Eliza's ABCs

Baby Eliza Page was born June 13th to Melanie and Ken (and joins big sister Avery). So earlier this year my daughter, Emily, and I decided to make an ABC quilt for her.  But it had to be special! So we found a very cute pattern (SarahBellumQuilts) that had a square for each letter. Each was traced from a pattern, fused to the white background fabric, and then I zig-zagged around each one with matching thread.

Each block has an adjoining sashing piece that also reflects the associated letter.

Then, we set out finding a fabric for each letter that featured an object beginning with that letter. "Apple" for "A", "Buttons" for "B", etc.  Some were easier than others. But....since the family lives in NOLA, we also wanted to find some fabrics with a local interest. Thus, for example, "Fleur de lis" for "F" and "Mardi Gras masks" for "M". "Q" was a little problematic, but we eventually found a "Question mark" fabric, and I made a miniature "Quilt" for the sashing. The hardest was "X". The only true X fabric we could find was one with "X-ray cats"! Seriously! X-rays of cats!!! But that was too wild even for us. So we had to cheat and go with "eXclamation points" fabric.

The border is also made of one square for each of the 26 letters (plus the 4 corner ABC squares).

The back fabric is a riot of ABCs on black. Due to the width of the quilt, I decided to piece the back. What better way to do it than to have a strip of all 26 letters running down the middle (with some alternate appropriate fabrics)!

The final two squares were reserved for the baby's name and birthdate. I rejected having them embroidered on; didn't think it would work well in such a small space. Thought about tracing the info onto fabric and then fusing on, but finally decided to find a fun font (went with one called Curlz MT), reverse printed it onto "Print-n-Press" (what I use for my morsbags labels) and then ironed them on. Perfect! (if I do say so myself.)

Hope you love it Eliza Page! Learn those ABCs!!!!!!!

Play Time

My friend Mari's family keeps having babies! This means she is one of my best customers. This bright, fun quilt is for new grand-nephew Max.

This is the seventh baby quilt, and tenth overall for Mari and husband Dennis.

Have fun, Max!!!!!!

Antipodes

This pattern has been in my "want to do" queue for a while, and this seemed like a good time to do it.

The name "Antipodes" means "places diametrically opposite to each other on the globe." To me, this pattern has that same look. Indeed, by following the instructions in the pattern (from Toad-U-Sew Patterns), each pieced square is then re-cut and resewn so that it forms two oppositely-hued squares.

Does it look like a reflection? Or rain? Or a waterfall? What would you call it?

This beautiful quilt has found a home in Houston, Texas!

NOTE: This quilt, along with a number of my other quilts, will be on display during the month of May in the Patty Turner Senior Center in Deerfield. If you're in the neighborhood, stop in and see them in person!

Andrew and Julie's Chuppah!

February 18, 2012 - Andrew and Julie's Wedding Day!!!!!!!

The chuppah typically consists of a square cloth made of silk, wool, velvet or cotton. For this special event, they asked me to make them a quilted chuppah.


A chuppah is a Jewish wedding canopy with four open sides. The wedding ceremony occurs under the chuppah.

The chuppah is then supported by four poles. For ours, I designed the framed structure and Andrew constucted it with help from Julie's aunt and uncle.

The chuppah symbolizes the new home that the couple will create. The ancient rabbis compared the chuppah to the tent of Abraham, found in a biblical story. Abraham was famed for his hospitality; his tent had entrances on all four sides so that travelers coming from any direction would have a door to enter.

Andrew and Julie took their vows under this chuppah in a beautiful interfaith ceremony led by Father Ed and Rabbi Ben.

The cloth will now hang in their new home (the one with walls). The frame was donated to Rabbi Ben for use by other couples.

Fine Finned Friends

As I mentioned in my January 19th post ("Sweet Dreams"), our friend Laura is about to become a grandmother....twice! So this is the second quilt I made for her.
The order for this one was "something colorful with fish". Voila! Here it is. And the back fabric is uber-cutesy too!!

Four Patch Runner

After using the Bento Box runner as the pattern in my Beginning Quilting for the last several years I have decided it is time for a change. Had to find another pattern that was easy, and teachable in the class time, but that also had all the elements of a larger quilt. So here it is, the Four Patch runner. My next class is in March. Check it out at District 113 online.

Sweet Dreams

Good friend Laura is about to become a grandmother....twice! Her son and stepdaughter are both due in February. So this is the first of two quilts for her / them.
The order for this one was "something sophisticated, with simple blocks". I think this fills the bill. Don't you just want to snuggle up with it and take a nap!

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Anyone who knows me even casually knows that two of my great passions are quilting and baseball. So it is really amazing that, after 17 years and 100+ quilts, this is my first baseball quilt!

One of my quilt blog fans, Janice, wanted me to make a baseball themed lap quilt for her husband for a Christmas gift. She told me that he is a big San Francisco Giants fan.

