Fabric Bookmarks

A bunch of 'em! Tomorrow is a Christmas party and gift exchange with other crafty people. I made fabric bookmarks. I tried to make a variety of colors so everyone can choose what they like. I made 34 of these bookmarks.

I also finished up a bag for my mother to give to a friend of hers. My mother liked the bag I made for her that she wanted one for her friend. Her friend is a big fan of University of Georgia. I think it looks cute.

Antique Double Wedding Ring Quilt

Today I got an old quilt that I bought off ebay. The description said "some of the fabrics have deteriorated and the backing shows through." Let first say, I am very happy with my purchase but it is not what I expected.

Here is a picture of part of the quilt.


Most of the print fabrics look like this....

In other words, every piece of the "rings" are worn through. Yet as I was looking at it, I kept thinking something looked odd. Why way I not seeing batting or a thin piece of backing? Wait! I was looking at a quilted piece of material. Finally, I figured it out -- the rings were appliqued onto the large white quilt top! There is still a lot of quilt left, just very little of the applique pieces. It still looks beautiful.

This is a picture of one corner from the back. Can you see the lines of hand quilting?

Teeny, tiny hand stitches about every 1/2 inch. As you can see, many of those rows of stitching overlap. The quilt is about 68 inches by 80 inches. Thousands of tiny hand stitches! Each wedding ring has two rows of stitching inside the prints fabric and then rows of stitching outlining the rings. Here is another shot of the back. I think you can see the circles of stitching.

I should also mention it is very, very soft. Is filled with cotton batting. There is one edge that the binding is hanging off of and in bad shape.

As I was trying to examine the quilt and take pictures, THIS happened......

Queen Bailey decided since it was on "her" bed, that she could inspect it also. Silly cat!

Vintage quilt blocks

While browsing on eBay recently I found this set of quilt blocks for sale. Four patches sewn into strips. The price was great (less than $10.00) so I bid on it. The fabrics seem to be from the late 60's, maybe early 70's. I sewed the strips together to get this....

Here is a closer view of some of the fabrics. There are polyester blends in there and some fabrics I can't identify except to say "coarse and scratchy". The solid blues are a thin chambray shirting fabric.

Look, it's Dumbo! Or at least part of Dumbo. The squares that look like pieced triangles are really "cheater" cloth fabrics.

I think I'm going to quilt it on the machine with white thread using diagonal lines.

I'm now having to make myself stay away from ebay because I keep wanting to "rescue" more quilts, quilt tops and quilt blocks. This is a whole new avenue for my quilting addiction!

Blue Hydrangea Quilt

A few months ago I picked up a bundle of 5 - 1 yard cuts of this fabric from LakeHouse called Hydrangea Garden: Heron. I wasn't sure what to do with it until I remembered seeing a quilt pattern by Amy Butler called Brick Path. You can find free patterns from Amy at her website http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/products/free_patterns.php . The pattern for Brick Path called for 11 1/2-yard cuts. I thought it would look fine with my 5 yards just a slightly smaller quilt.

I used 2 pieces from each fabric in each column. The backing is also in LakeHouse Hydrangea fabric. The quilt measures about 60 x 72. I machine quilted in the ditch of the vertical rows.

Pink and Floral

I'm on a mission to finish many of my works-in-progress. I pieced this top a few years ago. Last year I machine quilted it along the sashing strips with stitch-in-the-ditch technique. This week I finished it up by machine quilting around the inner blocks. The back is muslin. The quilt measures about 88 x 100 inches.

The floral print has shiny gold colored thread in it. I wish I could get a better picture of it.

The pattern is called Blue Plate Special and was in the February 1998 issue of McCall's Quilting. If I remember correctly, the quilt in the magazine was done in blues and whites.

Here my cat Hunter decided to test it for napping comfort.

Shades of Blue

I finished a quilt! The top is done in 3 shades of blue flannel. I started this top in a mystery class held at a LQS a couple of months ago. I'm afraid I don't know the name of the pattern. It is like a square in a square. Each square has dark triangles in the corners, where they come together creates the dark square on point. Isn't it interesting?



Here is the backing I choose. It is not flannel.



For quilting, I stiched in the ditch around the medium blue squares.

Here the quilt is being tested by Cosmo The Cat

Then Bailey The Cat had to double check Cosmo's work. She is THE Queen and doesn't want the quilt to smell like Cosmo.

Crazy Cats Quilt

A few years ago when I was doing a lot of quilting, I made this quilt. I feel in love with the fabric when I saw it. Since I love cats and have at times had more than is socially acceptable, I liked the crazy ladies and cats fabric. I cut the main fabric into large squares, then used a sashing between them.


I did free motion around the cats, ladies and chairs. The border has straight line channel quilting.



It's such a bright and cheerful quilt I love to have it out during the dreary winter.

This is a great way to use a fun fabric that you just don't want to cut into little pieces.