This photo came from California, not sure why it's all wrinkly, but it is a photo of a quilt I made for my daughter Kate's 25th birthday.....which was 6 years ago now. Maybe they don't have irons out there! heehee

I have loved using chintzes in quilts....I have a seperate stash of them in the basement.

Note: I talked with Kate since posting and she asures me it's not wrinkly in real life....Phew! I thought I had to make her another one!

Log cabin quilt, never goes out of style in the right colors.

I hated to part with this one, but the colors don't go with my house and it was a gift for my friend Deb Barnes when she moved. I wanted the green and brown to remind her of Maine, she's originally from England, moving to Ohio.....
I think the yellow center looks like sunshine peeping through and the yellow thin border like light peeping around a door. Perhaps I'll just make another one!

Take Five is the name of this quilt pattern. I made it for Rachel Barnes, daughter of a friend and short time employee when they moved. It is a fun and easy one, I've done another since. I love the scrappy look, you cut all the pieces at once so it's very quick.

The straw hat fabric was the perfect focal fabric for a teen girl, the rest of the fabric was scraps as it only calls for 5/8 of a yard of each.

Here is my gorgeous grandson, loving life, and his quilt!

Brucie's baby quilt, all in greens with tone on tone white between. The back is a beautiful flannel, it cost more than the front did! I love using scraps!

Here is the bouncing baby boy himself on that flannel backed quilt.

A fun teaching project with my niece Kelsey while she was visiting from Iowa this summer. The center was a pack of fat quarters and the border an assortment of prints. Kelsey hadn't sewn or ironed before so we were starting at the basics but she hung in there, sitting at the sewing machine, she would say, hands on fabric, threads to the back, presserfoot down, step on the gas , country road. I had to tell her it's a country road so she wouldn't speed off too fast! We had a great time, I'm sure she'll continue on her own as she was a good student.

A closer view of the quilt for John and Stephanie, made completely from cast off scraps.

Another gift quilt, this one is another arrangement of split rail. The light doesn't do it justice, those Thimbleberry fabrics are dark.

Scraps again! This one I'd like to do again, it is really easy. I had a bunch of autumn colors given to me by my friend Betty (who else?) so I made this up for my son John and his wife Stephanie for an anniversary present. The colors are exactly their family room colors, the dark green is their color of their couch and loveseat so it looks perfect over the back.

This is from the book Laps from Fats, a great book with lots of great ideas. It takes more fabric than you'd suspect to do five blocks of the same pattern, so try out different arrangements.

The Blue is the Double Irish Chain quilt that is for my guests when they sleep on the couch. It hung in my livingroom for years but when we took down a wall to open up and enlarge the livingroom, there wasn't wall sapce for it, so it hangs in the computer room now....I guess it does get cold in winter down here!

The Green and Rose is a closer view of the quilt below. That Rose is one of my favorite fabrics.

Two variations on the Split Rail Fence, the blue is my newest one of that type. I made it to match my new livingroom color, oh about 3 years ago, but it ended up on a quilt rack in my now blue bedroom. It's just the right size for the foot of the bed in winter to pull up over if it's really cold.

My friend and fellow quilter Arlene and I call the border "piano keys" for lack of a better word. I got the idea for this quilt from a magazine, they used it as a table cloth on a round table which I could do at some point. Perhaps when I make a real quilt for my own bed!

Split rail fence again, this one I did years and years ago. One dismal day in winter I felt the urge for quilting so went into the small stash in my basement storage area and pulled out bags of scraps I had bought when we lived in Mass. (Mind you we've been in Maine 25 years now, so I kept those scraps for a long time) This is what I came up with and I loved it. My daughter Spring took it to college one year but I stole it back when she graduated and it is now the extra quilt in my rose guest room.

Yo-yo quilt, this one I really cheated on. I was out antiquing and found a fabric covered wooden box for sale. It was full of yo-yos not sewn together, and other crochet bits. My nostrils quivered. I asked the price of the box. The lady said $13.

At the time, I was looking for a wooden box to recover for a gift so was in the market. I said, "well I only have $7 on me". I had stuffed it into my jeans as we left the house so I wouldn't spend too much.

She said, oh, but the contents alone are worth that. I sniffed, "Oh, I just want the box". "Fine," she said, "Go ahead and take the whole thing for $7." Ohh, okay, that's fine" heeheeeheeeee all the way home! I still haven't finished sewing all the yoyos together, but it looks great when I get it out to work on it every now and then and looks great in the basket under my quilt rack.

Another quilt made with scraps. This checkerboard affect was made with left overs from a Single Irish Chain I made for our bed when we slept in the downstairs bedroom. It is actually a "quillo" meaning it makes into a pillow but the outside is so worn now, I just leave it open and hanging on my quilt rack in the livingroom.

Migrating Geese again, done with black sashing this time. This was my favorite. I think I've made three of these but don't know where the picture of the third is.....perhaps I'll come across it as I go down through my files.
In this quilt are scraps of other quilts I've done and scraps from dresses I made my girls when they were very young....and they are now in their 30's! Rarely throw a fabric away!

