My Last Quilty TBT

Here we are at what I'm pretty sure is my last Throwback Thursday quilt post. So let's get right to it. I made this one for my daughter and son-in-law in, I think, 2006, about a year after they got married--sort of a first anniversary gift, I guess. For some reason I had no photos of it and didn't think of it until just recently when I was searching for photos for my previous TBT post. So I asked my daughter to take some current photos, and while she was doing that, she came across an old one she had taken. Here is the quilt on their bed in 2009. I think my daughter might have been sentimentally taking photos as they were getting ready to become homeowners.

The quilt is based on colors that were popular at the time in an upscale home decor store, so I've always thought of it as the PB quilt (initials of the store). Although I have no photos of my own, I did find some documents on my computer of some of my plans for the design and color arrangement. It seems that I downloaded some graph paper and painstakingly colored in the squares using my paint program on my computer. Yipes! I'm not even sure how I did that. Here are some of my ideas:

I'm pretty sure the one on the left in that last picture is the final design. 

Here are some photos of the quilt in their current bedroom:

She had to dig it out of storage, so it's a bit scrunched up. It now only lives on the bed under their current quilts in the winter when it gets really cold. 

Here's a close up so you can see some of those tone-on-tone fabrics better. And you can also see that I tied it with pearl cotton. I was not yet retired back then and had no time to quilt it. I was only doing hand quilting at the time. They would probably still be waiting for it today if I had quilted it. I don't know the exact size, but it fits a queen sized bed, and the last time I hand quilted a quilt that size, I think it took 17 years. (There's a TBT post about that other quilt somewhere on this blog.) The back of this quilt is off-white--probably a good quality muslin. I'm certain that the batting is polyester given the distance between those ties.

This is, as far as I can tell, my 52nd quilty Throwback Thursday, a series of posts I have devoted to the quilts I made--or quilted--before I started blogging sometime in 2014. During that time I have documented at least 174 quilts--all the ones I could find photos for. There were a few more quilts along the way, but those were either exact duplicates or ones that slipped away from me without any documentation. I started this series in October 2014 when I found a blogger who was featuring TBT posts. Alas, the following week, she disappeared from blogland. For a few months I linked up almost weekly with another blog (Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation, which is still going strong), but that didn't feel quite right because the quilts featured on that blog were new ones. In the fall of 2015, I found Jenn at A Quarter Inch from the Edge, and I linked up with her monthly TBT linky party until life caught up with her in the fall of 2016, and she discontinued the party. I took a TBT break until January 2018, when Sandra at mmm! quilts revived TBT the first Thursday of the month. She now shares the hosting of the party with  Andrée at Quilting and Learning. So a big thank you to all of these women, and especially Sandra for reviving TBT. 

I have a real sense of accomplishment completing this documentation of old quilts. Looking back, I see that I used to write often about one quilt at a time. As my blogging rate tapered off, I started grouping quilts.There were some posts that wrote themselves--the ones where there was a poignant, or at least interesting, back story. Others relied on details and statistics because that was really all I had. Anyway, if you are new or newish to my blog and are interested in my old work and previous TBTs, just click on the "throwback thursday" label on the right side bar or at the bottom of this post. I think that will take you to most, if not all, of them. 

Again, thanks to the wonderful bloggers who have made these TBT parties possible. I'm linking up today with Sandra at mmm! quilts, where you will find her ALWAYS fascinating TBT blog post (really, she has total recall of the quilts she made before blogging and great photos) and the link party for you to share your own pre-blog quilts if you can. Even if you don't have any to share, be sure to read about the others at the party. 

I'll be back soon with more on my current projects. Until then, keep quilting!

Family of Baby Quilts

Happy Throwback Thursday! I'm starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for old quilt photos, but I do have some left for a few more posts. Today's quilts are three I made for one family--my niece's. She and her husband have a son and two daughters--our oldest great-nephew and great-nieces. Their son is 22 years old now (and has a son of his own), and their daughters are in college, so these quilts are probably used up (I hope). At the time I made these, I was working outside of home and had little time to quilt, so all are tied--the quickest way I knew at the time to make a baby quilt. I still have the plans (such as they are) for two of the quilts as well as some leftover fabrics (really!). So let's have a look. 

