Circle Study

I'm not sure what to call this quilt. I was inspired to make it from a Craftsy class by Heather Thomas. Her class was focused on the quilting.  Her circles appeared to be layers that weren't really pieced.  

I wanted to practice curved piecing and also some foundation piecing.  Each circle is created using 4 wheel blocks with a quarter circle in the center and a variety of pieced quarter circles around them.  I used printed fabrics from my stash as well as gelli printing some solid fabrics to get tone-on-tone designs. The graduated colors are lighter under the red circles to darker under the yellow ones. I thought making some of the quarter circles have larger centers and mixing them gave it more interest. 

It was really fun to put together.  I finished piecing it a few months ago and then put off the quilting. That was what the class was about but by then I'd moved onto other interests and hadn't quilted much.  When I finally started, I loved the quilting process for this.  I kept changing thread types and colors enjoy the experimentation.

I am definitely better at quilting things with curves than more angular designs. 

Thanks for dropping by.

Fall On-line Quilt Festival

I almost missed it this fall!  The Blogger's Quilt Festival is in full swing over at Amy's Creative Side.  Follow this link to see at last count over 500 wonderful quilts.  Fall 2011 Quilt Festival

Obviously I'm not contributing this fall but I still love seeing everyone else's pretty and inspiring creations.  Quilters from all over the world participate.  Projects are basic to advanced, mini to full size.  Lots to love for everyone.

Quilt Festival

Yesterday, my thoughtful husband suggested an outing to a local quilt festival.  The Wilkes County (North Carolina) Quilter's Guild featured these among the many beautiful quilts on display.  This 

one was my favorite.

This bed size quilt uses Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

I loved how the quilters worked the printed designs of their fabrics into their blocks and shapes:

There were so many talented quilters sharing their work!  I'm glad we got to see them.

Thanks for visiting today!

Spring '11 Blogger's Quilt Festival

This is not the fanciest quilt I’ve ever made.  It is not the prettiest.  It isn’t the most expensive.   In fact, it cost very little in dollars.

But it may be one of the most meaningful.

A few months ago, my friend, Judy, called and asked if I would make a baby quilt for her grandchild.  We had just found out her daughter-in-law was expecting.  Of course, I said.  I was probably going to do this anyway as a baby gift.  She went on to say that she wanted to make the quilt from her husband’s shirts.

You see, her husband died in an automobile accident last spring.  She wanted a way to connect him to the baby.

So she brought me some of his shirts and then we waited (and waited - the little one was camera shy) to find out whether the baby would be a boy or a girl.  A baby girl was expected so my friend went through her own clothes and brought me a couple of coral/pink shirts to add to the blue, green and gray ones. 

There were more blue shirts than anything so I made the solid alternating squares from blue and did a simple 4 patch for the other squares.  She wanted this to be a large quilt the child could use as it grew.  The finished size is 60” x 84.”  I had to keep it simple to get it completed in time for the shower.

We managed to keep this project a secret and my friend’s son and daughter-in-law were surprised at their shower and very touched by this connection to “Grampa.”

I am honored to be able to give this gift of time to my friend.  She, my Mother, and I all tied the quilt together that I had sewn and basted.  I did some decorative stitching between the blocks to add a little something extra since I hadn’t had time for a complicated pattern.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get a close-up photo :-(


Here are more entries from the Festival:  

Thank you for visiting today!  Hope you are enjoying the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.  There is so much inspiration here!  Thanks to Amy for putting it together, too.

Studio Wall Quilt

The room that I use for paper crafting is our guest bedroom.  It has a wonderful high cathedral ceiling that brings in beautiful morning light.  Opposite the wall with a window is another high wall which until this week held and old wall hanging I made for my stepdaughters back when mauve, green and a country look were popular.

About I’d say five years ago(?),  I made a wall quilt top that was the perfect size for this space in the guest room.  I kept putting off quilting it until I mastered free form quilting on my machine.  While I’d like to tell you that I finally quilted it because I have indeed mastered machine quilting, the reality is I got awfully tired of the old wall hanging and was ready to finally finish decorating this room.  (It is pretty bad for someone in my profession to have a room with nothing matches.) I realized that the wall hanging would be so far up above eye level that not one would really see my quilting!  I did a fairly decent job (though certainly not masterful) after I ripped out some of my first work.  Most importantly I got it done and here it is - something a bit more modern and in colors that match the room.

