More Mini Quilts

I think I will continue with the topic of miniature quilts started in my last post. What I really like about making mini quilts is that they are a small project and don't require the commitment that a large quilt does. That does not mean that they are easy and can be made in very little time at all. Small quilts can be more challenging than large quilts due to the tiny pieces and can take a considerable amount of time to make. This mini quilt was made from a kit that I bought at a quilt show. I think it was the Lancaster, PA show in about 2003. It was one of the first quilts I made on my new Janome 6500 in 2004.

I liked the antique reproduction fabrics in the quilt as well as its scrappy look. The blocks are 4 inch blocks, which makes some of the pieces fairly small. I made these blocks by using accurate cutting and accurate piecing. When making blocks this small you need to be really accurate. Being off by 1/8 inch in a 12 inch block may not be too bad, but being off by that much in a 4 inch block can be a disaster. It was really easy to be accurate when sewing with my new machine and the 1/4 inch foot that came with it. I also learned to slow down when sewing to try too be more accurate.

My favorite book on the topic of making miniature quilts is called Small Scale Quilt Making by Sally Collins. Her quilts are totally amazing. You can see her quilts on her website at http://www.sallycollins.org/ Be prepared to be blown away by her quilts. If you saw a photo of one of her quilts and no one told you it was a miniature quilt you would think that it was a full size quilt. Her choice of colors and fabrics is great, too. Sally usually hand quilts her miniatures. I usually machine quilt mine. In fact, mini quilts are good to learn how to machine quilt on since they are not too difficult to move around. This is much easier than moving a large quilt around.

Chris

Crazy About Mini Quilts (or just plain crazy?)

For about 5 years I was really into making miniature quilts. A lot of the quilts were made for teacher gifts while my daughter was in elementary school. Most of these I made using paper piecing techniques. I used to say that I was the queen of paper piecing since I did so many. Probably the most challenging of these quilts I made for my daughter for Christmas in 2000. She saw a photo of the quilt in Miniature Quilt Magazine and fell in love with it. I designed it with Electric Quilt software. We named it "Kelsey's Quilt Shop."

The overall size of the quilt is 12 inches by 12 inches. The log cabin quilt that is hanging on the wall of the shop is only 2 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches and has 24 log cabin blocks in it. Each block is about 1/2 square and has 9 pieces. My daughter grew up and her tastes changed. The quilt now hangs in my sewing room.

I have gotten away from making mini quilts, but think I think I might be motivated to get started again. I recently joined a yahoo group called Small Quilt Talk. The group focuses on making small quilts. Some of the beautiful quilts I have seen on this site has been very inspiring and have me excited to make some more small quilts.

Chris

Making a Photo Transfer Quilt (well actually 3 of them)

Photo transfer quilts can make really great gifts. When I was trying to find a pattern to make one for my husband for Father's day I wanted to find something more unusual than just lining up some photos in a straight line and sewing sashing around them. When I saw the pattern for a Trip Around the World incorporating photos I knew that was the pattern I was looking for.

My daughter helped pick out photos of her and her dad. I used Photoshop to edit them and printed them out with my ink jet printer on fabric called Printed Treasures. My daughter helped to arrange the blocks and made the label for the back of the quilt. She called the quilt "Daddy and Me." My husband was really surprised and pleased with the quilt and said that it was the best gift he ever received.

I made my MIL a similar quilt, but used reds and tans instead of blues and yellows. Unfortunately I did not take a photo of her quilt and since I made it, all the photos have faded a lot. We have not been able to figure out why this has happened since it does not really get much sun exposure. All I can figure is that it has something to do with the fact that she lives near the ocean and the constant humidity and salt air has reacted with the ink jet inks. To top it off the photos faded in a matter of months! The other 2 photo transfer quilts have not faded at all. I did contact the company, but they had no explanation. They sent me some free fabric to replace the photos, but that was not really helpful. It is very disappointing since these quilts are a lot of work. My MIL still has it hanging, but it looks terrible and bothers me every time I see it. I will have to make her some other quilt to hang in its place....nothing with photo transfers though.

I made the same kind of quilt for my Dad for his 80th birthday. It was really hard picking photos for his quilt since there were so many to choose from. Here is a photo of my Dad receiving his quilt.



We also got my Dad a gag gift for his birthday. It was a velvet painting of a pink dog. For years he used to joke that he was going to buy us a velvet painting because he knew we hated them. I had to go onto ebay to find one. I bought it from a lady that I think was insulted when I told her I was buying it for a gag gift because she thought it was great art. I think quilts are great art, but velvet paintings....don't think so!




Chris

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Now that I am back at school and teaching again I am inclined to think about what I accomplished this past summer. Summer is usually when I get some quilting and reading done. This summer I read only 2 books because I was busy working on a quilt for my Mom's 80th birthday. The books I read were Pillars of the Earth and World Without End by Ken Follett. World Without End is the sequel to the Pillars book. I had read the Pillars book years ago so I wanted to read it again before I read the sequel. Both books are quite large at around 1000 pages, but I love both of them. I love historic fiction and these are two of my favorites.

So what kind of quilt did I make for my Mom's 80th? I decided to make a quilt of my parent's house. I did not think it would take too long, but it pretty much took the entire summer and was more difficult than I thought it would be. These are some pictures of the finished quilt.

When my Mom received the quilt she was really surprised. I think this photo is my favorite photo of the quilt. When people at the party saw the quilt they thought it was a painting. When I told them it was a quilt they looked at me with a puzzled look on their faces. I guess most people don't think of quilts beyond traditional patchwork quilts.