Scraps again, theses were some shared from other people in a class and some from my scrap bag. The design is called Migrating Geese and is very easy to do. I made up my own way of getting the borders even that worked better than the directions taught. The binding is leftover bits all sewn together. I love the affect it gives the quilt andit's not too tedious as the bits are left overs anyway. I originally made this one to hang on the wall at our restaurant but brought it home a few years ago and replaced it with something brighter.

Scrapbaskets are great places for inspiration, especially other peoples scraps! This was made with some left over Irish Chain squares and then odd scraps that my friend Betty gave me. I love the colors and it now resides on the back of my white park bench in my livingroom. Couldn't part with it when it was done!

Since posting this, I have added more pictures further on. Sorry for the duplication....don't know how to rearrange the order of these posts. Brucie's mom sent me more recent photos so had to include them as well!
Ahhh, Brucie's quilt we called him 7 of 7 (from startrek series) before he was born. Somewhere I have a great picture of him laying on it, I'll try to find it and add it later on.

Anyway, this is a scrap quilt, made from found fabrics from all over. The white "tone on tone" background makes it very crisp. Brucie room has green curtains and other accessories so I made this to tie all the greens together.

The back is a beautiful green checked flannel, wish I had taken a picture of that as well.

Another Christmas quilt, this one was for Phoebe. It's really a single Irish Chain quilt with the rose in the center. The back of this quilt is a light lavender with princesses, one of Phoebe's favorites.

These two quilts were made for my two grandsons, Levi and Austin.

This is Levi's, he has an ocean theme bedroom with the walls painted this deep blue. The picture is a light house if you can't make it out. I designed this quilt myself to utilize the lighthouse fabric that someone gave me. Many of the prints are nautical as well.

Scroll way down for the next one.....why it did that I don't know.....

This is also the Yellow Brick road pattern but done in super hero fabric. This is for my super hero Austin who lives in California.

Guess Ididn't need three of these but I can't open and check these pictures ahead of time. At least I can't
....probably someone else could.

This is the yellow brick road. It looks very random but there are actually three blocks to make with various materials and then you rotate them so they don't bump up against another of the same print.

This quilt was a Christmas present (05) for my granddaughter in California, Alyssa. She actually picked out the fabric for the back herself, not knowing her mother would send it to me to back the quilt.

A flannel "cheater" I call them. I machine quilted around the blocks, backed it with the yellow flannel. This one went to Willow, Brucie's girlfriend down in Pa. She's a little older than Bruce but he seems to like the older women.

Another baby quilt, this one was made for one of Bruce's nephew's baby. I used leftover squares of green from the quilt I had made for my grandson Bruce, and fussy cut the bear squares. I wanted to do this one again recently (for another nephew's offsping) but didn't find any suitable baby fabrics where I was shopping. You'll see what I came up with instead....it was fun.

Happy Birthday to Alex! Alex turned 13 in 05 and seeing as he still has his baby quilt that I made him, I thought he needed a new one to start his teens. These are the colors of his favorite soccer team in England. It is the traditional split rail fence pattern. Now he is 14 and started working for me in the restaurant!

This quilt was made to resemble the Finnish flag. My friend Pirjo is from Finland so I made this for her youngest son as a wedding present. It is a traditional log cabin with a white center instead of the traditional black or red. (The center block represents the center of the home, the hearth or stove) The trick with this one was that I tied it in blue and white so the ties wouldn't contrast too much with the background.

This is a quilt I did for a couple in our church who did their premarital counseling with us. I never told them the name of the quilt is the contrary wife! I used two shades of mottled purple, a technique that I saw in a book to add interest. The pattern was from a website that sends me newsletters, part of "about.com".

This quilt was made by Spring and I for her daughter Phoebe while Spring was on bedrest with a difficult pregnancy. She hand sewed the pieces together and I hand quilted it. It helped to pass the time for Spring as she spent half time at my house and half time at hers. Phoebe was born a month or so early but has long since caught up with herself and I had to make her a new quilt for Christmas last year!

This is Molly's (Springs second daughter) baby quilt. It is a split rail fence style but with all scraps so it doesn't form the traditional Z pattern down the quilt. The border and back fabric cost me more than the whole quilt but you know how certain fabrics just jump off the shelves!

Here is another one that we worked on at my friend's house. It shows how different colors make such a difference in a quilt. This is the Trip Around the World pattern, set on point.

In the works. Last year I spent 3 days at my friend Pirjo in Massachusetts and we did nothing but quilt and eat with a little sleeping thrown in. We worked on about 8 quilts, in various stages. This is one we got sewn, I might find a later picture. I've forgotten who they all were for but some went to Finland as gifts to her family over there and some were for her grandchildren here in the States. The fabric was all scraps given to me by a friend so it was an inexpensive but fun getaway.