This is the quilt for baby I, made in 1996. I remember going to a big storewide sale for the fabric--so big that the store rented an empty store front next door for the sale. I knew I wanted to make something simple in just two contrasting colors. Please pardon really poor lighting. 

And the back, which is the light fabric from the front.

I have a planning sheet, which is pretty much incomprehensible to me now. I had two schemes based on color placement. Looks like I chose the one in the lower right.

 

These numbers don't add up for me right now. I guess if I really studied the plan for awhile, I'd figure out how big the patches were. Oh, well. In any event, the quilt got made. I'm thinking I was trying to decide how long to make the quilt, but my guess is that the whole thing was probably about 41 by 50 inches.

Here are the fabrics I have left in my drawer. I'm 100% sure that the light fabric is the one, and about 99% sure about the green. I tied the quilt with pearl cotton with what look like amazingly long ties. I hope they softened when it was washed. Isn't it interesting the pattern that shows up in a whole cloth back? These scratchy marks almost look like a floral when you see all the repeats from far in the photo of the back.

If you look at the quilt you can sort of see "I" in the design. I didn't plan that, but noticed it when it was finished. So when I's sister C was born, I thought I'd be clever and make a quilt with Cs in it for her first initial. I don't have a written plan for that one, but here it is.

Poor lighting, but no problem. I still have all of the fabrics so you can imagine it in all its vintage glory. Yipes! Here's the back, which is the same print as that tealish one on the front.

Here's a close-up. I'm still trying to figure out how I put the blocks together. It looks like maybe three squares and a long strip per block, but the Cs are staggered, so I'm not really sure how I joined them. 

Here are the fabrics from my drawer. I should probably try to use them up sometime, Ya' think?

What I remember about making this quilt is that I was frustrated when I bought the fabric because I wanted all big florals but just could not find a yellow one. I'm thinking this quilt is probably roughly the same size as the one I made for I. 

I was pretty proud of myself coming up with a quilt made of Cs (even if some were backwards), so when I found out another baby was coming, I planned to make another quilt with Baby's initial. Uh oh. When Baby was announced, her name started with G. I was stumped. Tessellating Gs were just beyond my designing ability. So I made a giant G and surrounded it with strips. Yeah, I'm not real proud of that, but at least there was no mistaking which quilt was hers.

The back:

I had two planning sheets for this one. 

I'm thinking that what happened with this quilt is that I made a plan and then went to the store and revised the plan based on the colors of fabrics I was able to find. It looks like I started with the G floral fabric as the focus to pick the other colors. I have a few of these left.

But not the floral or the turquoise. I know the turquoise ended up in some landscape quilts over the years. The white background was a tone on tone print--you know, the kind with the prints on muslin-like fabric. Again, the final size is a mystery as I have several numbers on my plan. 

I like to think--well, I hope--I've come a long way in designing and planning colors/patterns since I made these quilts. But I'm sure the babies did not mind my choices. I haven't made a tied quilt in a long time. I do know they were puffy and cozy with their polyester battings. I still have some tied quilts at home that have held up well over the years. These days I would quilt these kinds of quilts by machine, but tying is still a good option when you're short on time.

I'm linking up today with Sandra at mmm! quilts for Throwback Thursday. If you have some oldies from your pre-blogging days, be sure to go there and link up. It's fun to look back!

Throwback Thursday Quilt Edition: College Quilts

During the past two weeks I've been at both of my kids' homes, which gave me a perfect photo opportunity for a TBT post. 