This quilt looked so much different when I first started making it. This is a photo of what it looked like not far into the process. At this point I was almost going to pack it in an get her something else for a gift since it did not look too good at the beginning. So I guess this shows that you have to keep going when making a quilt like this.



So you might ask if the quilt looks anything like the house. Here is a photo of the house so you judge how well I did. I decided to make a spring scene and my Dad sent me photos of the tree in front of the house in the spring. I sent photos back and forth to my Dad to get his feedback. He designed the house so I did not want to mess up. I loved his comment to me, "Don't be so hard on yourself." I should take that advise more often.



And yes, that is a cat in the window on the quilt. The cat is no longer around, but used to sit in the window all the time and make my Mom crazy.

The quilt was named "Grandma's House."

Chris

Bagpiping Party Today

I will be out at a bagpiping party today. My husband, Drew, took up piping about 5 years ago. He talked about doing it all of his life so my daughter and I got him started one Christmas by buying him a chanter (the part of the bagpipes that you finger to play the tunes). I found him a group to take lessons with and eventually he got good enough to buy his pipes from Scotland. He was asked to join a band called St. Ann's of Hampton and has now played a ton of parades. He has even played in the famous St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City four times now.

When he first started playing in parades, I went to all of the parades. Those parades in March can be really cold and sometimes we have even had snow for them....brrrrr. Now I only go for the NYC parade. This past March it was beautiful and warm for once.

He practices almost every night so I get treated to bagpipe music everyday. My daughter hates the music so is happy when she is away at school so she does not have to hear it! She claims that one of the reasons she did not want to go to Carnegie Mellon University was because they have bagpipers there and she would still have to hear piping while being away at college. I don't think she hates it as much as she claims. He is good at the pipes now, but it was pretty bad when he was first learning. I have often said it was like hearing a dying cow when he first started. Our cat did not appreciate it when he first started piping either.

So in my family we have diverse interests when it comes to our hobbies. I am into quilting, my husband is into piping and my daughter is into photography. I cannot interest my daughter in quilting and my husband cannot interest her in piping. Believe me we have tried. She has been a big help to me when I have design issues in my quilts, but she is not the least bit interested in doing it herself. She did start a double Irish chain quilt for her boyfriend once. She was really into it when she first started sewing it, but I ended up finishing it so she could give it to him for a gift.

The tall handsome piper close to the camera in the photo is my husband. I just realized that his Mom is in the crowd on the sidewalk in the white jacket. The question he is asked most at parades is if he wears anything under his kilt. He wears shorts. Apparently it is called "going regimental" if you wear nothing at all under the kilt. He says it is way too cold and way too windy to go regimental for most of the parades!

Chris

Halloween All Year Round

Hanna is here and we are having a lot of rain. Thank goodness the winds are not too bad. We really need the rain since we hardly had any all summer so I guess we should not complain.

In my previous post I mentioned that we have a Halloween quilt hanging on our wall even though it is not Halloween. From a distance it just looks like a scrap quilt and does not really look like Halloween quilt at all. If you look at the quilt up close you can see that it has Halloween fabrics in it and a quilted spiderweb in the borders.

This is one of the first quilts I made when I first got my Janome 6500 4 years ago. I had a stash of Halloween fabrics that I had collected from fabric sales after Halloween. I thought the quilt would use up a lot of fabrics from my stash, but I have enough to make a couple more quilts!

We do like Halloween in our house so I am in no rush to make another quilt to hang in this location. With my daughter away at school I don't look forward to Halloween as much as when she was young and I used to make her a costume. I probably won't do as much decorating as I usually do. I have another quilt to hang as we get closer to Halloween, but you will have to wait until October to see that one!

Chris

Waiting for Hanna

We are waiting for Tropical Storm Hanna to arrive in NJ today. I think I should save some maps and satellite images so I can use them in class on Monday. When crazy things are going on with the weather it gives me a lot to talk about in my Meteorology class.

I guess I should start this blog with one of the first quilts that I ever made. I made this quilt about 20 years ago when I pretty much knew nothing about quilting. I knew how to sew because I had done that since high school, but quilting was just something I read about and decided to try. This quilt has hung on our wall for 20 years, but I recently gave it to my SIL, Denise. It never had a name for those 20 years...now it is called Denise's Quilt. Why did I give it away after so many years? Denise has always loved this quilt. Every time she came to our house she commented how much she loved the quilt. I decided to give her the quilt last Christmas. I did not expect the reaction that I got. She started to cry. We hung the quilt on her wall this year on Easter. The photo is me in front of the quilt hanging in it's new location. Apparently she tells everyone that comes to her house the story of the quilt and she sits at her dining room table so she can look at the quilt as she has her meals. She wrote me the most wonderful thank you note that I will treasure forever.

Why does Denise love the quilt so much? She loves that when you look at it, you can see different patterns. It was basically the quilt that I learned to quilt on. I did not know anything about rotary cutters and traced and cut out each piece by hand. I did not know that you are supposed to press seams to one side and I pressed all seams open. The quilting stitches are irregular, but all that does not matter to Denise...she loves it just the way it is.

So what did I hang on the wall in it's place? We now have a Halloween scrap quilt hanging there. We love Halloween in our house so this quilt will hang year round until I make another quilt to take it's place. Will post the Halloween quilt in my next blog.

Chris