Rainbows and Dinosaurs

Here's a scrappy quilt; a perfect way to use up tons of those squares you cut from scraps in a moment or hour or week of craziness. My grandson and I began this quilt with a dig through those squares. He was three. He'd helped finish the quilt for his bunk. This one would be for his baby brother's bed in a couple years. His mom and I decided to make a could more rows, but arrange them in groups of two just so the two would be a bit different.

Quilting with small children poses its own set of problems and its own opportunities for joyful giggles. Attention span might be shorter and your little one may exhibit the "oh shiny!" syndrome. If your partner in sewing lives on the other side of the world, it can be even more of a challenge.

We began by sorting out colors from the 2 1/2 inch square bin and sending pictures of the target color back and forth via email. Rowan would makes suggestion as to which block should come next and which had to sit next to each other. Over a few weeks, we put together rows for most of the colors in the rainbow. These rows were sewn together and just waiting for me to find a good sash fabric. Turns out it was a good thing that it sat on the shelf a couple months.

The first sign of a problem sailed in with a shipping company's ship.  The companion quilt, also a rainbow quilt arrived in Sweden. It was made of 3 1/2 inch strips...so instead of a mere 27 blocks per row, we now needed 39. Sigh. It's a good thing that my seam ripper and I are buddies. Adding more blocks often meant taking bits and pieces apart to improve balance between prints and shades.

The quilt also needed a bit of  redesign to expand the width. As it was, the sash strips were about the same width as the rainbow strips. It lacked interest visually. After brainstorming, we decided to border each set of blocks with a matching border. That added enough with to use a 2-inch sash.

Everything Little Boy Quilt

Frogs, water, kites, fish...everything little boy. This quilt has them all set in a snowball pattern and surrounded by tiny, bright squares.

Here are a couple individual blocks. You can see my quilting. I did it on my sewing machine and think it turned out pretty good.

Cheese and Crackers, Anyone?

I've had a soft spot for 30's fabrics since I was a kid. They populated my Gram's fabric stash. Only difference between those and the ones you find in the stores now -- hers were the originals.

Fast forward a couple decades and to a quilt guild rummage sale. I found a "Cheese and Crackers" pattern featuring 30s fabrics. I kept my eyes open and collected enough for a quilt. Every now and then I would open the box, cut a few strips, sew a few seams. Last month I decided that I had enough for a nice sized quilt. Actually I had enough for a nice sized quilt and a twin.

The pattern has a single primary block separated by white spaces. In one row, it sets horizontally; the next it's aligned vertically.

Using the 30s fabric and a unbleached background resulted in a relaxing quilt. I imagine you could take another style of fabrics and a dynamic background and the quilt would jump up and down, attracting attention.

(I'll be updating with finished pictures of both the queen and the twin sized versions.)

Quick and Easy Baby Quilt

Are you looking for an easy, almost fail proof quilt you can make up in an afternoon? I stumbled onto one in the back room of a small town quilt shop. During the East Tennessee shop hop, I was introduced to an intriguing cutting guide. It made pinwheel patterns from 9 patches. Although it wastes a bit of fabric, it significantly cuts down on matching seams. The end product looks more complicated than the actual process.



I chose a variety pack of dotted batiks, using a leftover muted background. An abstract butterfly pattern hooks the blocks together. It's machine quilted on my sewing machine. Overall, it's a quick and easy baby quilt.