When my daughter left for college in 1999 I had to make her a quilt. Of course! I tried not to play matchy matchy with her dorm room--I didn't want it to look like I decorated her room, although if she had asked me to I would have. I will admit to sitting on the floor with my nose two inches away from her interesting tweed carpet to see what colors were hiding there. I decided to make something fairly simple and unobtrusive. And dark because who knew when that quilt would get washed. Here's the result:

The back fabric was the basis for the rest of the fabric choices. It was really fun finding neutrals with similar print colors. The darker colors were pretty representative of what is still often my way of using prints that read more as solids. The quilt is about 56 inches square with 36 8-3/4 inch blocks (1-3/4 inch logs) and a 1-3/4 inch border. The batting is polyester, and the ties are perle cotton.The binding matches the backing.This quilt can still be found various places in my daughter's house depending on who needs it. 

My son left for college in 2001. Another quilt--a little trickier because I definitely didn't want it to look like I decorated his room! Dark colors again, for same reason as above.

I forgot to measure this one, but I'm pretty sure that it's about 72 inches square, with 4-1/2 inch blocks from 1-1/2 inch strips. Again, polyester batting and perle cotton ties. I made a strip pieced binding on this one from leftover fabrics. It can be found on various couches around the house. 

Finally, a quilt for my daughter's boyfriend when I was pretty sure this relationship was going to last. (Around 2002?) I certainly wasn't going to waste my time on a quilt for a guy who wouldn't be around forever. Ha! This was the trickiest of all. Would he like it? What would he like? Was it too much from his girlfriend's mother? Yipes! Scary!. But I made it anyway. And I'm glad I did. He's been our son-in-law for more than 10 years now. 

Hmm...don't know why that picture turned. Oh well, the quilt's symmetrical.

Dark colors again. (You know why.) Again, polyester batting, perle cotton ties, solid looking prints. The squares are approximately 3-1/2 inches, and the overall quilt is about 73 inches square. Big enough to keep him warm in an old off-campus house. This quilt is also on various couches or by the trundle bed in the guest room.

I'm thrilled that these quilts are still all in use. They are cozy, and they still look great. Maybe that's because they don't get washed much.(At all?) Anyway, making college quilts was fun. 

You might see that one quilt is missing. I never got around to making a quilt for my daughter-in-law when she was dating my son. Never mind. I'm making up for it. I just finished a quilt for their bed. (Photos coming soon.) I'll call it hers.  

Oh, and one more picture for those of you who have cats in the family. I don't, but my son and daughter-in-law do. Meet Harvey. 

He used to run and hide when we came. Now he comes running to greet us (me), and he snuggles next to me on the couch! I just might become a cat (-ish) person after all. 

I'm linking up today with Jenn at A Quarter Inch from the Edge for Throwback Thursday. I can't wait to see your throwback quilts!

A Tribute

For my February Throwback Thursday post and in celebration of the upcoming Valentine's Day, I was planning to show some red and white quilts from over the years. But something happened this week that made me change my mind. My sister-in-law J passed away after a 7-year fight against breast cancer. She faced down cancer with the tenacious resolve to have the highest quality of life possible. The first thing I remember her saying when she was diagnosed was that she didn't want anything to do with "that pink ribbon stuff." (Probably not the exact words she used. She was a practical, no-nonsense person.) She endured all the indignities that breast cancer presents, and after a year of treatments seemed to be cancer-free, but after a few years the cancer returned. She continued to live her life to the fullest through multiple changes in treatments. In fact, during 2014, she and my brother-in-law M took a trip each month between treatment sessions, traveling throughout the US to spend time with family or friends and to visit places of great scenic beauty. 

J was a remarkable woman, and there are so many things I could share about her interests, her talents, her generous nature, and her devotion to her family and church, but I want to share just one thing that was particularly special to me. The summer after my husband and I were married, we took a road trip out west to visit J and M, and J introduced me to patchwork. At that time, she was making a quilt--I think it was a Rail Fence, but I'm not sure because I knew nothing about pattern names back then. She showed me how to cut some coordinating fabrics into simple shapes and sew them together to make some blocks by hand. I worked on those blocks during our trip back home. A little later, my sister-in-law gave me a subscription to Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, and you know the rest of the story. 