I began looking for baseball fabric, including something with the Giants logo. Well....believe it or not, even after winning the World Series in 2010, the Giants are one of the few teams in any major sport and most large universities that does not have authorized cotton fabric! So I had to use other baseball-themed fabs including green grass!).

While looking for a pattern, I happened across a site called Quilt Patterns From Seattle. They had a pattern called Military Nine Patch. Oddly enough, the example quilt shown on the site also contained baseball-themed fabrics!! I contacted the owner (Cindy Carter) to buy the pattern and let her know of my planned quilt. She was excited and asked for pictures when I completed it. I sent them, and she posted them on her site! So if you click on the link above, you can scroll down and see my quilt there, too.

Now, you may be thinking: quilts (winter) and baseball (summer) don't really go together. But if you've ever been to a game at Candlestick or PacBall / AT&T you will know that one thin lap quilt is NOT nearly enough to keep you warm!!!

Play Ball!!!!!!!

Scrap Lap

A simple lap quilt, made from scraps, at the request of my mother-in-law, Pauline. Click here for more pictures.


But wait! This quilt contains a 3-part mystery...hidden in plain sight.
First: What is the nature of the mystery?
Second: What does it mean?
Third: Why does it have that meaning.

Anyone should be able to figure out the first two parts of the mystery; only family members will be able to answer the third question (hint, hint!).

Please submit your entries to my email address (wsrhodes@gmail.com) - not as a comment on this post - by midnight December 31st.

I will pick two winners (one for questions 1 and 2, one for #3) at random from the thousands of correct entries. Each winner will receive a morsbag! I will also post the answers.

This four-patch pattern will also be used in my next beginners classes this spring (without the mystery component!). If you are interested in attending, drop me a line.

Da-da-da-da-da-dee-da!!!!! The answer to the mystery:

As indicated in the quilt's name, this is a scrap quilt. That means that all of the pieces were taken from fabric used in other quilts. The color palette was red and blue and purple. The various fabrics are used randomly throughout the 4-patch blocks. However, in the 3 highlighted rows there are some odd-looking smaller orange pieces. See them? Why are they there? Those orange pieces are the separators for the red and blue pieces that make up the mystery message. You will notice (if you look closely) that the red and blue fabrics adjoining those orange fabrics are used nowhere else in the quilt (except, as a subliminal reinforcement, in the inner and outer borders).

Notice the relative sizes of those red and blue pieces. If we "translate" them to words they would be:
square (orange separator) rectangle (separator) rectangle (separator) square
rectangle (separator) rectangle
rectangle (separator) square (separator) square (separator) square

By now, you may have deduced that this is Morse Code (part 1 of the mystery).

In more common terminology then, the message is:
dot (space) dash (space) dash (space) dot
dash (space) dash
dash (space) dot (space) dot (space) dot

Decoded, this becomes: P M B. So the quilt contains my mother-in-law's initials. (part 2 of the mystery).

But in the third part of the mystery I asked why it has this meaning?

Here is the answer: At Thanksgiving in 1995 Pauline happened to mention that she had no middle name. Her parents never gave her one when she was born. And she had always felt bad about that, as if she was missing something. So, unbeknownst to her, her 9 grandchildren (at that time) decided to rectify this gross omission. They got together and discussed some possibilities, and reached a consensus.

And on January 29, 1996, her 64th birthday, they happily presented her with their gift - a middle name. On that day she was finally christened: Pauline Margaret Baron.

And now you know the rest of the story!

Winners: um....no one got the answer. Only Pauline guessed that it was Morse Code, but could not decipher it. So the morsbags will go back in the prize closet until next time.

UPDATE: 1/31/22

Pauline asked if I could turn the lap quilt into a bed cover, by adding 24" to the width and 32" to the length.  Doing so would make the new size about 61" x 84".

We found two fabric prints: one with swirls and one with stars. The red on the front and blue on the back have the swirls; the purple and yellow have the stars.  The new binding is purple Dimples.

So how to add?  I first considered adding them using my Quilt in Sections technique. But that would have added some extra fabric on the back (for the fold-over-sew-down part). Instead, I chose to do another modification of the quilt-as-you-go method. 

The first step was to slice off the old binding (and, yes, the 1/4" of fabric underneath). Then I sewed the two left side front fabs together and attached them to the raw edge on the left front. I repeated on the right side. Then I did the same for the top and bottom fabs on the front. 

Next, I repeated that process for the fabs on the back. At that point I had the full expanded quilt.....but no batting in the new sections. So I cut batting to fit the left and right sides, and slipped those pieces in. I then quilted 4 evenly spaced lines from top to bottom using clear monofilament thread. Lastly, I repeated the same for the top and bottom: cut batting to fit, slipped them in, and quilted with 4 parallel going across. 

Expando-quilt!!!!  

In situ:

Look What's Outside My Windows! #2

The second time I have used this pattern (see April entry). This one is for a friend of my sister-in-law, and has a different set of whimsical animals.

