Cspoonquilt

I almost forgot, I made a Halloween theme quilt last week!  Well top that is ...and I would've had it quilted by today but I had a 7 hr car ride home yesterday and a mountain of mail to slog through so the quilting had to wait.    I know it's pretty basic but it was really just to show off those cute little scary halloween monsters!  Anywho,  Happy Halloween everyone! cheers, CW

I was looking through some old pictures and found a picture of an earlier version of Martha Washington's 'Smithsonian' top(see 10-20-12 blog).  This is the second version I made.  I was really glad I took these pics 'cause I gave that quilt away to a friend who has since moved.  You can see it really looks 'modern' when you use wild fabrics like this.  It was fun making but once I was finished I thought 'where will I put it?!'  But it turned out to make a great gift for my friend 'cause he is kind of a wild guy, so it was a good fit!  I used a Dia De Los Muertos fab instead of toil.  Love that fabric, so campy! I used an off-white cotton flannel sheet for the backing. With all the different colored threads in the quilting it made a nice pattern on the back.  I told my friend when he gets tired of the craziness on the front he can just flip it over for a rest!  It's all good!  cheers, Claire W.

I could go on and on about medallion quilts.  The layouts are infinite.  Here's a few more to support that notion...  This top was inspired by the wonderful repro fab. in the center.  Another fabric I was loathe to cut up.  The center of this quilt was a bunch of leftover 4 patches.  Not enough to make another quilt but enough to make an interesting center.  Another 'theme' quilt made for my son during his baseball days.  Go Giants!  Sorry I just had to work that in!  The center of this one was another leftovers thing.  Oh my, another Paris quilt!  Actually this pre-dates the one in the last post, but the center fabric is that same fab. The layout is similar to the base ball quilt.  I have used that layout a number of times. See what I mean about versatility?  I think they are alot of fun to design and not to difficult to construct.      If you are wondering about how to get th...

I recently purchased Gwen Marston's new book "Liberated Medallion Quilts".  I am a great admirer of Gwen's work and I knew this new book would be a great treat!  It is filled with lots of wonderful medallion quilts by Gwen as well as a whole slew of very talented quilters.  But I was really surprised to find a picture of one of my all time favorite medallion quilts right across from the introduction, a quilt top made by Martha Washington which is part of the Smithsonian collection.  I made a replica of this quilt a few years back;  not-with-standing the difficulty in finding appropriate vintage prints and minus the last border (I'm still searching for the right print) here it 'tis... The inspiration to make this replica, I hope, is self evident?!  It is a cool design!  When I first saw the picture of this quilt I was just idly flipping pages.   I stopped for a closer look and when I read the details I was really in awe.  I had not consid...

Have you ever found a strip in your scrap bag that you thought was really great;  but, alas there was only one lonely strip. Not really enough to do anything with didn't really go with the other scraps, so what to do?  That polka dot was so great I just decided to pull from my new bargain stack of FQs ( see 9-19 post ) to make something featuring the colors in that strip. Really simple, quick and easy, 9 FQs,  and a strip.   48" x 58" Here are some quick tricks to make this super quick and easy project. - Cut the "theme" strip (44" x 3.25") into 3.25" squares (makes 13) but you only use 12. - Choose 4 coordinating FQs  for the middle section and cut into strips using the long side = 4 - 4.25" x 22" strips.  There will be a small leftover strip. - Note:  Not all FQs are created equal.  If a particular yardage measures less than 44" you might come up a tad short on your FQ.  This happened to me (see 7th pic down ...

My local guild www.PVQA.org  has the nice custom of making Thank You blocks for all the chief board members each year.  Many years ago when I was the Programs chairman I asked for Orphan blocks as my Thank You blocks.  I rec'd over 100 blocks!  Orphan blocks give you a certain freedom to experiment. Solving setting and composition problems can be fun and instructive. Here are a couple of quilts from that collection where the blocks were close enough in style but all slightly different in size.  (It is square it's just hanging funny) In this group of blocks (all donated by one person, thus the continuity in color) I put the largest block in the center, the smallest blocks on the sides and the matching blocks on the corners. Then I cut the sashing in between to make up for the various odd sizes. This quilt is similar to the first in that the odd sized block goes in the center but the sashing on the central block makes up for the difference in the block'...

Orphan blocks;  I'm not always interested in my own orphan blocks but often times I can see something redeaming in someone elses orphan blocks.  A couple of weeks ago when I was combing through Randy's scraps and I came upon some orphan blocks they caught my interest. I told Randy if I took the set I would make them into a quilt for a charitable cause.  That suited her just fine. Here's one of the blocks: Randy said she thought they were from a Stack 'n Whack class that she took long ago.  They are really very nice blocks maybe just a little monochomatic. There were only six blocks at 9" finished so I sewed frames around them to make them 13" and then added a second sashing and border in purple.  Nothing fancy but at 36" x 48" it is the right size for the wheelchair bound vets lap quilts project.   Blue, green and purple, always a winning combo! Sometimes the simple solutions are best ... and turned into a quilt which will be enjoyed by so...