My Quilting History

I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and today just kinda ended up being the day it worked out.

In the past year, my interest in quilting has revived -- in large part because I now have a wonderful group of women with which to quilt each week.  It keeps me going to need a project to take with me.  That, and with the need to slow way down because of my health, it is good to have quiet, undemanding projects to do at home.

So,what I've done is gather pictures of almost every quilt, or quilted piece, I've made over the years, and I'm posting here so I have a chronology of my work.

So, here goes.....

The first quilted piece I ever made was this basket topper for my mom.  The story behind it is that she grew up with a delightful Sunbonnet Sue quilt which had been made for her by her maternal aunt.  I wanted to commemorate it by making her this cover for her workbasket.  More on the Sunbonnet Sue quilt at a later date.

The first quilt I ever made is this log cabin.  It was for our first daughter, Jessie, but later became her brother, Daniel's.  There is nothing left of it but tatters now.  It was well-loved and well-used.

This "Partridge in a Pear Tree" wall hanging was made in the mid-80s while we lived in Columbia .

Then there was a very long gap of probably 18 years or so.  I was doing other things, like raising kids, schooling them, making costumes for our family and for drama productions for the kids.  I was sewing all the time, just not on quilts.  Then for the Christmas of 2003, I kinda re-entered the quilting fray.

This is a wall hanging made for my mom's best friend.  I used one of their favorite pictures of their log cabin in winter, transferred it to fabric and created a quilted frame for it.  She loved it.

This pillow was made for my mom who was in a care facility in California.  She was afflicted with Alzheimer's disease very young.  There was so little I could do for her, but had she been aware, she would have loved to have pictures of us close to her.

I also made quilts for my dad and his companion.  The quotation on each of them says, "There are few blessings greater than the love of family."  On each quilt I used favorite pictures of children and grandchildren.

The next quilt was one made to celebrate a significant birthday of a dear friend.  I called it "Triple Irish Latte" and ended up making a couple more of them over the years.  One for a significant birthday of another dear friend and one for the Care Center Quilt Auction a few years back.  And, I still have one in my unfinished projects tub......

My daughters and I made a couple of quilts together in the mid-2000s, but I only have pictures of this one.  It was such fun.  The delightful gal for whom it was made is a book lover.  The fabrics are book related, there are favorite book quotations on the blocks, and it's embellished with buttons.

This one was made for the daughter of some friends of ours.  Such a sweet thing happened when I gave it to them.  The mom said that no one had ever made a quilt for them before.  Imagine that!  I often gravitate toward log cabin patterns, and I used only fabrics from my stash for this one.  It was a fun project.

Again, here's a log cabin theme.  I called it Pine Tree Log Cabin, and it was made for a dear friend.  This one also came out of my stash.  I love doing that!

This is a Rail Fence pattern made for my grandson's first birthday.  I love blue. Period.

Another Log Cabin made out of scraps.  Can't miss with blue.   I turned it into a printer cover!

This one I made from a bundle of pre-cut diamonds.  It was a really fun project.  It was made for another friend for a significant birthday.  I think there's some kind of theme going on here!

This one is a single block made for a friendship quilt.

And here begin the projects from the past year.  My grandson turned 5 this summer, and I wanted to make him a 5-year quilt.  I had a really fun thing happen one weekend that prompted the use of this pattern.  I've had a favorite quilt book for many years, and when my grandson joined me in looking at it, he really responded to this pattern, saying, "Oh, Grandma, what is THAT one?!"  He and I share the love of blue.  :-)
So, it became his 5-year quilt, along with glow-stars and a couple of project days getting them stuck to his ceiling in constellations.  Fun stuff.  The back has quotations from Scripture about stars.  I love the idea of him reading his quilt and learning Bible verses in the process.  I also made a pillowcase to go with it.

My granddaughter turned 1 this fall, so I had my work cut out for me during the summer months.  I saw a lovely 1930s quilt in a book that had no pattern reference for it.  Between us, my girls and I managed to figure out the blocks and the layout, and after many, many trips to the reproduction aisles of several quilting stores, as well as the stashes of my generous quilting friends, I came up with "Rainbows for Ava" and backed it with lavender flannel.

In finding the fabric for Ava's quilt, I ended up with way more than I needed because buying fabric for a scrap quilt does that.  ;-)  So, I had to use those scraps, right?  Our nephew and his wife had their first baby this fall, so this is the result of using the scraps.  The back was a funny thing.  I intended to use muslin only, but I didn't have enough, the quilt store didn't have enough at the last minute before a weekend quilt retreat during which I had hoped to finish this, and I didn't have enough of anything else, either.  So my daughter and I bodged together a scrap back and it turned out way better than I would have imagined.  That's a quilting buddy in the picture.

And that's it for now.  To be continued, added to, and hopefully be enormously long in the end result!

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January 27, 2013

A good friend of mine in Missouri reminded me that I had made her this apron when we lived there.  It's not quilted, but the bib is pieced in a tulip pattern.  She sent me the pictures to share.  Thanks, Anne!

January 31, 2013

And here is my granddaughter's doll quilt which I made for her for Christmas to go with her baby doll.  The fabrics are leftovers from her one-year quilt and made in a pattern reminiscent of hers.

In April I finished a Broken Dishes quilt and gave it to Dale for his birthday.  Here's the story on that one.....

So, more than a decade ago, my friend Annie's quilt group, with which I was not yet familiar, embarked on a group project making a Broken Dishes pattern using Civil War reproduction fabrics.  Some of the blocks were orphaned and ended up in a bag in her stash.  Last summer she gave them to me and I turned them into this:

There are 6 original blocks, then several that were taken apart and put back together in different color combinations, and then there are many that were made new from fabrics from both Annie's stash and mine.

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During the summer, I put together a quilt with a textile from Ghana that was sent by a friend who was ministering there a few years ago.  I only bordered it and then had my friend Barb quilt it.  The pictures don't do it justice.  It's kind of a wild one, but the folks I made it for like it.  They have both spent time in Africa and have made one of their spare rooms an African theme, and it works for them.

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Advent Calendar!  I made this for my grandchildren for Christmas this year.  They have been enjoying it a lot.  Very cool.  :-)

It's a Nancy Halvorsen panel that I bordered and quilted.  There are button type fasteners sewn on around the border and the interior on which the figures hang.

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And this is the last quilt of 2013 for me.......Unbeknownst to Jessie, I was making it for her under her very nose.  She thought it was for me, but when we celebrated it at our quilting group, she discovered it was for her as I read the label out loud:

A Christmas Quilt for 2013

Made with love

for my Jessie-Girl

Debbie MacInnis ~ Chehalis, WA

It was so much fun to surprise her!

I used 5" charm squares from the Wintergreen Collection by Moda, and just sashed them and then used one of the border fabrics in the line to frame them.  Easy and rather striking, I think.