Quilt for Charles - Who else?

 I wanted to make a quilt for my grandson, Charles. Charles William Caffail-Morris. He's a remarkable boy; son of remarkable mothers. He needed, of course, a remarkable quilt. 

As part of my research, I called to find out his favorite colors. "Bright". OK. I can do bright. He's a boy after my own heart. Here's the quilt I made for Charles. 

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Even the back side is bright -- many brightly colored polka dots scattered over a field of black.

My quilting pattern was intended to echo the little rockets in the decorative stitching that runs up the purple sashes. I think the whole thing looks like it's ready to take off. All it needs is a captain.
Charles?

Quilts for Africa

My quilting guild adopted a project of creating quilts for a fledgling maternity hospital in Africa. I made this quilt for the project.

We were instructed to quilt "intensely" -- quilt lines close together. This would, hopefully, help the quilt last through many washings at the stream where the women pound their laundry with rocks. It was a pretty amazing experience to stitch a quilt knowing it would go to Africa, welcome a new baby into the world, be cleaned with rocks in a stream, and be received with open arms and gratitude. Could the woman receiving this quilt possibly be more grateful than I was for the opportunity to put it together for her and her baby? Not likely. I loved having the chance to do this quilt.

Children's Quilt Project - EBHQ

 I need practice working with triangles, sewing on the bias, and matching the points. So I picked up a kit for this quilt top at the November meeting of my quilting guild: East Bay Heritage Quilters. It's part of the guild's children's quilt project. 

One tip I'd heard from guild members was to pair up the triangles, lay them out right sides together, then press before sewing. It helped minimize stretching along the long bias seam.

Matching the points and corners was pretty easy -- pin first, sew slowly, then rip out and re-sew any that didn't match.

I turned this top in at my favorite quilt shop which put me in exactly the right place to pick up fabric to make a quilt for Charles.

Michael's "Maineman" quilt

My sister refers to her partner, Michael, as her Maineman. It only takes a few minutes with them to understand why. They came west in July for a visit and we had a great time that passed all too quickly -- wonderful conversation, lots of laughs, great connection.

Soon after they returned to Maine, Michael began an extraordinarily difficult course of treatment for a recently diagnosed illness. As hard as the bad news hit us here, I felt even worse for my sister and Michael. I wanted to be with them -- talking, hugging, laughing, doing whatever comes up whenever people are faced with processing some harsh new reality. But they're in Maine and we're in California and I came to realize that it was also a very private time for them. Yet I couldn't ignore the pressing need in me to "do something". What could I do that would assuage my feelings, reach across 3,000 miles and provide them with comfort? Make a quilt - of course!

I checked in with my sis about a couple of details -- like favorite colors. Michael likes dark greens and dark blues. Even though I didn't find a range of greens or blues that I liked, I did find some great reds and lovely indigos at New Pieces Quilt Shop. Those deep colors, plus the light patterns (on very soft cotton), worked up in a very nice quilt top.

Here's the finished quilt spread out on a queen-size bed. The pieced top wasn't as big as I wanted (gotta be big enough to wrap around Michael), so I added four border strips to increase it's size.

I machine quilted it, using stitch-in-the-ditch on the pieced top and around the borders. Then I quilted free-motion stars all around the border. It took about three weeks from start to finish.

The close-up shows the great fabrics I found at New Pieces. The dark blues are Japanese prints, the reds are an assortment of cotton prints and the light fabrics are either batiks or a wonderfully soft cotton. I used a wool batting and a super, soft cotton for the backing. It's all machine washable.

Here's a corner shot showing the free-motion stars sprinkled around. It also shows the borders and binding.

Michael loves the quilt and uses it everyday. That tells me it was a good gift for him. What I hadn't expected to discover was what a remarkable gift it was for me: the process of designing this quilt and watching it unfold fed the creative beast inside me; spending large blocks of time thinking about Michael and Nancy and hoping for the best for them helped me work through much of my own difficult feelings; and realizing that the connection I'd felt when they were visiting California could stretch and strengthen all the way across the country was profoundly comforting.

After orange; cool blue

After working on such bright oranges in Jodi's quilt, I needed to plunge into cool blues and greens. One episode of Sewing with Nancy, featured this quilt pattern. So I went back to New Pieces, bought the cool colored fabric and made this quilt for our couch.

Seems I can't get a picture of it without someone actually being wrapped up in it.

 Lovely daughter-in-law, Leslie, takes a bit of ribbing but doesn't come out from under the quilt.

 Grandson Charles, wrapped up in the quilt, fell asleep and took it home with him.

Then he brought it back on a later visit. Thanks, Charles. It's my favorite couch quilt, too.

Jodi's comfort quilt

 My friend Jodi had a horrific year. She suffered tremendous loss in her family. Jodi was strong for her family members, continued to show up at her job and meet her obligations. She dug deep to find strength. It takes a lot of courage to do that.

Jodi likes orange and she needed lots of hugs. So . . . I made her an orange, fluffy quilt. Here it is: Jodi's quilt.

 I put a little bit of green on the back just to cool it off a bit. Jodi says she keeps her quilt close at hand.

Thank you, Jodi. We need your smiles, courage and love in this world.

All cotton fabrics, polyester hi-loft batting, stitch in the ditch quilting. Machine washable.

My first quilt - Fire and Ice

My first quilt: Fire and Ice, 82” x 100”, made in 2010.

When I was still making boat covers and marine upholstery, a visit with Deb del Mazo introduced me to quilting. Deb took me to her sewing room and showed me her quilt in progress. We oohed and aahed and talked about the fabrics, the colors and how they worked together in her quilt blocks.

I was so taken by Deb's quilt that I bought the book, Quilts, Quilts, Quilts, selected a quilt pattern and followed the directions. The first half-finished blocks revealed this was a disaster in the making.

Instead of giving up, though, I enrolled in Becky Keck's Colorwash God's Eye quilt class at the New Pieces Quilt Shop. I planned to test the quilt-making waters and make something small – a wall hanging or table runner. But right away, Becky inspired me to make a quilt for my bed – a queen-sized quilt. She said the discipline of meeting class deadlines would keep me on track to finish the quilt top. She was right.

The first step was to walk around the store and find three fabrics I loved. These provided the color foundation for developing the color wash: 24 fabrics in all, each one's color and pattern a slight change from the one in front of it. The result was a gradient from light to dark and back to light again.

After that, creating the quilt was straightforward: follow Becky's instruction and use her techniques. The result is here before you: my first quilt: Fire & Ice.

Thanks to Deb del Mazo for infecting me with quilting, to Becky Keck for her inspiration and instruction, and to the great people at New Pieces Quilt Shop for their encouragement and their beautiful quilting and binding that transformed my finished quilt top to a queen-size quilt.

My original plan was to make a wall-hanging, learn the technique, then make a quilt for my queen-size bed. Becky talked me into making a quilt for my bed straight away, using the class schedule as a taskmaster to keep me on track. So I cut, cut, cut, cut, sewed, sewed, sewed, sewed, pressed, pressed, pressed, pressed for 6 solid weeks. Wow.

The finished quilt hung on display in New Pieces for about a month, and I just presented it at my quilting guild's show & tell event. I'll see if I can get permission to reproduce their photo here. My guild is the East Bay Heritage Quilting guild.

I used a lightweight wool batting and had it machine quilted at New Pieces. We use it alot and I love sleeping under it.