This is the quilt I finished for my sister to celebrate her daughter's 25th birthday. Below is a photo of what my niece's puppy did to it. Luckily there were scraps available and I was able to splice in a section of batting and create a new block and backing. Now to replace the quilting!!

Another T-Shirt Quilt

Today I mailed the second of a series of quilts to a family who lost their Wife/Mom/Sister. This one consists of shirts to commemorate trips to Hawaii. There were so many with flip flops on them that I could almost make an entire quilt with them! The quilt pattern I used was, of course, "Flip Flops". I look forward to seeing the next batch!

This is my most recent T-shirt quilt creation. The owner of these shirts collected them on trips she made with her husband. Sadly, she passed away 2 years or so ago. I'm hoping the quilt is a comforting reminder of the adventures they shared.

I made this table setting for my sister, Lori, who is an avid gardener, and loves sunflowers. The fabric is a beautiful batik which I quilted as a whole cloth piece with an allover sunflower design. I cut it into placemats and trivets, then bound them as usual. After Christmas, Lori called and said "You know what would be really nice is matching napkins". So, back to Poppins to buy the remainder of the bolt!!

Here, after a considerable absence, is an update on what I've been doing. I took an extended break from quilting over the summer to take a trip to the Yukon and Alaska, (I know, that doesn't account for the period from my last post to this one), and, the only explanation I can give is that it seems I either have time to quilt or time to blog about it, not both. One of the things I have been playing around with is T-shirt quilts. It's popularly believed that it's necessary to fuse some form of stabilizer to t-shirt knits to make them manageable, and sashing is required for the same reason. I was looking around the 'net for ideas and came across a site "Too Cool T-Shirt Quilts". Andrea Funk has made hundreds of quilts using a unique method,which uses neither stabilizer nor sashing, and has written an ebook that's available to purchase. I did so and couldn't wait to try it out, and the attached photo shows the result. It is challenging to work with the knit fabrics, but I like the result. It does take more shirts using this technique, but a definite plus is the ability to use different sized motifs to advantage, rather than, say, put a 4" picture into a 12" square block because all the blocks are that size. The sashing method allows a few blocks to look like more, if the number is not enough to make a usable sized quilt.

I just finished quilting this one for my Niece's 25th birthday! As it happens, her 25th was last year, Feb.20,2012. Thus the label!! Her Mom, my sister, really wanted it in time for her birthday last year but we all know what can happen. The back is a beautiful wide batik that is part of the same collection as the greenish one on the front. We wanted a label, but as the quilt is quite reversible, it had to be subtle. My friend Brandy made a thermofax screen and screen printed on a scrap of the backing. It's there in the lower right corner but it doesn't mar the look of the one piece back.

This photo was taken with the local high school textiles class just before Christmas. Their teacher, Marnie Mennell, called and asked if I'd be willing to quilt the class project, a quilt meant for the Women in Need Society. I said "absolutely!" I love to encourage the younger generation to take up quilting (creating with fabric in any form) and this was a great way to contribute.