The quilt is composed of 2 inch squares sewn together.  This is similar to the process of watercolor quilting which I fell in love with several years ago.  However my hands do not allow me to use a rotary cutter.  I don’t know why but I can cut with scissors; however, a couple of minutes with the rotary cutter and my hand just aches.  Anyway, to piece together my hand cuts slightly off squares I rely on a wonderful product called Quilt Smart  http://www.quiltsmart.com/.  It is fuseable interfacing with a 2 inch grid.  So you have a terrific background  to lay out your project and add a great way to hold everything together to make sewing easy and best of all accurate.

My goal with this room is to have only handmade items for wall art. This is the only thing I have up so far so I have quite a ways to go. My next task is to get my uncle to build me a picture ledge to hold completed scrapbook pages. 

I hope you'll stop back by tomorrow for Tipsy Tuesday. Also coming up next Sunday I am participating in my very first Blog Hop. It's very exciting what we're up to - more details to follow up… 

Blogger's Fall Quilt Festival - Sample Book Quilt

It's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Here's my entry, check the link at the end of the post for more.

When I was a little girl, I loved it when samples were discontinued.  My parents owned and operated a retail business selling carpet, wall paper and draperies.  Imagine all the fun materials I got to play with with sample books and drapery samples were dropped.  I used to make my own Barbie doll houses - more functional than intricate - and all kinds of fun experiments.

For the first few years of my own window treatment business I would give away discontinued sample books. After I saturated the local school and community college design program with books, I decided to keep some of them for myself.  Some of these books had such beautiful fabrics, many that I had not sold but had always wanted to work with.  So finally, I started tearing the books apart and using the samples.  This quilt is one of my first creations with discontinued fabric samples.

I just loved the colors in many of these fabrics yet the rose, corals and yellows were often too feminine for clients to use a lot of in their homes so I never got to work with them when they were current.  To make this quilt, I raided every discontinued book I had at the time to get enough.  I had to buy just a little fabric to finish it out. 

I started trying to construct blocks but eventually just filled in the blanks as best I could. The patterns were already cropped from the sample book so I didn't want to lose more fabric making a specific size block.

Contrary to what I've told customers all these years, you can wash decorator fabrics.  I still don't advise it when it comes to window treatments because the fabric and lining will shrink different amount leaving an undesirable result.  The finish also washes off the fabric leaving too 'soft' a look for a valance yet it is perfect for a quilt.  These types of fabrics are a bit heavy so I used the lightest weight batting in the quilt.  Also, I tied rather than tried to machine quilt all that bulk.  We use this quilt in the winter months and I still love looking at all these pretty patterns particularly these pretty toiles which are now so rare in new samples.

Making a quilt with these samples means a lot of hand prewashing and tons of ironing. But the benefits are free fabric (since the books were free to begin with or paid for anyway long ago) and every fabric is unique!  Since I did this one about two years ago, I did another last year in black, brown and beige tones for my parents.  I continue to save dropped books and every now and then get the notion to plow through them hunting up pretty patterns.  As fewer and fewer chintz are being made, less of these opportunities will arise so I'll keep holding onto books and storing up ideas for future projects. 

Check out the other entries for the 2010 Fall Quilt Festival at Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2010.  Thanks to Amy for putting together this great event.

Done!

Last stitch, last thread snipped and a few days ahead!  I won't say it is my most detailed quilt.  It is bright, soft and full of Nai Nai's favorite colors. 

I did get to play a little with my free hand quilting foot.  Clearly this needs practice but it is fun to do.

All the fabrics on the front are from Kaffe Fassett.  Finished size is 60" x 84".

Progress and Frustration

On Tuesday, I introduced my friend Jeanie, a SU Demo and an amazingly talented crafter, to Mary Jo's fabric store in Gastonia, NC.  Mary Jo's is THE place to go for whatever type of fabric you are wanting.  They have particularly good selections of special occasion and quilting fabrics.  We went to another supplier in Gastonia to pick up some essential components of fabric shades I am making for a customer - items that would have cost me a fortune in oversize freight charges on UPS.  But since we were in Gastonia, no point in passing up an opportunity to go fabric shopping, right?

The only thing I needed was the backing fabric for Nai Nai's quilt and selected a tiny white polka dot on a purple background.  Purple is her favorite color.  Jean bought some really cute tulle and sparkly sheer to make a fairy princess outfit for her grand-daughter.

While waiting on some trim to come in for my next job, I was able to get the back pieced and the quilt sandwiched.  This morning I did the final basting so I feel like I'm making good progress towards getting this done in just a few more days.

