On the way to AQS Lancaster last fall, we stopped at a Mennonite quilt shop. One of the fabrics I purchased was a Christmas print with red and green snowflake stars on a black background. I decided to use it to make placemats for my sisters-in-law. Since we were headed there for Thanksgiving, I thought it would be fun to make two-sided mats with Thanksgiving prints on one side and Christmas prints on the other.

I used the same construction technique as the Veggie & Fruit Placemats. Only this time I pieced the backing. The front side (Thanksgiving) has a center rectangle of fabric lightly glued to the Pellon Flexible Foam. The backing (Christmas) is a center rectangle with borders of a different fabric sewn around it. This backing is lightly glued to the other side of the Pellon. The Thanksgiving borders with flanged piping are sewn RST to the backing, then turned to the front, encasing the Pellon, overlapping the center rectangle, and sewn down through all layers to provide the little bit of quilting that goes into these.

I ended up making 20 of these - 10 for each sister-in-law.

I can't believe I never took photos of these placemats after I finished them - they turned out super fun. They were a gift for my friend, Ann's, 80th birthday. We have helped her and her husband host an annual dinner party/fundraiser for the Scouts at their summer home on Lake Ontario for the past few years. 

They have a passel of grandkids and I thought these placemats would be fun for their summer family gatherings.

They are based on the "Inside Out Mats" pattern by Poor House Quilt Designs. I used Pellon Flexible Foam as the middle layer and put a really sweet pastel pictorial garden and birds print on the backs, so they are reversible.

August 2024 update: When we joined Ann and Leon for the annual dinner this year, Ann had the table set with these placemats with the pastel side showing. They looked really elegant along side the beautiful cut flowers from them garden. After dinner, she had the guests turn them over to reveal the fun veggie and fruit sides.

When my niece, Megan, let me know she was expecting another boy, I decided to make the new arrival a a close copy of his older brother's I Spy... quilt. Tommy's was done in grey. Danny's is done in blue. Most of the image blocks are different between the two quilts with just a couple exceptions.

I particularly liked the backing fabric I found for this quilt with all the undersea creatures - one more place where I Spy can be played.

Fabrics: 100% cotton
Batting: 2 layers Dream Cotton
​Thread: TuttiFrutti & Aurifil 50

My sibkid, Gabe, was a runner in high school. This quilt is made from their collection of t-shirts from all their winning events - an impressive array.

This is the first time I've tried using a fleece backing (in place of batting and cotton backing). I love how soft and cuddly it is, but I didn't like working with it and none of the quilting shows on the back. I don't think I'll use fleece again.

When my brother-in-law, John, turned 70 this October I asked if he would like a quilt for his birthday - perhaps a t-shirt quilt like I'd made for his brother, my husband. He jumped at the offer and delivered his selected t-shirts to David during their boys' weekend at Massawepie in November.

I could find nothing in my stash that coordinated well with the t-shirts, so I did a bit of shopping. I selected the neutral tan/grey for the sashing and purchased six or seven options for the outer borders. When John & Alice were here for Thanksgiving, they helped select the border I used.

The back is cotton flannel. I was hoping to emulate David's t-shirt quilt that has a grey sweatshirt material as batting and backing. I didn't think just the flannel would be enough, so I added a wool batting. It made for a VERY warm and cozy quilt. I hope John won't find it TOO warm! It also made for a much puffier quilt than David's, which made the quilting stand out more than I would have liked for this type of quilt. In certain lighting, like in the photo below, the quilting makes the text hard to read on some of the shirts.

Fabric: Cotton T-shirts, woven cotton (sashing & border), cotton flannel (backing)
Batting: Hobbs Wool
Thread: Aurifil 50wt cotton, Superior Threads Monopoly, miscellaneous 50wt cotton and cotton/poly threads

I made this tablerunner as a housewarming gift for our friends Kim & Richard after they had us for dinner at their newly renovated Canandaigua Lake house.

