Quilting Synopsis

A couple of years ago I decided to take up quilting. I had never really sewn before, and I don't think I even owned my sewing machine at the time? I must have borrowed some one's...I can't remember. Anyway, a seed had been planted in my mind when I was in Optometry school that I wanted to make a quilt out of all my optometry t-shirts that I had accumulated. Justin's mom had made one out of his little-kid t-shirts, and I thought it was a great way to make those old shirts functional and memorable without taking up an entire drawer in my dresser. I saved up lots of t-shirts, found some sweet eyeball fabric online, borrowed the quilt pattern from Janice, and went to work on the kitchen table in our apartment at Crescent Park. Eventually, I finished this:

On a side note, I must have borrowed my friend Katie's machine to do this project. I am remembering that fact, because I am also remembering that I burrowed her pincushion. A pincushion that at one point found its way underneath the quilt, spread out on the floor, upside down, at which point I stepped on it, shoving every single one of the 5 million pins in the pincushion into the bottom of my foot. Awesome.  

Moving on...my next quilt was a little wall hanging from a pattern that I picked up from a quilt show that I went to with Janice. I am one of the millions that do the whole chickens-in-the-kitchen thing...I now have it hanging up above the kitchen cabinets. 

I was supposed to use the machine to applique the chickens on, but I couldn't figure it out on the machine, so I just did a blanket stitch by hand.

Around this time, we moved into our house in Springfield, and I found a quilt shop about a mile away: Something To Crow About They have an entire room in the shop with displays from the various classes that they offer. At the time, they were offering a 7 week beginner class called Quick Start Quilting, which I talked Katie (owner of borrowed machine) into taking with me. So much fun! I learned so much (bought my own machine, a Brother XR7700, Costco special for about a hundred bucks), and became pretty competent for pretty much any quilting endeavor. In the class, we made a sampler quilt, which I used for the guest room bed:

Pretty, yes? Still one of my favorites

Next came a quilt for our bed, which is a California King, which means huge, which means it took me forever. For this one I used a Crazy Quilt pattern. You pick out all your fabric, stack it randomly, cut out your pieces. One of the key things when making a quilt is picking out your fabrics. It is a skill; a skill that I have not yet mastered. I was inspired by some red paisley fabric, and centered all of my fabric choices around it. That would have been fine, but I used the paisley fabric poorly. I used it within the blocks as well as for the sashing pieces. Too much red paisley. It would have been better to use it in the center of each block, and used a white fabric for the sashing. That would have made the blocks stand out rather than an overall overwhelming amount of redness. So, I'm not in love with this one and will replace it eventually.
 

Not trusting my own fabric judgment, my next two projects were Block-Of-The-Month projects through my friends at STCA. These consist of monthly blocks that you pick up from the shop with the fabrics pre-chosen for you. The upside to doing this is that a professional picks out the fabrics and then you do the cutting and sewing. The downside is that it costs a pretty penny. Much more expensive than buying the yardage on your own. But the result is quilts that look a lot more put-together. 

Don't mind the small child dripping saliva. This one involves a lot of applique, which I took a class for (at STCA of course), but soon realized that it would take me 5 years to complete. Instead, I did all of the sewing and cutting and ironing, but had one of Janice's friends do the machine applique (a blanket stitch, which she is a pro at, and finished in about 2 days...amazing). I put an extra layer of batting in this one so it is nice a plush and cozy.

This one is another sampler-style where every block is different. Only a quarter of it is shown in the picture. I should clarity that the actual quilting (the stitching over the whole quilt) is done by a company with a professional huge quilting machine. So I do the piecing and put all the layers together and send it off for the quilting. I have done that for the above quilt, as well as the purple and green class quilt. All the others are just tied, and not quilted. 

Next, I made a couple of "log cabin" pattern quilts to give to others. The blue one I gave to my mom and dad last Christmas, and the yellow and green (Go Ducks!) baby quilt I gave to Tessa at her baby shower for Ashlyn. I don't seem to have a good picture of Mom and Dad's...but this picture demonstrates Penny and Sebastian's love for my quilts :) 

Finally, my most recent quilt was for my own little bundle of joy. I chose the green fabric to match Thad's wall color, and the black and white center fabric to match the damask pattern throughout his room. I liked to polka-dots for the visiual-stimulation :) and also found a cozy flannel polka-dot fabric for the reverse side of the quilt. The simple pattern made it a really fast project, one of my favorites though. It looks quite at home in his room. 

Well, there they are. Lots of projects now that I look back at everything. Fun though. I still have more projects in mind, definitely replacing the quilt on our bed. Funny though, I don't seem to have as much spare time as I used to.