Upcycled woven t-shirt rugs

So there's a reason I put "and more" in the url.  Here's a recent project I did with my Daring Boys' Club, weaving upcycled rugs from discarded t-shirts on used PVC looms.  The boys had a lot of fun.  I have to say I haven't seen this exact idea anywhere else on the web (though I'm sure I'm not the first to have thought of it), so I thought I'd put it up here to get the idea out.  We sure had fun.  (The boys didn't opt for pink and purple like I did).  

Custom quilt for the Edison Spring Fling Auction

I'm excited to offer a custom quilt for this year's Edison Elementary School auction.  I will make either a twin size or a baby quilt (or a patchwork quilted duvet cover). I'm looking forward to helping bring someone else's vision to fruition.  I've had several people suggest that I make quilts to sell, but I find it hard to imagine making a quilt without a specific person in mind (and even harder to imagine that it could actually be profitable).  Each time I make a quilt it is a labor of love and a meditation on the person I'm making it for.  So this way, the profit won't really matter, because it's for a good cause, and I'll get to make it for someone with a specific vision.  Stay tuned.

Noah's Bright Chevrons

I decided to try a second patchwork duvet cover, this time for my son Noah.  He wanted bright colors, green to match his room and then yellow, orange, and blue.  I did the top in patchwork, quilted it with a layer of flannel (no batting), and then sewed that to a green sheet that matches his bedding for the bottom of the duvet cover.  I used a long green zipper to seal it up, to make washing a cinch, which is kind of ironic, because really how often do I wash it, so how significant would that extra minute or two of buttons be.

Avi's quilted patchwork duvet

This was my first attempt at a quilted patchwork duvet cover.  I love quilting, but the reality is comforters and duvet covers are easier in a lot of ways, especially with kids who kick all their blankets around.  They are warmer and stay put better because they are heavier and bigger probably.  However, there is absolutely nothing on the market that I want to purchase for my sons' rooms.  I refuse to put some licensed character on their bed, solid colors are boring, and really, what matches with the three-shades-of-sky-themed bedroom that he has?  So, I decided to take all the different scraps of blue I had from all the different projects over the years and put it together.  I gave him the choice of a pattern or just a mix of rectangles.  He obviously chose the latter.  He worked on it with me for about the first third of the project.  He'd pick out the next fabric and help push down the presser foot as we sewed it to the existing piece, but the project didn't move quickly enough for him and he lost interest and spent the time I was at the machine throwing fabric all over the room.  That didn't help create a we're-doing-this-together vibe so much, but rather a kid-you're-driving-me-crazy feeling on my part, so I asked him if he wanted me to finish it on my own and surprise him with it when it was done.  I did for Hanukkah.  He was less than impressed.  See more here. Anyhow, a few months later, I'm pretty sure he likes it.

Crazy Dinosaurs

For my third and last boy I was inspired by my nephew Colin's bright room and bright quilt to do something else bright and cheerful.  I chose tangerine, teal, and lime green for his room.  Bold, but it turned out.  I was inspired by the pictures in a series of dinosaur books by Jan Lewis.  Of course any dinosaur print was by itself too cutesy and tacky for me to want to use as is, but I dealt with this by chopping things up again. Like the doggy quilt for Zachary, I was challenged by the non-square and inconsistent shapes of my cut out dinosaurs, but I modified a design called Crazy Patch Saffari by BrendaBarb Designs in the book Quilting for Baby. I used crazy quilt blocks in a window pane design with lots of bright borders around them.  The hardest was the saw-tooth border.  I knew that's what I wanted, but because this part wasn't in any pre-designed pattern from a book, I had to figure out how to incorporate it.  That wouldn't be hard if it was just a plain border, but with the triangles, I had to figure out mathematically what size the triangles needed to be in order to not have a half triangle at the end of the row.  It was not fun, but I'm glad I did it.  I like those dino-inspired teeth around the edges.

Crazy dinosaurs out the windows

tangerine satin on the back really shows off the free motion quilting

a close up shows his name and date embroidered and the free motion quilting curlycues. 

Two quilts for two cousins

My sister and I were both due with babies within a month of each other in the summer of 2007.  I decided to make two quilts with the same pattern, but different fabrics.  We chose a very simple design (from Alex Anderson called Buzzing Bumble Bees), but I really like how it looks and how different it can be when you change the fabrics.  The quilts hardly look like the same design.  Avi's was made to fit his sky-themed room and my sister wanted hers to be bright! My nephew Colin became very attached to his quilt, more so than either of my boys ever have been.  It became his lovey, and went with him everywhere, including all the way to Peru.  I've had to re-do sticking on Colin's several times because he has loved on it so hard.  What's an aunt for?  (Avi on the other hand chose a store-bought stuffed animal to become his lovey.  No problem.  Glad they both had something.)

Colin's cheerful quilt

the satin back with his name hand embroidered name on flannel sunshine

Avi's sky shades quilt... Call me superstitious, but I've never want to embroider their names on the quilt until after they're born, which means that then I end up not finishing them until they are about a year old.  

Avi's, the reverse of Colin's has a flannel back with satin clouds and stars and moon for a sensory corner.  

The lone girl

After so many boy baby quilts, I finally had a chance to make a girl quilt in 2008.  I hardly knew what to do.  I was so excited to use some pink!  For once I actually chose a pattern from a book and followed it - a rare thing for me.  With all those roses, it doesn't look much like "railroad tracks," but that's what the pattern is called.  I wanted roses because Ali's middle name is Rose.  And when I found this rose fabric with the coordinating yellow with smaller pink roses, I knew it had to come together since her room was going to be yellow.  The stripes are made by strip piecing a dozen or so different fabrics and then laying them out a little differently for each row.  I found some white with pink roses fabric to work perfectly with the ensemble as a binding and I finished it off with a yellow satin backing.  I love how multiple people have told me you can't put satin on the back of a quilt.  What do you mean you can't?  It works just fine, and the babies love it.  Cool in the summer and soft on their skin.