Sugar Sand top finished

For my great-niece whose baby girl is due in June.

She lives on a dune near Lake Michigan. So I used one of my favorites, a light brown linen that looks like sand[paper] with her favorite baby colors hot pink and yellow. The sand along Lake Michigan is so beautiful they call it "sugar sand."

Hanging next to it is the backing fabric. Many of the fabrics are from my stash sister Nancy, including the framing fabric with pink leaves (which I love!). Nancy loves pink, so she gave me tubfuls. I purchased the ones with pink and yellow combined. I must say I like this combination.

So much fuzz and fabric dust

I really love this book. I was inspired for this quilt by Jacquie Gering's alternate grid Scandia Crush (second photo below), using variable framing. The idea is to "float" the blocks in various positions within blocks. It was a very pleasant, creative, improvisational process.

reds of winter

With all the cold and snow, color and heat are necessary.

Two projects for gifts. The blocks above are for a baby quilt I'm calling "sugar sand." It's for a mama-to-be who lives on a dune. The beautiful sand of Lake Michigan is called sugar sand. The mama loves hot pink and yellow. This is a subtle interpretation of those colors. The tan linen reminds me of sandpaper, and I adore it.

Below are fabrics for placemats and napkins for a bride-to-be. My stashy sister Nancy gave me all but the ochre with Swissy dots. The linen on the left is more of the stuff that I have loveloveloved from her. She visits shops in Myrtle Beach and gathers remnants for a song. I will make reversible placemats with the reds, binding in the ochre, and napkins from the linen toile-ish print.

Here is the arrangement my siblings sent for my mother-in-law's funeral. They have dried so beautifully, even the orchids. Sadly, I bumped them as I walked by and some orchid blossoms fell atop the roses. 

mug mats: the perfect quick quilt

Mug mats are useful. Of course. This is how to market them. But bottom line: Mug mats are small quilts, a joy for the quilter. In the old days, when I made quilts, I loved designing a block, cutting it, sewing it, and then I had to force myself to finish a big quilt of block after block. The colors, shapes and combinations of patterns are what interested me then, and still do.

The perfect answer to this craving to design something new: mug mats. Make one, it's done. Now on to the next!

The floral white and black in the center is the same as in Genevieve's quilt,
from a thrift store skirt.

This mat has upholstery fabric (charcoal gray with vines
and beige linen moiré, both given by my sister Nancy),
and new buttery and gray dot fabrics I bought

I really love combining fabrics from different sources. This one has fabric: from my 1970s-80s stash; an old farm skirt; gifts from friends and family; and a couple of new ones I bought.

Ninety-eight percent of my fabric stash is patterns and prints. I am very drawn to minimal quilts, believe it or not, but when it comes to designing, I keep going to prints. My next challenge to myself is to design minimal quilt mats, more like the beige and charcoal gray one above.

Let's see how I do. :-)

UPDATE:

I made two minimal abstract mats today, so let's call this rising to the challenge. :)

This linen is heavy. It was a dream to sew, until I got to the binding.
I won't ever bind with such heavy fabric again if I can help it.
Still, I LOVE this linen and will make many more things with it.
My sister Nancy gave it to me.

The back of the linen mat is a fabric long in my stash,
but I cannot remember for the life of me where it came from.
Nancy, no doubt.

Nancy gave me this dotted upholstery fabric, and also the red cotton,
which looks like batik. The dotted fabric looks much richer in person.
I was stymied about how to quilt it,
because I didn't want to detract from the simplicity of the design.
In the end I kept it simple with four squares.

Nancy gave me this linen toile, just delicious.
I paired it with the dots, which she gave together,
and they are perfect paired, even if one is on the front
and one is on the back.
I love Chinoiserie.

Bootsie & Astrid's brown & olive linen placemats, and a new mug mat

I finished and shipped a gift to my sister Ginnie (she's Bootsie to me) and her wife Astrid in the Netherlands for their summer birthdays, and since they have received them now, I can post photos. :)

Four reversible placemats and napkins. My sister Nancy gave me a stash of fabric she's been collecting, and the front and back fabrics of the placemats were from that stash. I picked out the binding trim and napkin fabrics at the quilt store. This binding is the same as for Olive's quilt (here and here). (Nancy's birthday is tomorrow, and I am trying to be patient until she can tell me what I can make for her bedroom. A wall hanging? A quilted pillow?)

I quilted straight lines every 1"

The brown linen is just beautiful, and I was able to frame four different floral patterns because of the large repeat.

I know there is a way to straighten the edges of the placemat in the photo in PhotoShop,
but suffice to say that the placemats are straight in person.

As for the quilting lines' imperfections,
they witness that this is handmade. :)

My sisters tell me they love them and intend to use them every day, which makes me supremely happy. Now I am almost with them at their table. One day, I hope Don and I can join them for real.

I also sewed a mug mat for my Etsy shop. The cat and bird linen and some of the other remnants were part of Henry's quilt.

front

back

I do believe tan/brown and blue/turquoise are my favorite colors together. Anything with brown just sends me.

I am designing more mug mats today. Joy!

a quilt for Henry

The second of our three grandchildren was born right on his due date February 20. Henry Bennett arrived in fine form, we are so grateful. (The third, a girl, is due March 12. Her quilt is finished and posted here.)

I was relieved to be able to finish his quilt the weekend before he arrived, well actually on Monday. I pieced it Saturday, quilted Sunday, then sewed on the binding Monday. He arrived Thursday. Phew!

This quilt is full of my brother Bennett, who passed away in 1996 at age 47. He and I were close. I used a linen table cloth of his for years after he died, and it began to get threadbare.

Bennett's table cloth from India

Because Henry was to have his name, I used that cloth in the quilt (the parts that were not threadbare, of course) and paired all the fabrics around it. I also wanted it to be a "hippie" quilt. Although Bennett wasn't a true hippie, much of his outlook was shaped that way. He wore a black arm band at his 1970 college graduation to protest the Vietnam War. He was non-materialistic, and his taste in music shaped my own. (CSNY, Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, James Taylor, so many more) He wore soft, worn chambray or flannel shirts.

Bennett's table cloth linen is the floral one
and also the border with red;
I'm sure this was made in India

I decided I wanted to design a free-form quilt, and this was not easy. I cut the pieces at the beginning to place them in a composition I liked. And then as I began to piece it, I adjusted the pieces to fit into each other. I wanted it to be more folk art than precision pieces. This process was organic for me and felt just right as I connected with Bennett.

I really love linen, and I ordered a second special one from Australia, with cats, birds and trees. Bennett loved nature, as do I, and I wanted to introduce Henry to this love.

I tried to use the new walking foot, but I could not get it to align with the needle when I installed it. So I used the regular foot. Since finishing, I found a helpful piece of advice at a quilting blog to simply push the foot to the side until it aligns. It sounds intuitive, but when you're working with it, you'd think that would break it. I will try it before starting the next.

Henry and I had a little photo shoot yesterday on his quilt. He seemed to like it just fine. He already rolls from side to side.

Henry Bennett, age 4 days

In this picture, Henry looks like his brother James, who is now 2