Gilbert's Quilt
Nathaniel, my nephew, and his wife, Susie, were having a baby, and they decided not to find out the sex of it. So my dilemma was--what color to make the baby quilt? I chose brown and aqua, so it could be either a boy or a girl quilt.
Pat Speth's quilts fascinated me, so I tried one of her patterns, Chesapeake, only I didn't use charm squares, instead used strips of fabric and Thangles. I cut the strips 2 3/4 inches and used 2 1/4 inch Thangles to make the half square triangles in this quilt. It has 24 brown and 24 aqua blocks. As you can see, it is larger than a baby quilt, more of a crib sized quilt.
So they had a boy, pictured here at nine months with his quilt. Isn't he a cutie?
My inspiration came from a quilt on the front cover of Quilter's World magazine, February 2007. My objective was to use the leftover fabrics from my Birthday Baskets quilt. I chose my favorite colors from the collection of fat quarters given to me by my friends with a request for Amish-like mottled fabrics--not solids!
Black strips create the stained glass window effect with 10 different colors of 2 1/2 inch fabric strips. There is a black border and binding to complete it into a wall hanging.
It is a beautiful quilt that brightens my office.
Batik Double Sawtooth Stars Quilt
As many quilters do, when I viewed the Double Sawtooth Stars Quilt in a magazine (I don't know which magazine, but will post when I find it), I knew I had to make it. However, the pattern was in just three colors, light blue, purple and dark blue. Of course, I made it my own scrappy type of quilt, deciding to use batiks in purple, aqua and green.
I
n my quilt guild,
twelve of us participate in a birthday fabric exchange. At least one month before our birthday, we request a particular type of fabric. Then, on our birthday, we receive 3 fat quarters from each participating member of that fabric. During the year 2011, I requested dark and light Christmas batik fabrics in purple, aqua and green.
As you can see, I received 33 beautiful batik fat quarters.
First, I planned each block using one light fabric, one medium and one dark fabric. The small star in the center of the block was made using the medium fabrics, the large star used the dark fabrics, and the background was the light batik fabrics. In all, this quilt has 49 -- 10 inch finished double sawtooth star blocks.
Next, the sashing was made using light and medium batiks. Each year, we are supposed to present our finished quilt on our birthday. Well, in 2012, I presented the top, without borders, on my birthday. It was not completed by my birthday on May 15. I actually spent the summer completing the borders.
The inner border is a red Christmas batik fabric, also used as a dark large star in several blocks, and as the binding. The large outer border, also a Christmas batik fabric, is found in the blocks as a large star. The center border used half square triangles which were the remains of the triangles trimmed from the large star point.
Not all the fabrics are Christmas batiks, but using several of them creates the effect of winter stars. The quilt is king size and is the Christmas/Winter quilt that covers my bed. It is extremely precious to me because my quilting buddies have contributed to this quilt and warms not only my cold feet here in cold NE Ohio, but my heart as well.
