Quilts

Before I made cards, I was a quilter......I say "was" because, since cardmaking came into my life about 5 years ago, there has been very little quilting around here. (I should really change my Hero/Flickr nickname, but I can't think of anything better.) But I still love the idea of quilting, linking us to past generations, making something that is actually useful, and being able to indulge my love of color. And there is NOTHING better on a cold evening than snuggling up under a cozy quilt with a cup of hot chocolate!!

Actually, quilting and card-making are very similar; you start with whole pieces of fabric or paper, cut them into small pieces, and then reassemble them into something more pleasing.

I first fell into crafting generally in my senior year of college, when I needed some fluff credits to round out my last semester. I chose an arts and crafts class and made a crewel picture. That was the very first time I was exposed to crafts and since then, I have done counted cross-stitch (until my eyes couldn't take the close work anymore, and the cost of framing become too much), then moved into quilting.

There is absolutely no history of quilting in my family, so I took a beginnner's quilting class at my local quilt shop; we made a lap-size quilt from start to finish, all hand done. I have continued that in most of my quilts, only using a sewing machine to sew on the binding. I was so enamored of this art and all the history that goes with it, that I started making doll quilts and selling them through a local shop. Most of them were about 2 feet square, so I could try out different patterns and color combinations with a minimum of time expended. Most of the quilts in my home are these little ones, covering table tops, hanging on walls. It has only been since about 1997 when I started making bigger ones. Most of those are twin-sized.......have yet to make a queen-size for our bed, and now I wonder if I ever will!

So, here are 3 of my creations that I am pleased to show you. This first one was a pattern from a miniature quilt magazine that I adapted in my own colors. If you haven't noticed yet, I love blue, so my fabric stash in that color is huge. And I've always liked it paired with yellow. So here is an example of one of my doll quilts. It is about 15 inches square. Click on any of the pictures for a closer look.



And here is one of my bigger ones. It was made to match a store-bought quilt which is in a bedroom with 2 twin beds, thus the need for a second one. It uses 2 more of my favorite colors, pink and green. And it shows off some of my hand-quilting, the feather wreaths in the big blocks.

The other thing you need to know about my way of quilting is that I can NEVER use the same 4 or 5 fabrics over and over again; there has to be more like 20 or 30 different fabrics. That way I never get bored! So for my final example here is a throw-size quilt to show you how many blues I have in my collection. It is about 48 inches square, made in 1997, my own interpretation of a Little Quilts pattern. The center panel is a Bearpaw block, but that's another story for another time.