Category: Quilting and Sewing

A year ago {Christmas 2013} I gave each of my children a new quilt for Christmas.  As I’ve combed through the few pictures I can find from the last 2 years of our lives, I realized that I never posted pictures of some of them.  This quilt was made for my then 13 year old son, and the pictures were taken hurriedly before wrapping it, with the intent that I would properly photograph it later.  Oh well.


I cut 2.5 strips of my cherished Going Coastal fabrics along with some Shore Thing prints (both collections by Emily Herrick) and added a few additional prints.  I sewed them together with 2.5″ green solid squares between strips and made two sections of this style.  I then added a navy blue solid between them so it wouldn’t be too busy for his tastes.  It is simply quilted and I love the way it puckered up a little after washing.


As with all of my other children, the quilt top means little compared to a minky backing in this case.  All they seemed to care about was size and minky, which is fine.  If I hadn’t been able to please them with ultra simple quilt designs I likely wouldn’t have reached my goal of giving one to each of them.  While this quilt isn’t my favorite one I made last year, it has certainly been loved and used, which makes me very happy.

In October a sweet little girl we know turned eight years old.  She’s the only girl in her family, and over the past couple of summers it’s been fun to watch her play with all my girls. There have been more afternoons spent sitting together outdoors dressing dolls and playing than I can count.  I decided to make her a little quilt to use on those afternoons.


Unfortunately, all my photos of the quilt have been lost except for these three taken with my phone.   I went with a bright color scheme and chose a large range of designers for the fabrics. Some prints I’ve had for years while others have been released this year.  The quilt is simply pieced, patchwork style, with 6.5 inch squares.


A low volume back was selected from my stash, straight line quilting done on the diagonal through each square in both directions, and a black and white binding finished it off.  I also made a second doll-sized quilt from leftover squares.  The quilt was excitedly delivered by my younger four daughters and happily received by their friend.


Handmade gifts are joyful things.

It’s finished!  Hip hip hooray!  This quilt top spent far too many months sitting, but now is complete.  I stitched the borders on a couple of weeks ago and talked my husband and son into holding it up for a quick photo.  It’s huge!


I’ll share more photos of this quilt after it’s quilted – there is no way I’m doing this one myself.  The color scheme is very similar to Tula Pink’s original, but I used fabrics from many different designers  to make it my own.  I really love how it looks and will be sure to share when it’s done!

I’m not doing too great on my 14 quilts in 2014 goal, but if you count quilt tops I’m close.:)  It always feels good to get a project to this point, especially a project like this.  Yay!

Jennifer