The frustration hit when I went to machine quilt.  First I had accidentally disconnected the IDT on my Pfaff - it is the built in even feed foot. I love my Pfaff sewing machine.  It is without hesitation the single best purchase I've ever made.  I use it for everything now!  I soon figured out what was wrong but not before I had to rip about a half width's stitches.  Then I tried what I'd envisioned for the quilting.  That didn't work well either, but not because of the machine.  More seam ripping - ugh!  I'm not sure what was wrong but knew that I'd better go to a backup plan fast.  My husband had arrived on the scene to help me with my real work. 

So I've done some quilting in the ditch to get almost sufficient quilting for the top.  I still want to experiment with some other types of machine quilting.  Doing a project in a hurry sure means lots of compromises.

Fast Blocks

I should have my head examined.  I knew I really didn't have time for this.  Yet wanting to make a child's face light up often makes you take on foolish projects. 

When we saw Dillon and Nai Nai for a family wedding in April, I took along a quilt my grandmother had made for me to give to Dillon.  I'd been meaning to send it to him.  The entire front is one huge LeMoyne Star in red, white and denim blue.  I have no idea what my grandmother was thinking.  I know she meant well in wanting to get me a beautiful quilt.  The quilter did a great job but I would have much rather had a scrap quilt my grandmother made herself.  I've never used her gift; I didn't have any children and Lenny had daughters.  This always seemed like a boy's quilt.  Plus, Dillon's favorite color is red and the background of the quilt is bright red.  I thought he could put it on his bed, I knew it would match his room.  I certainly didn't think it would be a big deal for a little boy.

He loved it!  He slept under the quilt at the hotel and made a big fuss over how much he liked it.  Nai Nai didn't seem jealous at all that Dillon got a gift and she didn't.  But I felt bad.  They are too young to understand that I was just passing along something I didn't use.  So when we see them this summer, I wanted to have a quilt for Nai Nai.

And now the foolish moment arrives.  I decided a few weeks ago to make her one!  Now I know I don't have time to make a full size quilt.  I'm making a 60" x 80" in colors she will like - bright pink and purple.  Since I'm making it myself, I hope this balances out with Dillon's queen size quilt. 

The key is that I have to get it done!  The pattern is extremely simple.  I'm doing some squares within squares and some four patch.  Some of the blocks are just going to be solid - no piecing.  My only challenge is that I have to hand cut everything.  The rotary cutter kills my hand so it is measure and cut every piece.  Even large pieces are time consuming particularly with my other work.

Still I'm commited.  I made an 'investment' in mail order fabrics plus I have a sweet little face to light up.  Stay tuned.  Hopefully in a couple of weeks, you'll see a photo of a finished quilt.

Blogger's Spring '10 Quilt Festival

Thanks for stopping by.  If you usually visit for papercrafts, today I'm participating in the Blogger's Quilt Festival on-line.  There are hundreds of quilts to see.  Go to Amy's website ( Blogger's Spring Quilt Festival) to get started on the blog hop. 

If you are here as a stop on the festival. This is the quilt I chose...

I made this wall quilt, Twilight, in 2003 for my stepdaughter.  She had just decorated her first home with stars as a theme for accessories.  I had just discovered watercolor quilting and the Quiltsmart gridded fusible interfacing (http://www.quiltsmart.com/) that makes sewing all those little 2" squares together a fun rather than a hair pulling experience.  Of course, I couldn't just do another wall hanging with only 2" squares.  Oh, no, I had to make it complicated and work all these stars into the mix.  This spray was easy...

This larger one was a little more challenging to piece and fit into the grid....

Most of the quilting was done with metallic thread - another first for me.  All the work is done on the machine.  I long ago had to give up hand quilting as it is just too hard on my hands.  There is no particular pattern to the stars. When I look up at the night sky, I just see twinkling little lights; I've never been able to figure out constellations. 

Jaime loved the quilt.  She is in a different home now with her husband and the star theme has dissipated.  So the quilt hangs over her stepdaughter's bed.

Thanks for visiting!  Mostly I post my cards and scrapbook pages with the occasional quilt project.  Also, I make window treatments for a living so those sometimes make it to a blog post, too.  I dropped my business website last year and keep planning to add some pages to my blog to showcase window treatments.  Projects, projects!  So many thought up and so many left to do...