Between the time of J's initial diagnosis/surgeries and her first round of chemo, I decided to make her a quilt. Foremost in my mind was that it could not have pink in it. I was a hand quilter at the time, but there was no time for that. So I made a simple strip quilt in colors that I thought would appeal to her. (I don't recall if the pattern was mine or if I was inspired by a picture in a magazine. I do have a graph paper drawing of it that I made while I was planning it.) I sewed that quilt like a woman possessed during my spring break in April 2009 and tied it with perle cotton and some iridescent buttons that I found that mimicked the colors in the quilt. Until then, my gift quilts were in celebration of births, marriages and anniversaries. This was the first quilt I made for someone who was suffering, and it was an emotionally draining task. I spent the time focused on my feelings for J, and the quilt became a prayer for strength, comfort and hope--but there was also a lot of anger there for the cancer and what she had to go through. 

Thanks to J I have had a love affair with quilting for more than 36 1/2 years. Quilting has given me so much joy and has been therapeutic and meditative as well. Quilting for me is prayer, and I don’t think I could do without it. I have difficulty expressing myself well in words—and quilting has given me a way to express what I can’t put into words. I don't think J knew that she would change my life so much when she started me on those little patchwork blocks that long ago summer, but I will be forever grateful to her.

J did not lose her fight with cancer. She triumphed over it by living her life to the utmost to the end and showing us all how to do that with grace and dignity. She passed away peacefully in the wee hours of Monday morning with her husband at her side.

I'm linking up today with Jenn at A Quarter Inch from the Edge for Throwback Thursday. 

Throwback Thursday Quilt Edition--Simple HSTs

Throwback Thursday--time to look back at another quilt I made in my pre-blogging days. 

My grandnephew K's 9th birthday was a couple of days ago, so to celebrate, I've dug out a photo of the baby quilt I finished for him in late March 2006, just before he was born. As I recall, his nursery was decorated with bedding with a barnyard theme, and as I've done on other occasions, I went to the store with fabric swatches in hand to check out the bedding and figure out what might go with it. 

Quilts I made for babies back then were very simple, and tied with perle cotton so that I could finish them quickly. 

Half-square Triangles!

I don't remember whether I followed a pattern for color placement or just played with the fabrics. I do remember that I hadn't made many baby quilts for boys and that finding fabrics in the colors I needed without flowery prints was a bit of a challenge. If you look closely, you'll see that one green fabric has flies on it (mayflies, maybe?). I guess I was thinking "bugs." Another fabric has leaves, so maybe together those were kind of a nod to the barnyard theme. I used the same fabric for backing and binding, and tied the quilt with light yellow perle cotton. The squares are about 5 inches, I think, so that would make the quilt about 40 by 50 inches. I used a polyester batting. As always, the quilt was pieced on my Singer Featherweight.

Do you notice the chopped off points on the edges? I'm not sure I'd tolerate that now, but I put a pretty hefty binding on by machine. We'll just say I meant to do that, okay? 

I'm linking up today with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday. Have a great weekend everyone!

Throwback Thursday Quilt Edition: A Bit of Summer

Today I was going through some old photos to see what I might show for Throwback Thursday, and I came across one of a quilt lying on the grass. Since we haven't seen our grass in quite some time, I knew that was the picture I wanted to show. A bit of summer in this cold, cold winter. 

My daughter graduated from college in 2003 and moved into an apartment that was just her own, not shared with roommates. It was a tiny studio, so the cute metal daybed she bought would be quite visible to anyone visiting. It was time to make a quilt. She had seen a postage stamp quilt online that was described as "vintage" by the big retailer that was advertising it. She liked how it looked, but we both knew a store-bought quilt would be inferior to handmade. 

I printed out some graph paper and started coloring it with pencils in the soft sherbet-y shades J was imagining. Amazingly I still have those plans. This was the first one, a Trip Around the World setting. 

