Tag Archives: quilts

Show and Tell: Welcome to the North Pole

Posted on by
3

Thank you to Kari Hawkins, for sharing your wonderful quilt with us! I love the quilt and the fact that you made it 24 years ago and it is still a holiday favorite. Well done!


Thought you might like to see a few photos of my version of the North Pole quilt. I made it in 2000 as part of our local quilt guild’s Challenge. The Challenge was to make a quilt with fabric change, fabric manipulation and fabric embellishments. This quilt allowed me to do all three just fine!

It also placed in our quilt show the next year. 

My family and friends enjoy seeing this quilt every year during Christmas. It is often put on display at our guild’s Christmas party. I am a member of Heritage Quilters of Huntsville and enjoy making Piece O’ Cake quilts.

Thank you, again, Kari, for sharing your quilt and its story.

And updated version of Welcome to the North Pole is still available as an ebook. Click here to find it.

Simply Delicious Show and Tell…

Posted on by
8

Margaret Heller just finished her Simply Delicious quilt—it’s amazing!

From Margaret:

I followed the techniques taught in your books, except for the grapes and raspberries. For them I modified Karen Kay Buckley’s techniques for Perfect Ovals by laminating the front and back of the template (put the number of the template on the back side). Then I gathered the seam allowance of the grape or berry around the template, starched it/pressed it, and removed the template when it was time to sew it to the block .

I substituted blocks from the Beautiful Berries pattern for blocks from Simply Delicious so all the blocks illustrated my favorite fruits.

It was custom machine quilted by Christy Gray. (And she told me it’s the last custom quilting she will do.) I’m grateful that she quilted it for me; I doubt otherwise it would ever have been finished.

Thank you, Margaret, for sharing your lovely quilt with us all and I know you will enjoy seeing it hang in shows.

This quilt was one of our blocks of the month and the patterns are still available in a downloadable format. If you are interested, click here to find the Simply Delicious epatterns.

Show and tell…

Posted on by
6

From Julie Neuffer who wrote to say:

I saw the beautiful Anniversary Quilt that you posted a few days ago. Gorgeous!
Love love love your work!

Just returned from my latest quilting retreat last weekend and wanted to send you this pic. Took me forever to finish Fresh Picked Posies, as you can tell from the starting date, but I loved every second of it. Thank you for your wonderful work and inspiration! I’ve also got several of the Thru Grandmother’s Window blocks done. They’re very pretty. Up on my design wall and speaking to me. Hmmmm…. Best,Julie

I love it! Well done, Julie! this is a big quilt and sometimes they do take longer to finish. I love the way you improv-pieced the backgrounds. Give yourself a nice pat on the back. Thank you for sharing your quilt with us!

Click here to find the Fresh Picked Posies eBook.

Let it go…

Posted on by
11

I make quilts because I can’t not make them. But, once finished, I am more in love with the next quilt. Finished quilts tend to end up in my closet. It seems that I am not finished with the urge to tidy up because I can no longer ignore the shelves stuffed with quilts.

It began with the need to take better photos of my quilts. As I unload the shelves, I’ve found quilts that I haven’t seen in years, like this Amish pinwheel. It’s one of the few that I kept from before Linda and I started Piece O’ Cake in 1994. I had time to hand quilt back in the day!

Amish Pinwheel

I gave away most of the quilts that I made before-POC. I’ve given quilts away since then, but I kept way too many made for books and patterns. I thought that I might need them in the future! Well, the future is here and I don’t need to keep them all. What to do with the quilts that need a new home?

Several are finding new homes with my friends. It’s easier than I thought it would be to choose the right quilt for a particular person — it’s a lot like the wand choosing the wizard. Giving quilts is one of the funnest things ever. I LOVE putting a quilt-smile on a friend’s face.

I know that I will run out of quilts before I run out of friends to give them to, but that’s OK. There will be more quilts. And there are quilts that don’t fit anyone I know — those are traveling with me and will be offered for sale. One this is for sure, I’m done stuffing the closet!

Daisy

 

The Daisy quilt, above, was made for a magazine article for Rodale Press. Or maybe it was for inclusion in a book. 

Show & Tell…

Posted on by
2

I’m happy to be back home, even though it means I’m not in Hawaii. Home is indeed where the heart is.

Two very fine quilters sent photos of their quilts for me to share with you. In both cases, the applique colors shine against the black backgrounds.

MilliesGarden-JoyceLytle

Joyce Lytle wrote this about the first quilt:

In the retirement village where I live (Savannah Lakes Village) in South Carolina, we have a group that meets every week. Every 2-3 years we make a quilt, then give it to a non-profit organization in our town of McCormick to raise funds for their group. That way we do not have to sell the raffle tickets, they do. Of course we all purchase tickets and hope we win the quilt! LOL.

The binding still needs to be stitched to the back and a sleeve attached. We haven’t decided which organization will get the quilt yet, but we are sure they will be thrilled.

I agree—the winner will be thrilled. You all did a wonderful job!

StarsInGarden-RoseanneBullock

Roseanne Bullock, from Adelaide, Australia, sent the second photo. She wrote:

Have attached a photo of my version of your Stars In The Garden quilt, which I am happy to say came equal second in our exhibition jut last weekend.  No prize, but considering we had 108 quilts, hangings, etc, I feel very happy with the result.  Hope you are too!

Loved the pattern and only modified it slightly, as I was hand sewing, missed doing the hydrangea block… Did a mini stipple all around the flowers, took me two weeks!

This is a lovely quilt! I’m impressed that it only took 2 weeks for a mini-stipple :-).

I thank you both for sharing the photos of your lovely quilts. They are inspirational!