Quilt Blogs

On my blog's one year anniversary, I thought of some things I'd like to do more of regarding blogging.  One thing was to find more blogs about other interests besides papercrafting.  I love, love papercrafting but I also enjoy quilting, reading, cooking, and travel.  So I have sought out a few quilt blogs.  Here are a some favorites:

Amy's Creative Side - hostess of a semi-annual on-line quilt festival - http://www.amyscreativeside.com/
Quilt It - Marit is also a cat lover as well as a devotee to beautiful fabrics - http://quilt-it.blogspot.com/
Sew Girly has a focus on vintage fabrics - http://www.sewgirlyalterations.com/

I'm sure there are many more to explore.  The thing I'm most loving is how many beautiful quilts I see with simple designs.  Great fabric + a simple design = A completed beautiful quilt.

As for my own quilting, it hasn't gone very far. I did make one LWR quilt and have another ready to tie.  My 1930's reproduction quilt is at a stand still. I attempted to get organized a few weeks ago so I could quilt on weekends.  Typically when I'm making window treatments for clients, my quilting is set aside.  I devised a simple system to allow me to switch over to my stuff on my own time.  Well, it seems simple.  The problem is I just get caught up in other stuff.  I figure the next real motivating factor will be weather. My papercrafting space is upstairs where it gets a little warm in summer.  The sewing area is in the basement - heaven in July.  So sooner or later, I'm going to be like my kitty cat Jasper and the cool basement will be calling for my off hours, too.

TIPsy Tuesday - Squint!

Yes, that's right,  Squint!  Quilters do it.  Window Treatment professionals do it - or at least this one does.  Why?  When you are working on a card or particularly a scrapbook layout, sometimes it is hard to figure out what else you need to complete the look.  Is your page balanced?  Will more embellishments be too much?  Should you move a photo to the other side of the page?  We all run into these quandries when we are papercrafting. 

The solution:
Stand up, step back, and squint.  The page will blur a little allowing the main colors to stand out.  It is much easier to see what you have too much of and what is missing.

Quilters do this and there is even a special tool you can use - a reducing glass.  It is the opposite of a magnifying glass in that it makes objects appear farther away so you can see an entire wall quilt in one view.  I have one and have used it on quilts and even on large window valances when I just can't stand back far enough in my workroom to see how it will look in the client's room. 

Here is a view of the double page spread above part of the way along.  I knew I needed some designer paper in the lower left but wasn't sure what color.  I stepped back, squinted and could see how it was all coming together. Then it was obvious I needed some more of the turquoise color.  I also needed another heavy element to balance the chipboard on the right hand page.

The finished ower left corner

balanced with the right side of the page.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Sanded by SU! for background
Ink:  So saffron, Dusty Durango, soft Suede for distressing
DSP and brad:  The Daily Grind by Fancy Pants
Ribbon:  Stampin' Up!
Chipboard:  Stampin' Up! and Oriental Trading
Font:  Pea Jack and Jane from kevinandamanda.com

Quilt Romance

Lenny got home late yesterday from a long visit with his family.  We hadn't expected to spend Valentine's Day together this year so it is a special treat!  We plan to watch Olympics figure skating tonight.  The pairs skating is my favorite though I usually forget to check the schedule and miss the event.  Finally, I'm remembering that it is early in the Olympic schedule.

Also yesterday another special treat arrived in the mail, the book I'd ordered, Quilt Romance by Kaffe Fassett.  Link to Quilt Romance book at Amazon.com Other quilters may know of his wonderful fabrics but this is my introduction to them.   I'm smitten.  The bright colors in busy floral patterns, polka dots and stripes are so charming.  The setting for all the photos in this book is equally enticing.  It is a small village in North Wales that looks like it should be in Italy.  This little town is moving to the top of my dream travel list.

In the meantime, I'm inspired to find some of these fabrics for my next quilting project. There are a couple of UFO's (Unfinished Fabric Objects) I need to work on but I can dream and plan...

LWR Quilts

Every time I finish one of these 60" x 80" quilts and fold it up, I hold it close to me and feel good. I feel good because I've made something that will go to someone who really needs it.

Lutheran World Relief (LWR) has been collecting quilts and sending them to people in need all over the world for many years. These quilts often end up with men, women and children who have lost everything due to war or natural causes. Many didn't have anything to use for warmth or shelter to begin with. The church I used to attend makes and collects quilts. I'm embarrased to say, this year I only made 2. A couple of years ago I made 15! It depends on the fabric I have available and time of course. I used fabric donated by a friend to make the ones this year and still have a few pieces left. I've just run out of time before collection.

