Sara's Halloween Quilt

Sara Totonchi is an amazing woman. Incredibly talented and committed, extremely hard working, lots of fun, creative with eclectic tastes, and a very loyal and dear friend. I am so fortunate to know her. She loves Halloween and her birthday happens to be in the month of October. I made this quilt, which was machine quilted by Regina Carter, using a variety of Halloween fabrics, for her 30th birthday in October 2006.

Housewarming gift

This hanging was made from a very simple kit containing just the panel and a bunch of strips. It was extremely easy to put together and I hand quilted it afterwards. Even in spite of its simplicity, I like it a lot because of the bright fabrics and the fun panel. I gave it to Lisa and Xochtil as a house warming gift.

I have actually purchased a handful of quilt "kits," over the years, but this is the only one I have finished so far! Using kits seems somehow to be cheating, and I think I much prefer to put my own quilts together, pick my own fabrics etc. But there is also something tempting about kits. They eliminate the need for figuring out how much to get of each fabric - or the scarier proposition of trying to figure out if I have enough of the various prints to do what I have in mind. And they may eliminate some of the cutting which is not my most favorite part of quilting.

I hope to get around to doing some of my other kits before too long.

MaryRuth's Quilt

In the early fall of 2006, my friend MaryRuth was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Since, again, I had no idea of anything at all I could do to help, I made her a quilt. I made it very quickly because I wanted her to have it for as long as possible - and unfortunately, time was of the essence. The star blocks in the corners were some I had already. I think that perhaps Mary Lou made them, but I may also have gotten them from somewhere else. I supplemented them with blue 9-patches because it was fast. Sara made one of the blocks to help out. Regina Carter did the machine quilting.
Interestingly, I am very sure that MaryRuth liked the back much more so than the top. She wrote to me: "I love the angels (I generally wear an angel pin). I love the doves, I consider doves my symbol. When I write a letter on plain paper, I take a pastel blue marker and draw an outline of a dove across the paper. So doves on my quilt are very special." I am glad that I completely unwittingly added some elements to the quilt which had particular meaning for MaryRuth.

Sock Monkeys I

For quite a long time, all of my quilts were made by picking a block - log cabin, star, 9-patch or whatever - making a bunch of them, and sewing them together with or without sashing. But in about 2006, I suddenly discovered patterns!

It all began with the pattern used here, I think it might be called sticks and stones, which was introduced to me by Michelle. I made three quilts using this pattern, this baby quilt for my friend Katherine Huffman's first child, was the first and the only one in which I used only one repetition of the pattern.

Golden Anniversary Quilts

After making the quilt for my father-in-law, I still had 15 star blocks left. I added 15 nine patches using the same fabrics and put together two more or less identical lap quilts which I gave to my parents for their 50th anniversary in 2006. Though you can only see the very top of my father's head, this is actually a picture of them holding their quilts.

The backs were pieced with most of the remaining scraps and are pictured below. Both quilts were hand pieced and hand quilted.

Purple Quilt for Julia

Another monochromatic quilt, this time purple. I used lots of different fabrics and added some special Mardi Gras fabric because I couldn't find any theater fabric. This quilt was for my niece Julia when she graduated from Kenyon College in May, 2006. Julia was a theater major, is very talented, and now lives and works in New York trying to get into as many plays as she can.

Fans of Lucy

After making Sallie's quilt, I still had a number of fan blocks left and I put them together in this baby quilt for Lucy, the daughter of my good friends Robin and Betsy.

They were kind enough to send me a picture of Lucy enjoying her quilt. The greatest way to thank a quilter for her gift.