Matisse blocks

I'm having a blast with Jackson's quilt. I've been chopping up segments of the Alexander Henry Matisse fabric and framing them to insert in the quilt. Sorry for the crappy iPhone photos, but keep scrolling to see good photos of the whole quilt as it is now! I'm pretty excited--it's sooo Jackson:

Here's the whole top of the quilt (borders in progress) plus a close-up of a special little added kitty:

Jackson's jazz improv quilt

My friend Jackson takes wonderful care of my kitties when I'm out of town sometimes. I asked her if I could make her a quilt to thank her for this endless generosity. So she came over one day to pick her fabrics:

Her color palette rocks! So bright, with this crazy blue and white combination. I asked her some questions about what she likes aesthetically, but told her the quilt was going to be a surprise. Turns out, it took me ages to come up with an idea. I decided I wanted to try an improvised quilt, so I googled till I found this wonky coin quilt concept and imitated it. Maisie was helping, since Jackson's catsitting benefits her, too:

I was liking it but not thinking it would work for a WHOLE quilt, and then, at the Quilt Store on Anderson Lane I found this amazing Alexander Henry Matisse-inspired fabric. Apologies for the cat, but I didn't have it in my heart to move him (when he's on the ironing board he is the lion king overlooking the savannah). Jackson is a very jazzy girl, and I realized this could be a Matisse's-Jazz-inspired quilt. Next post will show how I'm using it!:

Pinwheel Quilt

When I found out my colleague Megan was having a little boy, I decided to make a blue quilt. Turned out that pinwheels are really fun to put together. I was able to go crazy with blues and greens to create a super-saturated effect. No white whatsoever:

it all came together even more beautifully than I imagined. The quilt feels like being deep in the ocean, I think. The layout is a close copy of a quilt in Mary Matshuta's Confetti Quilts. Here are two views:

The quilting up close. Not my strongest effort, but it will be nice and strong for baby to play with!:

More crazy nine patch

Madison's quilt ended up being a huge success! I loved the way it turned out. Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of it yet because it was too cold to photograph it outdoors. But here's a taste of the front (folded) and the bak (yellow, with leftover squares):

It's Thanksgiving weekend, I must be quilting

Well, the quilting bug is here again. So is another bug--I think I'm getting a cold, so no staying up till 3am working on this project.

I am making a variation on the Crazy Nine Patch on the blog Oh, Fransson! A few weekends ago I decided to try out this really fun piecing method, which gives you nine unique nine-patches using nine fabrics. I made 36 total, each in a different color scheme. Now I'm going to put them all together with sashing into a semi-traditional quilt for my favorite 12-year-old girl, Madison, who loves blue. let's see if I can finish it in time for Christmas.

Dad's surprise quilt

For years, my dad has hinted that he wants his own quilt, each time I present a quilt to one of my nieces and nephews. So I decided to make him one! It's a scrap quilt based on tons of past projects, using a simple pattern from a book called Slash Your Stash Quilts. It was so fun to make. I used up tons of scraps, including a lot of strips from my long-abandoned log cabin project. Maisie loved the scrap box, which is from Nikes I wore in college!

Pirate, as usual, is like a paperclip to a magnet when I start pinning. He just adores fabric:

Glowy goodness in mom and dad's back yard:

I so totally dig the back. It's hard to see, but the backing fabric is all chinese characters. My dad loves books and bookmaking, so I put as many book-related fabrics in as possible:

Pretty soon, Miss Ruby, my youngest niece, will be ready for her own bed-sized quilt! Here we are with Dad's:

This is what it's all about:

Doll Quilts!

The doll quilts are both done! Each is sized for one IKEA doll bed, and each bed holds several dolls. Niece Ella's grandma is making luxurious sheets to accompany. Ella, her mom, and I chose the color schemes and fabrics together from my enormous stash.

Ella's favorite fabric is the plums. Me too. Here's the back:

This coin quilt was so fast, I made the entire quilt in a day, including hand-stitching the binding. I love the color combination:

Here's another fun back--extra coins and odds and ends. I am so glad I found a use for the background fabric--I don't usually buy fabrics with a white backround like this and it had been sitting in my stash a while. It works great in this project.



I washed and dried these for a very fluffy, puckery look.