These are easy to make. The instructions and info on their distribution are available at this site --> http://www.lwr.org/beinvolved/quilts.asp

So right now I'm committing myself to make at least 6 next year. I'd better start looking for fabric sales. There are also some more fabrics in my own stash that I really don't need. There are definitely people who need them more than I do.

Seeing Spots and Squares

The physical therapist who is helping Daddy recover from hip replacement surgery asked the other day, "Who is into these leopard prints?" My mother answered with a smile, "I am." He was in my parents beautifully decorated bedroom and couldn't overlook the leopard spots on the rug borders and a leopard or two or three on prints and ceramics. Animal prints are best used as accents and they really do go with anything.

So when I needed a striping fabric for this utility quilt made of discontinued fabric samples, I sought out a leopard print. The quilt is a gift for my parent's wedding anniversary. Mother wanted something larger than her inherited quilts - all made for double rather than queen beds.

Since I love a huge variety of fabrics in a quilt, using discontinued fabric samples really fits that need. There are very few duplicates here. The biggest challenges are fabric prep and the irregular sizes. These types of fabrics aren't really meant to be washed and they shrink heavily. So I handwashed each piece in hot water and then dried them in the dryer to insure they wouldn't draw up after the quilt was finished. Also these types of fabrics really ravel. So when I took the pieces out of the dryer, I often had a thread entangled mess to sort out.

When fabric samples are made, the sampling company is cutting up pieces from a regular run of fabric into specific sizes for sampling. Unlike what I do when I make window treatments or pillows, they don't worry about centering the pretty flower design in the middle of the fabric. They need to get as much out of a piece as possible. So often the flower or the animal as in some of these prints, gets partially chopped off. This must have been what it was like when quilters truly used scraps to make their quilts. If you are working with left over sewing scraps from a shirt or dress, you have to cut out your quilt designs from what you have. We are spoiled today with endless beautiful prints in large enough pieces to create whatever we want.

This is my third discontinued fabric sample quilt. I've enjoyed the challenges. My Mother really loved the quilt. She keeps referring to it has her bedspread. I hope it will provide warmth, too.

Very Free-form Quilting

My mother asked me earlier this week what personal sewing project I was working on. I had to be evasive because my current project is for her and my dad. I just finished the machine quilting on a quilt for their bedroom I plan to give them for their anniversary in a couple of weeks.

Last winter Mother borrowed a quilt I had made for us that was large enough for queen size bed. She has many family quilts made by my grandmothers. Unfortunately, old quilts come up short when it comes to larger beds. I told her I would make her one and hopefully she forgot. I want this one to be a surprise.

Here is a little sample of the free-form quilting. I consider this a utility quilt so I've taken the liberty of doing some experimenting. This leopard print fabric is the striping in the quilt and I am quilting randomly around the little spots. With free-form quilting, the sewer, not the machine, controls the speed and stitch length by moving the fabric freely under the presser foot. It takes practice - apparently lots of practice.

My Favorite Things

Recently I took an intro class at BigPictureScrapbooking.com. This site was started by Stacy Julian former editor of Simple Scrapbooks magazine - my fav that ceased publication earlier this year. The class called " Start Here, with Stacy" is an introduction into what their philosophy is at Big Picture Scrapbooking, an on-line training site. I've also signed up for a couple of other classes.

In this first class, Stacy has you take a quiz where she asks lots of questions about what kind of products you have then what kind of scrapbooking you do. I don't want to reveal the punch line to this but you figure it out pretty quick and it is enlightening. It made me think about some things I've been meaning to scrapbook for awhile now and some things I'd never even considered capturing. One of the questions in the quiz gives points if you have ever scrapbooked your favorite possession. It is hard to nail down my absoloute favorite but I can give you the top 5 or so.

What are the things you would grab if you only had 5 minutes to vacate your home? I can tell you this, it couldn't be clothes - unless I wasn't wearing any, i.e. just got out of the shower. We actually had to do this a few months back when there was a tornado supposedly right on top of us. Nothing ever touched down but I grabbed my stuff and headed to the basement. My list: my scrapbooks - as many as I could carry, my grandfather's pocket watch, my grandmothers' and my husband's mother's quilts, as many as I could pile on my husband, one set of decorative figurines and my laptop. While I wouldn't want to lose all my other stuff, those are the irreplaceable objects. Ok, maybe not the laptop but it would be a hassle and it was right there for easy moving. Unfortunately, furniture couldn't be moved so easily and there are a few items I'd hate to lose.