It is made using two hand-dyed fabrics from Heide Stoll-Weber that I acquired from Carol Taylor's stash before she moved. These cotton fabrics have a gorgeous sheen that makes this quilt just glow. But, it also made it very difficult to photograph.

The back of the quilt was so beautiful that I decided to stitch the labels in matching thread to make them disappear. That way, I hoped it could be used as a two-sided quilt. 

Another tablerunner. Another time-crunched project. I thought I had until the day of the wedding to finish this, then learned that we would need to deliver the wedding gifts two days sooner before the bride's parents left town to help get ready for the wedding in Syracuse.

​The newlyweds had five colors of Fiestaware picked out in the registry. I tried to find fabrics to match those colors to make this quilt.

I got the top pieced, layered and basted before I saw that I had misplaced two of the squares! This photo is before I fixed things by appliquéing two squares over the misguided ones.

I completely forgot to photograph the quilt before I shoved it into the box with the other gifts and wrapped it all up. 

You can see how the center part was quilted from the photo of my stitching sample. The dark blue border was quilted with triple piano keys all around.

I ended up doing all of the quilting with my walking foot. It gave straighter, more even results than I could achieve with a ruler. Since this piece was so small, I could easily rotate every time I came to a corner.

Batting:

• Quilter's Dream 80/20
• Hobbs Wool

Quilting Thread:

• Glide No. 40 Trilobal Polyester
• Sulky 30wt. Rayon
• Glide No. 40 Trilobal Polyester in bobbin

Today my nephew, Russell, son of my husband's younger brother, graduated from college. It's so hard to believe that he and his older sister, Brianna, are both adults with this significant milestone behind them.

I reached out to Russell a few weeks ago to see if he would be interested in having a quilt to commemorate his achievement. I made one for his sister when she graduated, but I wasn't sure if he'd be interested. I was pleased to receive an immediate and enthusiast "yes" response from him.

So, I needed to figure out something fitting that I could complete in a relatively short time. I decided to upscale the block I made for Architected to an 8" block. Those went together really quickly. 

Once I had a finished quilt top, I started sketching to choose a quilting design. Below are some of the options I considered. Dry erase marker on clear plastic works so well for this process!

I chose the overlapping circles, partially because I had quilted his sister's quilt with circles. I stitched using one of my circle rulers and went with Jamie Wallen's technique of triple-stitching in short sections as I went around the ruler. This made it much easier to keep from wandering. And, when I did wander, I simply got back on track and triple-stitched the beginning and end of the "wander". Then I could rip out those stray stitches without everything else coming undone. That saved me a lot of time. And the bolder look of the triple stitching looked great.

Batting: Hobbs wool
Quilting Thread:

• Glide No. 40 Trilobal Polyester in top and bobbin

I volunteer at Flower City Habitat for Humanity. The person I've been working most closely with and his wife are expecting a baby girl. That leftover piece from the Cotton Candy quilts may be just the ticket for a baby quilt!

I had no more of the exact lilac fabric in my stash from the original borders, but I had something similar. So, I cut off the remaining two original borders, then added white sashing and new lilac borders.

Some friends recently finished building a beautiful new home in Naples, NY and invited a group of their friends for a housewarming party - our first post-vaccination gathering.

I had seen a tablerunner on Pinterest made with this block. It was quite similar to this, but it was rectangular. I modified the design to have pointed ends and think it looks much better this way.

Since I had not seen the new house, I had to totally "wing it" when choosing colors and fabrics. I tried to channel Marvanne, the hostess, when I gathered fabrics. That must have worked because the quilt goes perfectly with their house.

The borders were quilted with one of my new Jamie Wallen Quilter's Apothecary rulers. This is the first time I tried Jamie's approach of triple-stitching (or more) each line to bolden it up. I really liked the extra oomph that added to this quilting.

This quilt was finished in the biggest rush in which I've ever finished a quilt. So, unfortunately, it has no label and is not signed.