"A Moment of Clarity"

Anyone who has traveled down the difficult path of Alzheimer's Disease with a loved one, knows that waiting for those all too infrequent "moments of clarity" is what keeps you motivated to face each day.

I named this quilt"A Moment of Clarity" and it is dedicated to those who search every day for these moments. The quilt was raffled off on May 12, 2007 and earned more than $400 to benefit the local chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.

Pattern adapted from "Aria" by Valori Wells
Techniques used: paper piecing, machine piecing and machine quilting.


Here's me and the winner(s) of the quilt!

Steve the Gay Cat

This is from Denyse Schmidt's Quilts book. Birthday present for Abby's 20th. He's made from an old cordoroy dress of mine, an overly shrunk wool sweater of Abby's and a flower from a dress of Grace's. Oh, and the flower button is from an old shirt of Graces'.

The Puppeteer

Stop the presses! (or the pressing?) No quilts this week. Our 6 year old was tasked with creating a puppet show to demonstrate a book she had just read. Loved the online puppet pattern from www.puppetpatterns.com It was SO EASY and easy to adapt for the dog. We made these in 2 evenings.

Where's the Cabin?

Here's my first attempt at paper piecing. I believe I had to throw away on paper for each block I did successfully! #1 and #2 pieces are the most difficult to get going. Anyway, most of this was made from a baggie of scraps I purchased at my LQS. Hadn't ever worked with 30's fabrics, so figured this was a good way to give it a try. The name, "Where's the Cabin?" comes from my friend, Tina. That was her response when I showed her my first block told her it was called a log cabin. :-)

Picture This!

This is a wonderful and fun design from a friend (and quilting inspiration) of mine, Elayne Leonelli. It's fun to do with novelty prints and if your machine will embroider lettering, this can be added as well. I've added some lettering on mine with a fabric pen, but Elayne's look really nice with the embroidery. It will hold a standard 4x6 photo which can easily be swapped out. Small plastic rings on the end and the side accomodates both picture orientations and can then be hung on the wall. They make GREAT little gifts. Here's one I made for my cousin's wedding anniversary (GO MARK AND SUE!), and two others I made for nieces.

Sacred Wheel

Wall hanging for the UU Church of Glens Falls annual service Auction on April 21, 2007. The wall hanging sold to the church members for $125 after it was unanimously decided to purchase it for display in the "Peace Room" at the Church. The symbol design is the work of Eleanor Wiley.

Finished size 32" square. Techniques used: raw edge applique with fabric paint, foundation piecing, machine piecing and machine quilting.

ABC's

Some great Moda alphabet fabric! I couldn't pass it up, so made a wall hanging and matching pillow. This was fun!

Something for baby doll "Ella"

My 6 year-old daughter, Grace has a special baby doll named Ella. Grace machine pieced this block. I machine quilted it and added some miniature matching pillow cases. Ella will look beautiful on this!

Block Exchange

The Quilting Stash Podcast Yahoo Group is doing a block exchange on May 1st using the Hoffman 2007 Challenge Fabric. These are the two different blocks I'm doing for the exchange. I chose coordinating batiks from Free Spirit.

Thank You Eileen and Kathy!

I really cannot post a single thing on this blog without mentioning the generous gift from two lovely people. Eileen and Kathy. Thank you SO MUCH for making all of this possible. :-)

"The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose."

--Hada Bejar

Passage Quilt (1 of 3)

This is a passage quilt that I made for a friend who's husband passed away just after the new year, 2007. I completed it in March 2007. It is machine pieced, and machine quilted and most of the fabrics are reclaimed from her husband's clothing and supplemented with some lights from my own stash. The images were printed from my HP inkjet onto "Printed Treasures" fabric. The block is called the "Anvil" block.

"Jeff, you are greatly loved, and greatly missed..."

Passage Quilt (2 of 3)

Here's passage quilt #2. Made for the 12 year old son of my friend when his father passed away this year. My challenge here was to make it look a little less feminine. Most of the fabrics are from Jeff's clothing. I used the denim from his jeans and frayed it for the binding. I used the pocket from the jeans for the quilt label on the back.

My First Quilt

It's called Happy Scrappy Houses and boy was it scrappy! I look at this quilt and see scraps from old craft projects (mop angels) from the mid 90's, clothing from my family, an old halloween costume, fabric I've used for a bulletin board display at work, scraps gifted from friends, and a couple new fat quarters that caught my eye when I'd only dreamed of learning to quilt. LOL!

One Quilting for Dummies book later and voila! A little surfing on the net, and I fell in love with a project that seemed fitting for my collection of scraps and which I thought suited my abilities: http://quiltville.com/happyscrappyhouses.shtml

Then... i had to quilt it! oh my! I started hand quilting it with an echo pattern around the houses. That lasted for 2 houses and I picked it all out and said "No WAY!" I was too anxious to move on to another project now that I'd discovered my passion! So, being too inexperienced to know that I shouldn't be able to machine quilt my own projects, I dove in! (after a $25 purchase of a darning foot and a walking foot for my heavy-duty Kenmore) The results are more than passable (with confirmation from the owner of my LQS!) As a life-time doodler, I found the process of free motion to be extrememly FUN! No more hand quilting for this gal! (however, hand stitching the binding onto the back was something I found very soothing).

I added a hanging sleeve for display and another at the bottom. Inserting a very light-weight dowel in the bottom smoothed it out nicely against the wall.

Finished project: 62" x 62", machine pieced, machine quilted.