So when I decided to do a page on at least one of my favorite things it was easy to pick out a quilt that had great sentimental attachment as well as great beauty. This quilt was made by my Dad's mother and I captured in my page how it came to my possession, my history with it and what it and a little of what its maker means to me. I guess that truly is the "Big Picture."

Ingredients: Stamp set by __

Ink: Ballet Blue by Stampin Up!

Ribbon and button: Unknown sources.

Fonts:

On this card that marries fabric and stamping, I have done a little 'thread painting' on the flower. Thread painting uses the free form foot on the sewing machine to allow you to hand guide the fabric and sew in any direction and stitch length. All that freedom comes with a cost. It is just plain hard to do. It is hard to get the stitch length even since moving the fabric at an even pace manually controls the stitch length and also the placement of stitches. I've done a few things with this before but I still need a lot more practice.

The benefit of thread painting is you get such a unique, custom look to your creations. Also this technique is what is used to do detailed machine quilting. The gist of all this is that I need to practice, practice, practice. Oh well, at least I'm not trying to learn the piano again. I have no musical talent at all so I have far more hope for adding to my sewing skills.

Fan Blocks

Finding quilting books that capture the stories behind the fabrics and the women who quilted are as much of a treasure as a beautiful quilt. Soft Covers for Hard Times is one of those books and has been in my collection for many years. It made me first fall in love with the fabrics and patterns of the depression era. When 30's reproduction fabrics starting becoming popular, I wanted to use them. So many though weren't really my style until I found this great stash from Keepsake Quilting (http://www.keepsakequilting.com/). As a reward for finishing another project, I ordered several color families.

Over the last few weeks, I've been making Grandmother's Fan blocks, a popular block from the 1930's. These will be part of the inset border. I'm doing the border first and then filling in the center with some still undetermined floral design. It is a weird way to do it but then I can be sure I have these on-point blocks fitting just right.

I only have a couple of hours a week to spend on these so the project will take awhile. That's just more time to enjoy these bright cheery fabrics.

Fabric Swatch Quilts

Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE fabric? That is probably a prerequisite for creating custom window treatments. For my business, I acquire numerous fabric sample books and eventually they get discontinued before I've had a chance to sell all those pretty fabric designs to customers. For awhile, I used some of the discontinued swatches for cards, but I found that I liked using pattern paper and stamps more for my cards. I just could not throw the fabric samples out and was running out of places to donate them. I decided to try using some of the fabrics in a quilt.

The first quilt is shown above. I fell in love with these pinks, light reds and warm yellows when I was actually sifting through my books for other colors. I had so many in these colors that I kept arranging and piecing until I had a full size quilt. These fabrics can get a little heavy so I used the lightest loft batting and regular quilt fabric for the backing. I tied the quilt rather than machine quilting.

My parents used it this last winter. Mother had many quilts from her family but like the ones I inherited, they were all too small for a queen bed. She enjoyed it so much I told her I would make her one. I just finished the top for hers using colors she likes - black, brown, gray, red, and gold. All the squares are made with discontinued fabrics but I purchased an animal print fabric to strip piece it and tie all the varied neutrals together. I'm planning to quilt it in early fall and give it to her and Daddy for their anniversary - the top being easier to store than a completed quilt.

In between these, I made one other quilt from discontinued samples - a throw out of mostly upholstery weights. We use it to cuddle under while watching TV.

With all these, I still have a huge stack of discontinued samples though there are very few of the those neutrals and the pink/yellow chintz combos left. These quilts are fun and challenging in that no two fabrics are alike and all the samples are different sizes. The only tedious part is the prewashing. Each swatch must be removed from the sample book and handwashed in the hottest water possible and then put in the dryer. Drapery fabric shrinks excessively if washed but of course we want our quilts to be washable.

With so many varied sizes of fabrics, I haven't attempted any fancy patterns. Yet I'm pleased that I've created three quilts with a minimum of purchased materials. To celebrate, I ordered several 1930's reproduction fabric medleys from Keepsake Quilting. (Ok, this is a little like a dieter celebrating her weight loss with a huge hot fudge sundae, but still, I've been good...)

Anyway, I've prewashed those new fabrics and am making my first cut into them today as I experiement with a pattern idea. Working with beautiful fabric is even better than a hot fudge sundae - at least the satisfaction lasts longer!