Quilting and Being a Mom

I am lucky.

I have three great children - all adults from the ages of 18 to 23.  Most days, it is hard to believe that so much time has past from when we were at the stage where teeth were missing, they had band-aids on their knees and insisted on a daily menu of mac & cheese.

My favorite quilts are the ones I've made for my kids.  And while none of these awesome people I call my children are interested in making quilts, they all enthusiastically appreciate the quilts I make. (My middle one is even  quick to give my clothing a once over and point out if I've got threads all over my clothing before we go out of the house.)

When I started to quilt obsessively 12-ish years ago, some of the first quilts I made were for their beds.  (Now don't laugh, but I never added binding to any of these three quilts.  My LAQ would serge the edges and I moved on.  The quilts were abused but lasted anyway!)

These photos are circa 2006.

Time passed and my skills as a quilter got better.

In 2011, I celebrated my son's freshman year in college and his interest in math with the quilt Infinite.

The following year, I celebrated his internship in Seattle and proved he doesn't pay attention to what I am sewing when I worked on this quilt, quilting and all, in the same room where he was busy gaming for many days leading up to Christmas one year.  

My quilt Numbers was made this year in celebration of his first every apartment and I love that it is hanging on a wall visible when we Skype.

For my middle one, I made this Irish chain quilt to celebrate her love of Celtic music. She loves to sleep under it every night.

And then made her Awesome because I wanted her to wake up everyday knowing how I feel about her.

Last summer, my youngest got one of my all time favorite quilts to celebrate her interest in writing as she packed her bags for college.

But back in 2012, I won the best mom ever award when my daughter found this Tardis quilt under the Christmas tree.

There are more quilts I could share but I think you get the point!

I'll leave you with my best wishes for a wonderful Mother's Day and my favorite comic!

from zitscomics.com

Happy Mother's Day!

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Turnstyle Block - Block Tutorial

One of the first blocks I fell in love with was the basic pinwheel block.  I remember making a small quilt as a gift for a friend with some very colorful fabric.

Today I wanted to share a twist on the basic pinwheel block with a tutorial on the Turnstyle block.  I'll be using this block as part of an upcoming quilt so I figured out the math options and decided to share!

Here are three different colorways of the same block.

Let's see how to make block 1's coloring -

The table below has the cutting dimensions dependent on the overall finished block size required for your quilt.  For each block, cut one (1) of pieces A & B and two (2) pieces of C.

Pieces A and B need to be cut into four equal sized triangles.

Piece C needs to be cut into two equal sized triangles

Sew piece A to B.  Press seam to darker fabric.  Sew unit AB to piece C

Make four units for each block.

Trim the dog-ears and as needed to the required unit size (see table below).

Changing the coloring of the block creates some new interesting patterns in final quilt.

Aren't these fun?

I'll be linkup up here.

Have a wonderful day! Patty

Slow Stitch Projects

The back porch on a summer afternoon, movie nights, airplane travel, beach vacations and the end of a long day.

What do these things have in common?

They are perfect times to sit and relax with a bit of slow stitching.  (For full disclosure, it depends on the movie.  Movies that involve lots of action scenes with things blowing up are perfect because I don't really like watching those bits!) 

I finished the needle-turned applique for my orange peel project. Fabric is Painter's Canvas from Michael Miller.

This might become a pillow or maybe a wall hanging, not sure yet.  I want the project to sit for a bit to make sure I don't want to add some more orange peels.  I like the negative space and the asymmetrical look. What do you think?

With that project done, I wanted to start something new.  And look what I found!

I love Carolyn's pattern when I first saw it in her newsletter.  Care to take on another project?  You can find more information on Cheryl's blog.  I'm excited to get started.

First step though - what fabric should I use?

Have a wonderful day! Patty