Here's the front....

...and the back.

Baby Elephant Walk

Our friends Mardelle and Jim just had a new grandson, Cameron. His parents, Lauren and Mike, requested an elephant themed quilt. We found these great elephant fabrics, but couldn't decide which to use. Solution? A 2-sided quilt!

Side 1:
Side 2:
Cameron joins sister Grace, who is still enjoying her Rain Forest quilt.

It's A Blue World, Max

Aunt Max loves blue (and so do I), so she asked me to make a quilt for her bed. The pattern has some similarities to Storm at Sea, since there are only straight cuts, but the angles make them appear to be circles. I designed this one so that the circles seem to overlap.

The quilt is 79x86 (double bed size). Each square is 6.5" (6" finished). It is actually paper-pieced, but I used 3 templates to cut the pieces to save wasted fabric. So each square is made of 2 halves (on a slight diagonal). Each half has 6 pieces made up of a combination of the 3 template shapes.

This quilt is special not only because it is for Aunt Max, but it also happens to be my 100th quilt!

And, here is another contest: What is the origin of the name of this quilt? If you know it (that means you may NOT look on the internet), please comment here or email me. I will pick randomly from all correct entries sent by midnight (Central) August 27th. Of course, the winner gets a morsbag!!!

Here is the answer: It is based on a line in the 1968 animated Beatles movie "Yellow Submarine". If you're too young to remember or have never seen it, it is a really fun movie. And the winner: My son Andrew!!! He knew the source. Second place goes to my daughter Emily (she knew it had something to do with the Beatles). They are the only two who came even remotely close. And no, this was not rigged!

Sweetie Pie II

I did the original Sweetie Pie in July, 2010. My friend Mari loved it so much she asked me to make another one for new niece Skyler!



This is the sixth baby quilt, and ninth overall for Mari and husband Dennis.

Reflections (aka Visualize Whirled Peas)

Talk about pushing the envelope! This quilt goes in so many new directions (pun intended!).

First: the design. This particular pattern, and the 3D scrolls technique, come from "3-D Explosion...Simply FABULOUS Art Quilt Illusions" by Cara Gulati. In this book, Cara explains how to start with a simple "S" shape and add perspective lines to make a scroll. Adding and/or repeating scrolls builds the design. Appropriate use of colors and patterns (especially the stripes) enhances the 3D effect. Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the primary striped fabric is the same one I used in my previous quilt (the attic windows). All of the rest came from my stash!

Next: There is no piecing involved! That's right! Until I got to the quilting phase, I never went near my sewing machine. Cara builds her designs using a combination of freezer paper, glue stick, and machine applique using invisible thread. Since I really don't like to do applique, I took a slightly different approach.

Background: In March I visited the Visions Art Museum in San Diego. There I purchased the book "free expression...the art and confessions of a contemporary quilter" by Robbi Joy Elkow. For Robbi, it's all about the designs, the colors, and the quilting. She definitely does not like to sew hundreds of pieces together. Once she has the design, she cuts the distinct pieces to make templates (exactly like Cara does), but then she use fusible webbing to fuse the pieces together. No stitching! No applique! Then, heavy quilting. Her reasoning is that these pieces are meant to be hung, so there is no need to worry about the raw edges.

As I contemplated making one of Cara's quilts, I realized that I could use the fusing (and other techniques) from Robbi's book! So I was able to take the best of both approaches to create this quilt.

Now, most of you probably know that I consider quilting to be the least important design element of my quilts. It is almost entirely functional (to hold the quilt sandwich together), and I almost always use thread colors to match the fabrics so that the quilting is basically invisible. These 3D patterns are perfect for that mentality! Once again, here I followed Robbi's advice and quilted each piece in a way that mimicked the shape of that piece. So the quilting is both semi-invisible and highlights / reinforces the scrolls at the same time! And it is critical that the quilting go to the edges of the pieces (a faux applique!) so that they are tacked down thoroughly. Though I do a lot of free-motion quilting, as I was doing this piece, I felt for the first time that I was actually "painting" with the thread!

The final oddity: At the Visions Art Museum I saw a number of art quilts that were mounted on wooden stretcher bars (just as a painting on canvas would be). How perfect for this piece and any of Cara's 3D designs. These works are like canvases and the designs are meant to pop off the background. I am always a bit dismayed when my quilts do not hang straight and flat on the wall. The stretchers also solve this problem. And, since the piece is stretched around the bars, there is no need for a border nor a binding!

To see more pictures which go through the entire process of making this quilt, click here

Look What's Outside My Windows!

For Lydia! Cute snails and mushrooms outside your "windows"!


This is the fifth baby quilt (nieces and nephews), and eighth quilt overall for my friend Mari.

Unusual in this one is that the border threads are variegated on the top (to blend with the striped border), and pink on the back (to blend there).