Thursday, March 10, 2011

Older Quilts










As I've stayed at our son/DIL's condo in Tampa, I've had the pleasure of seeing in use several quilts I've made. Austin sits on his Dino-Monster quilt to play with toys.





I've been sleeping under this "Star Bright" quilt that I made as a wedding gift for Brent and Lyn in 2005.

The pattern came from a 2005 issue of McCall's magazine. I'm unable to get a good photo of the entire quilt because it measures a whopping 91" X 104". I used up a lot of neutral-colored fabric remnants when I made this quilt!

This was the first time I tackled free motion machine quilting on something so large. It won a second place ribbon at the 2005 Iowa State Fair. All those feather motifs were quilted using Golden Threads paper. (Here's a video on the Golden Threads website that demonstrates how to use the paper: http://www.goldenthreads.com/markingquiltingvideo/)

It's quilted with 50-weight Aurifil thread. The batting is Quilter's Dream Request.
"Star Bright" border cross-hatch quilting
Brent, who is now 31 years old, was 15 when I made the "Tumbling Blocks"quilt shown below. The picture doesn't show the 6"-wide scrappy black border around all four sides of this 81" X 88" quilt.

Brent wanted a black and gray quilt. Boy, do I remember how difficult it was to collect gray fabrics then! In 1993 and 1994. Choosing where to position fabrics was one of the best lessons I could have learned about value and contrast.
Several diamond-shaped pieces show a color change due to exposure to UV rays, and washing.
You can see the damage that years of UV rays and washing have done to one of the fabrics. Wherever it is in the quilt, it's turned to a brown-ish cast.

This is pieced entirely with diamond shapes, so all the sewing involved set-in-seams. Because I hadn't yet mastered free motion quilting, it's straight-line quilted with invisible thread. Brent designed the interlocking diamond border quilting which I recall was a pain to quilt because of all the stops and starts.
As I took pictures of the quilt from the bedroom, I heard the blasts of a cruise ship. Nice view, isn't it?

3 comments:

  1. It's nice to see darling Austin using his quilt. I loved seeing the wedding quilt as well as the Brent and Mom quilt which I remember well. It's nice to see those quilts again. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Austin is such a doll. I love the little rolls babies have and chubby fingers. carson likes to put his toes in his mouth and I can't figure how he can get that chubby leg up over his tummy. Isn't being a grandma just the best thing!

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  3. Your little Austin is adorable...he loves that quilt and will probably drag it everywhere he goes until it is no more...lol. The wedding quilt is awesome (congrats on the ribbon!) and I love the tumbling blocks quilt. Your quilts are well loved.

    hugz
    Pam

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