Today Gordon and I went to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon, which is located in the central part of the state. It’s a cute town in a gorgeous setting — Ponderosa pines everywhere and the beautiful Sisters mountains. For the show they hang quilts (1200 of them this year) inside and outside…
This quilt was started in 2004 when I purchased 15 vintage Dresden Plate blocks on ebay. A few of the blades needed to be replaced, and I exchanged the yellow centers for pink ones. The additional 5 plates were made up from some of my vintage scraps and the blades for the ice cream cone…
This is an Alice Brooks mail order pattern from the 1940’s, and this poor quilt has so many problems, I hardly know where to begin. First of all, I had a terrible time with the piecing — I couldn’t manage to match up all eight seams in the block corners. Out of desperation, I decided…
My husband’s aunt, Margaret Elizabeth “Betty” Gray, died in June of last year at the age of 88. Her husband, Connor, was the older brother of Gordon’s father, Gordon, Sr. Betty and Connor built a waterfront home on Mercer Island in the 50’s and lived there until their deaths. Gordon’s parents and grandparents also built…
Tumbler was my second quilt. The top was started in the late 70’s, but I put it away before it was finished. It was made primarily from sewing scraps, and I remember that there were quite a few Laura Ashley prints. Even back then, before I started using vintage fabric (although now that I think…
My son Elliott’s favorite G.I. Joe character when he was a boy was Snake Eyes (and his pal, Storm Shadow). Both of these characters are ninjas and have the same hexagram tattoo on their arms (number 58 on the chart of 64 hexagrams in the I Ching). As a graphic designer, Elliott has used this…
This little quilt was sewn for my daughter, Emily, when she left for college. At the time, she really liked pink and black. It’s made primarily with feedsack scraps (leftovers from the Kansas Dugout Quilt) and a few vintage dress scraps. I blanket stitched the scraps by hand onto 4″ pieces of muslin using black…
You may recognize this quilt which appears on the cover of the book, American Quilt Classics, from the collection of Patricia Cox. I copied almost everything about the Cox quilt except the quilting pattern. This is one of the first projects I started when I began to quilt again, and the fabrics I used are…
These little table squares are really quick and fun to make. I had a box of vintage 3″ squares which included quite a few old shirting fabrics — not enough to make a quilt, but just right for a tablecloth. After cutting them into triangles, I started playing with the arrangement. In the end, I…
This quilt was finished in 1975 and I didn’t make another quilt until 1995 (one started, but none finished). The pattern is very different from the scrap quilts I make now. The quilt has seen lots of wear — it’s pretty thin and the black print with the little roses is faded. I like the…
My daughter, Emily, loves Hello Kitty so I decided to make a little quilt for her using the pictures from a HK coloring book. Hello Kitty is really fun to embroider — I used both 1 and 2 strands of floss, depending upon the level of detail in the picture. My favorites are Hello Kitty…
This quilt was made with some hand pieced vintage bow tie blocks purchased on ebay. Although the ties themselves were very cute, the background muslin pieces were badly stained, and I couldn’t use them. I took the blocks apart — washed, pressed and re-cut them ending up with a slightly smaller block. At the time,…
This Heart Quilt was made for my daughter, Emily, as a bride’s quilt. She isn’t engaged yet, but she and her boyfriend, Aaron, have been together since high school (they are 24 now) and I’m sure one of these days they will be getting married. Of course, I wanted to have a bride quilt ready…
I finally finished the quilt for Marjorie Claire, daughter of my niece, Jennifer, and her husband, Cyrus. I think Marjorie was about 10 days old in the photo below, taken in December. We are all excited to have a sweet baby girl in our family, and I am pleased that she has my mother’s name….
The fan pattern is one of my favorites. I’ve completed two fan quilts and have two others in progress. I like all fans — smooth, pointy or scalloped. I purchased the fan blades for this quilt on ebay, and they were so clean, all I had to do was trim them a bit to fit…