I love "Kansas Troubles" fabric by Moda!

I really love the warm rich color palate of the "Kansas Troubles" line by Moda.  These colors just make me feel warm and cozy and they are the kind of fabric I want to just snuggle up in and read a good book.  Recently while talking with my best bud, Peggy she was telling me about finding a sight online that had some great tutorials and patterns.  Well with a recommendation from Peggy, you know I'm going to be looking that sight over for sure and boy was I impressed.  They have great tutorials and show you how to make some really fun quilts and guess what, they aren't hard at all!!  Some of you know that I spent a portion of my life living in Missouri and met some wonderful people there and did a good bit of quilting!  What does that have to do with anything?  Well the name of the website is "Missouri Star Quilts".  If you get the chance be sure to check out some of their tutorials at:   http://tutorialsmissouriquiltco.com/  This is a really neat site.

Now on to the quilt.  This one is for ME!!  This one will not be given away.




Of course I took a picture of a mistake in the quilt.  I wanted to and
attempted to alternate the blocks, dark next to light, but as the
saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men go awray.

At least I know you can see how the warm rich colors play off one another in this spectacular spools pattern.  Now the hard thing to believe is this block is made with 2 contrasting strips, 2 1/2 inches wide and 1 background fabric 4 1/2" wide.  If you cut your strips to the width of the fabric it really works well.  From 3 strips of fabric you will have 2 1/2 finished blocks.  I won't go into the details of how to make the block because you can all see that on the Missouri Quilt site.  I have to tell you though that this quilt goes together very easily and quickly, otherwise it would not be finished in this timely manner.

When I made this one I did some careful measuring before putting
the borders on.

Since this quilt was for me and I had some very specific ideals about what I wanted I was very careful to measure the bed and make the top to fit the bed exactly with the addition of the small burgandy border.  I know that this quilt will be used as a spread on my bed and I didn't want to have a lot of bulky fabric haning off the corners, and I didn't want the quilt to be so long that I would forever be trying to get it pulled up off the floor at the bottom of the bed.  Gee, it looks like I'm picky!  At any rate, I measured exactly what size the drop would be on the sides and foot of the bed.  I bet you could figure out those two numbers were the same.   Then I cut the drops and sewed them to the quilt.  Now I didn't want all of the extra to fold back and up over the pillows.  I'm making pillow shams to go with the quilt to cover the pillows so I don't need the extra fabric at the top of the quilt and it still looks great.  Since I'm not putting the wide green border on the top the only border there is the narrow burgandy border. 

Since I didn't want the extra at the bottom corners of the quilt I decided to cut them out so the corners would fit straight down giving a very boxy tailored look.  These edges fasten together with button and loop on the back side of the quilt.  The look is very tailored and neat which is just what I wanted.  Now don't ask me why I wanted that particular look, because nothing else in the house is even close!  At any rate the quilt is finished and the shams are completed yet, but soon.

I hope everyone has a great day.  Have fun quilting and make something that is what you want in every detail!  It's fun to make something just for me occassionally.  Love ya!

New Tees and things

Well, I've been at it again.  I love to make memory quilts with tees and people's clothes they wore and loved.  I just want to put a little more love in and then it goes to someone who will love it even more because of all the memories.  I typically get calls on the average of once a month asking for a memory quilt to be made and I really love doing them.  Unfortunately it takes me a while to get it all together.  I like to make them different, and use different techniques to make each one a unique work of art that will be cherished for many years to come.  I believe striving to make a very special item for each person is the reason I get so many calls for more.

Here is a quilt I made for a girl and the tee's belonged to her father.  She had many different tee's and all of these things demonstrate that her father loved his outdoor sports activities.  She also brought several shirts that he wore and I have used these to make the stripping between the blocks.  This is a little of the process I go through when making a memory quilt.

First I have to get the logos trimmed out and the fuseable
put on and then lay out the shirts.

This part is actually very time consuming.  Much more so than you may think.  I have to get the shirts laid out on my cutting table and I have to make sure I leave ample room around the outside of the logo for any trimming or squaring.  I also try to make a habit of cutting the logos out using a whole inch measurement.  Whether it's 6 or 14 doesn't matter but I don't want to do any 6 1/2 or 14 1/4.  That just confuses the issue when I start doing the stripping!  This is something I've learned the hard way over time.  After the logos are cut out I have to go the the ironing board to add the fuseable and I do use the woven most of the time.  This just seems to work better as far as I am concerned and there is less stretch.  Next I retrim the logos to remove rough edges,  and then I lay them out to see how it is going to look.




