January 2011

Happy New Year all!

Quilting is a great way to relax, to express your creativity, and to warm your family and friends, not just physically, but by touching their hearts with a hand made gift. Finding time and energy to finish them all in a year can be tricky, which is why so many quilters prefer to hire out the quilting portion of the project.

Lauri's sister is expecting baby #2, so the older child is being moved to a Big Boy Bed. He needed a Big Boy Quilt to go with it, so Auntie Lauri made him a beautiful scrappy star quilt for his bed! For an extra bit of fun the border fabric is *glow in the dark*! It measures 71" x 99", so it's perfect for a twin bed and because it was made with high-quality fabrics, it will last for years to come!

I stitched 3's and E's all over the surface--yellow varigated thread for the yellow and stars, and blue varigated for the outside border.

If you need a helping hand with your quilts, please feel free to drop me a note!

Karen, Ye Merrie Quilter

Quarterly report Jan 2011

Only a few projects have come in over the last few weeks, and a few of them I failed to get pictures of. Here are a few that I did manage to capture before their hasty exit to their homes!

Sharon was gifted this lovely quilt top as a quilted hug from friends after the passing of her mother, which was just a few months after her father's death. It was in the words of Cathy Miller, the Singing Quilter, who sang, "Give me a heart for the ones I have lost" and she was inundated with hearts from her friends.

Michele had this lovely Milky Way quilt top in red, black and white. I quilted it in a new pattern I found called 3's and E's. It turned out really nicely, despite a set-back of having the wrong bobbin thread in it for the first few inches. Ooops! I picked it out and started again.

I decided to try a pattern from quilt designer Susan Mayer. This is the result (aside from two seams that still needed to be attached at the time of the photo--it has since been finished).

Since it's been a rather slow few months here at Ye Merrie Quilter, I thought I'd share a few of the personal projects I've been working on. This is the Christmas Pineapple quilt I finished in late September. These blocks were swapped with online friends in 2009 and 2010. Half the blocks were in seasonal colors, and the other half just scrappy. The scrappy quilt needs a binding still, but this was finished and ready for hanging in the living room.

TIP: These 1" x 3" boards were found at an estate sale, having lived a former life as a quilt frame, it now serves as a display rod. Holes drilled in the ends made for easy hanging on nails and the muslin stapled on the boards make it easy to pin quilts onto for display.

This pattern found in Fons and Porter magazine, was paper pieced to make a sweet wall hanging for my niece. These pooches have 3D ears, and look just like her Jack Russell terrier, Milo.


Two of the four table runners that I made for Christmas presents...

The other two table runners for Christmas presents--I quilted all four of them on a single backing, then cut them apart and bound them. All the fabrics came from my stash, so very little was spent on holiday shopping this year! As an added bonus, I had lots of scrap batting lying around to finish these quilts.

This is one of the finished runners, which was given to my sister in law.