inspiration from LA

 The last time Zac was in San Francisco, he said he'd like me to make him a quilt!  So we were talking about possible designs, and then Dan and I were in LA to visit him a couple weeks ago, and we all went to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) to see the exhibit "California Design, 1930-1965".  It had all kinds of cool things from the time period, from the first Airstream trailer to clothes, furniture, and a full mock-up of an Eames design house.  Several of the textiles made us think about possible quilt designs.

This one is an Eames textile that we liked.  I could imagine making quilt squares with the Xs and dots and uneven borders.  Zac suggested using large blocks and making the quilt just 20 big squares - we're working on that idea.

This is the book on the exhibit that was for sale in the gift shop.  Zac likes the solid-color stripes.  I don't remember seeing this in the exhibit, but apparently it was the cover of a Frank Sinatra album!  It could make a nice quilt, just using the strips of solid color fabrics.

Wouldn't both of these make great quilts?  And I don't even have a picture of Zac's other favorite item -  the bathing suit with the giant lobster on it!

Two little quilts

I recently finished two small quilts, both made from patterns from Elizabeth Hartman's blog Ohfransson.com. Hers is one of my favorite blogs. It's full of ideas and free patterns and tutorials for her designs, most of which are bright, modern quilts.

This is a baby quilt made with her modified foundation piecing technique for this spider-web design. I wanted to try it, and I used scraps in blue, white, and green. Frankly, the technique is a bit labor-intensive. I'm not sure I would make this design with this technique again, but I made enough blocks for this baby quilt - it's only 36x45 inches finished.

This is another of her designs that she calls Crazy Nine Patch. (The back of the quilt is above - it shows the individual block better) It's fun to make - you layer 9 different fabrics, make a cut through all of them, shuffle the order of one stack of pieces, then sew two different pieces together. Then you keep doing that, till each block has one patch of each of the 9 fabrics. I put mine together in her lattice arrangement, and had three extra blocks for the back of the quilt.

This quilt started out as a baby quilt when Emily was pregnant, with a group of the gold, gray, and white prints. Then we found out that Russ would be a boy (!) and I thought that some of the yellow prints were too girly. I needed more fabrics and added the greenish gold to the mix and then decided to use the gray solid (rather than white) to keep the whole thing softer-looking. I hand-quilted it with gold perle cotton and big stitches. I really like it - now I wish I had made it bigger! It's 40 x 56 inches.

College Dorm Room Bunk Bed Hangy Thingies

When I was in Cleveland, Kathy and I made this for Cary's bunk bed in her dorm room. Her bed is up so high, there's no dresser or nightstand or anything to set things on. So if she's reading in bed, there's nowhere to put a book, unless she climbs down. She didn't like my idea of making a basket-and-pulley contraption like in Rear Window.

So Kathy went online and found some instructions and patterns for these. Using them as a guideline, we made up this pattern on our own. The background is corduroy; the pockets are made from an old pair of jeans of Kathy's, and the pocket lining is a really pretty polka-dot. We used all of Kathy's fabric and supplies (just Velcro, thread, and iron-on interfacing to give it strength) so it didn't cost anything.

Cary loved it.

So I went home and made another one for her roommate, Claire.

I had trouble wrapping my head around how to make a lined pocket with a little band across the top, so I cheated a little bit and did some hand-sewing. But it looks fine. The background fabric is black with gray treble clefs, which I thought was perfect for a music student.

I told Cary we could start a small business making these and selling them to dorm students who are trapped in high bunk beds in dorms. :)

Kathy's Wedding Ring quilt

I was going through my pictures from our recent trip to Ohio and found this one. It's from a meeting of Kathy's quilt guild (I forget the name!). They met the first night I was at Kathy's so I got to go along with her. And I got to be the photographer!

Kathy is hiding behind this quilt, holding it up! It's another in her Double Wedding Ring series. She made one for Emily and Brian when they got married, one for Rob and Sarah for Sarah's shower, and then this one for a quilt show that her guild is doing. Each one is in a different color scheme and they are all beautiful!