You can see that it is square, but we obviously wanted a rectangular quilt (says 60 by 90 on the plan). This one would have been much easier than what we settled on--just nine patches, but our final plan was this:

Still nine-patches, but with sashes to make sort of interlocking blocks of one-color nine patches. Oh yipes! I had no idea at the time how complicated that would be to sew together. You can see lots of random numbers on this plan that must have meant something to me at one time. It looks like the final measurement for the quilt was 64.5 by 94.5 inches, which means that each square was 1.5 inches. I numbered the columns and lettered the rows, so I think I must have used labeled plastic zip close bags to keep all the colors straight while I sewed. Aside from all the numbers, there's one other little mystery note near the bottom of the plan in my daughter's writing: "wacky wall walkers!" I wonder what that meant. If I remember correctly, those were cereal box toys. No idea why that's on there. Anyway, this gives you an idea of how I plan quilts. Lots of notes to organize my thinking while I'm working, but nothing much that would really help replicate this quilt in the future. Oh well. 

So, finally, here's how the quilt came out:

Doesn't it look pretty and summery on that green grass?

The background fabric (and binding) is a variety of tone-on-tone off-whites and the back is muslin. The batting is a light polyester, and the quilt is tied with perle cotton. (You can see the pattern of ties in the little diagonal marks on the plan.) And thanks to the computer print-out of graph paper, I can tell you that I started the quilt on June 29, 2003. and I'm sure it was finished by the time I went back to work in the fall. 

I'm happy to say that one marriage and two moves later, the quilt is still in use. In fact, I've slept under it at my daughter and son-in-law's house. It was a lot of work, but I still love it. 

I'm linking up today with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday.

See you tomorrow with a finish!

Throwback Thursday Quilt Edition: Baby S's Quilt

I just realized it's Thursday again. The days just fly by. Time to share another quilt I made before I started blogging. Today's is another baby quilt. I made this one in the summer of 2010 for my grandniece, who was born in July that year. I made it to match her nursery colors, which I think were part of a forest theme with a birch tree mural on the wall. 

Love those quilts with legs pictures

The blocks are 7 inches and the sashes are 1 1/4 inch wide, which makes the quilt (before washing) about 42 1/2 by 50 3/4 inches plus a little extra to allow for the binding. Back then I tied baby quilts with perle cotton. On this one I used orange and green. The batting is polyester. 

When S's little sister T was born in 2013, I made S a little doll quilt with the leftovers of her baby quilt. It was one of my practice pieces to learn FMQ.

In other news, here's the fabric I selected with my gift certificate from Fat Quarter Shop that I won in the Blogger's Quilt Festival this past fall. (Thanks to both FQ Shop and Amy from Amy's Creative Side).

I plan to use the last 5 on the right with the fabrics I showed Tuesday to make a fun donation quilt. 

Oh, and one more thing--I was at my local library the other day, and they were having a book sale, 50 cents a book. When I got to the check out table with these two books, the clerk laughed and said, "Oh quilt books--you can have 'em." I wasn't sure whether to be insulted or what, but I got out of there quickly before she changed her mind. They're kind of old books, but have some simple patterns that I think could translate nicely to more contemporary quilts. Lucky me, no matter what that woman meant by her comment. 

Okay, that's it for this week. I'm linking up with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday. Have a good weekend, everybody!

Throwback Thursday--O's Sailboats

This is a new post in a series about quilts I completed before I started blogging. It is my effort to document past quilts with pictures and as many details as I can remember (often not many) about how I constructed them. I'll be posting these indefinitely on Throwback Thursday. 

Today's quilt is a baby quilt I completed for my great-nephew O in February 2009. The whole quilt was based on the backing fabric. (I don't recall the designer or manufacturer.)

I drew a foundation pattern to paper piece sailboats. Each block was to finish at 5 1/2 inches by 8 inches. I traced the pattern onto foundation papers, reversing half of them so I could alternate the directions of the rows of sailboats. I selected fabrics that matched the colors of the back to construct the boats. 

Now, here's where it gets a bit hazy because I don't have good notes. I think I separated the boats with a 2 by 8 inch strip (plus seam allowance) made up of a 2 by 6 inch piece of sky fabric and a 2 by 2 inch water fabric (plus seam allowances). I wanted to stagger the rows a bit, so I reduced the width of the strip at the front of each row and added some width at the end. Hmmm...improv piecing wasn't all that popular then, but I think there was a little improv piecing in this quilt--at least in the planning of the first two rows--and then I repeated what I had done in the other rows. The whole idea was to give the feeling of the movement in a regatta.