At this point I haven't done anything about the stripping.

Once I've laid the shirts out on the bed in the way I think I want them to go, taking into consideration the size and the colors then I can start thinking about the finish trimming.  This is where I have to make sure that all the shirts in a row are the same width.  If I can trim all the shirts in a row to a particular width, say 12" then I don't have to add any extra strips down the side.  If I can't then I will add a strip of shashing down one side to keep the sizes consistent. 


If you look at the bottom of this picture you will see where I have
added an extra strip of sashing to increase the width of that tee.

After doing the final trimming I can then add my sashing forming rows either vertically or horizonally to put the quilt top together.  Next I will put the finishing trims on the top.  In this case it is logos from hats that have been cut out and are satin stitched down before the quilting is done and then I do the quilting and binding being sure to add a rod pocket at the top because many of these quilts are hung.

These memory quilts are wonderful projects and I love doing them and seeing what new ideals I can come up with to make each quilt a very special one of a kind keepsake.

I hope you all have a great day and decide to one day try your hand at making a memory quilt as a keepsake to remember someone who has passed away, or to commemorate an event, like graduating from high school or college or getting married or having a baby.  Whatever the occasion these quilts are a lot of fun and guaranteed to make you stretch your brain to recall all of that math you had when you were in school!



I'm Back

Gee this summer has been so busy that I've really had to take some weeks off to keep my sanity.  At least I think I am still sane, but then you need to ask someone who knows me and they may tell you different! 

At any rate, it seems that I always have people asking me about what size a quilt needs to be for what size bed.  What do I consider a baby quilt and what do I consider a twin quilt.  Well I happened to find a chart and I just wanted to take a minute to just write about sizes and post one list that I have found.  Now one thing I have to say is you will find many charts and they all seem to vary a little either in width or length.  Here is the list I found.

Standard Bed Sizes
	Bed Size
Twin	39"x 76"
Double	54"x 76"
Queen	60"x 80"
King	72"x 80"
Dual King	78"x 80"
	Quilt Size
Twin	68"x 90"
Double	80"x 90"
Queen	90"x 108"
King	110"x 110"
Dual King	120"x 120"

Now in addition to the above sizes which are standard bed sizes there are lap quilts and baby quilts.  Most baby quilts will be around 36" x 45" or slightly larger.  Lap size quilts are slightly larger than the baby quilt in that they are typically around 45" x 56" or slightly larger.  In addition to that you have a twin long bed which you will find in most college dorms.  And if all of this isn't confusing enough you will have standard answers to questions like how large should my quilt be to fit my double bed.  The standard answer is you should have a drop of at least 8" on each side of the bed and the foot.  Note the measurements on this chart the twin bed mattress size is 39".  If you have a drop of 8" on each side your quilt would need to be 55" wide and for a 76" length you would need a quilt 84" long.  55 x 84 is not on that chart. Instead we have 60" x 90" which would give a drop of 12" on each side and 14" at the foot of the bed.  Wouldn't you at least think the side drop and the bottom drop should be the same?  If you do the math you will note that the same thing happens with the other quilt sizes without a standard drop for most of the sizes listed.  What's a body to do?

In addition to all of this confusion you also have personal preferences, and in addition to that you have to take into consideration the size of the people who will be using the quilt.  Now if Mr. Heart is going to get the quilt and he sleeps on a twin bed, but he weights in at about 300 lbs, you may want to give him a little more drop room.  Eight inches on each side may mean the quilt will not cover him.  If he sleeps on his side the quilt will not cover him in front and back!!!  As for me since we have a queen bed we need a queen quilt, but then my husband is not small, over 200 lbs and I'm no light weight myself.  In addition my baby Frenchie sleeps with me and she sleeps on top of the cover between me and my husband so that means we need more width to our quilts than the normal person would need.  Otherwise somebody winds up with no quilt during the night!

My suggestion is make your quilt top without the borders and make sure that fits the top of your bed, then add the amount of drop that you want on your quilt and use that as your standard for that size bed  If your top without the borders fits the bed then the borders will be your drop whether they are 3 borders making a total drop of 10" or 1 border of 14".  Quilts are individual works of art and the size depends on the person making the quilt.  Remember the charts are just guidelines.  There is no absolutes.

Remember quilts are gifts of love.  Everytime someone wraps up in a quilt you made them they will think of you!  Put your love in each seam and that love will shine for generations.