The whole quilt was probably about 39 or 40 inches by 48 inches before washing. The fabric is cotton with Mountain Mist polyester batting. I tied it with no. 5 perle cotton in off white. (I was a hand quilter at the time, but tied most baby quilts.)

Baby O was born in March 2009. (He's in kindergarten now!) I hear that he often uses the quilt to build forts with his little brother. (Yay!) He's also had fun in the summertime sailing in his grandpa's sailboat, which was the reason I made him a sailboat quilt.

I'm linking up today with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday and possibly with Quiltin' Jenny for Throwback Thursday.

Throwback Thursday--Baby G's Quilt

This is a new post in a series about quilts I completed before I started blogging. It is my effort to document past quilts with pictures and as many details as I can remember (often not many) about how I constructed them. I'll be posting these indefinitely on Throwback Thursday. 

Today's quilt is one I made for my new grand-nephew G in the fall of 2008. (He just turned 6 last week, and I still can't believe he's that old already. Where did the time go?) I showed his twin sister's quilt here last week. When I found the fabrics with their ribbons and confetti prints, I thought a baby celebration was in order, complete with black tie, so I made a bow tie quilt. The blocks are 8 inches square, which I guess makes the quilt about 40 by 48 inches before washing. It's a pretty bright quilt, but you can get away with that with babies, right?

The quilt is machine pieced. At the time that I made it, I was a hand quilter. But I was also working full time and did not have time to hand quilt items that were needed quickly. So my baby quilts were almost always tied. I tied this one with yellow no. 5 perle cotton. The batting is Mountain Mist polyester. The backing is simple, but I wasn't messing around with pieced backs at the time. (I sure hope those wrinkles washed out.)

I'm linking up today with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday.

Oh, and if you read my post yesterday, you might like to know that I spent my day mindlessly unsewing and watching lots of home improvement shows, but I replaced all the blocks that bothered me and we're all good now. I'm happy again. 

Throwback Thursday--D's baby quilt

This is a new post in a series about quilts I completed before I started blogging. It is my effort to document past quilts with pictures and as many details as I can remember (often not many) about how I constructed them. I'll be posting these indefinitely on Throwback Thursday. 

Today's quilt is a baby quilt I made for my new grandniece D in the fall of 2008. (Maybe I'll show her twin brother's quilt next week.) The pattern is Log Cabin Squared by Beth Hayes that I found in the Fall 2008 issue of America Makes Fast Quilts by McCall's Quilting. The original pattern called for 25 fat quarters and was made of 12-inch by 12-inch White House Steps blocks set in 5 rows of 5 blocks. I think I re-sized the pattern to make 8-inch blocks, and I added an extra row. The finished center square of each block was 2 inches and the finished strips were 1 inch wide. 

The quilt is machine pieced. At the time that I made it, I was a hand quilter. But I was also working full time and did not have time to hand quilt items that were needed quickly. So my baby quilts were almost always tied. I tied this one with no. 5 perle cotton. The batting is Mountain Mist polyester.

I found a cute plaid fabric to use for the binding and decided to cut it on the bias. I had done few bias bindings in the past (I think only on some quilts that had scallops), and I had never attached one by machine, so I struggled with this one, probably pulling it too taut as I was sewing. So the edge ruffled a bit. It was fairly evenly ruffled, and so I let it be. I figured it added to the feminine nature of the quilt. (Well that seemed like a good excuse to not tear it all off, anyway.) Now that I just bought an even feed foot, I have a feeling that if I do another bias binding, I'll be more successful.  

The finished quilt was about 40 by 48 inches before washing. 

I'm linking up today with My Quilt Infatuation for Needle and Thread Thursday and possibly Quiltin' Jenny for Throwback Thursday, if she posts. 

And...come back tomorrow. I have a finish to post, and I'm so happy!