More Boy Quilts

In a year's time, three nephews were added to Hubby's side of the family.  I made three quilts from the same stash of fabric.  I love that each quilt has denim from Hubby's old Levis, scraps from a dress that I made for their grandma a while ago, and scraps from one of my favorite denim dresses from back when denim dresses were 'all the rage'.  I also included scraps from one of my mom's old denim dresses.

None of the plaids are from clothes that we wore.  Some of the plaids came from an era when I would buy plaid shirts from the thrift store and cut them up for fabric.  Most of them were just collected from fabric stores in different states over time.  These quilts are multi-generational, multi-familial, and multi-statal.  How do you like all those big fancy words?   

The first nephew got this quilt.  The second nephew got the one that I've been calling Plaid Pinwheels.  I really like making pinwheels.  They're super easy and accurate if you use the half square triangle method of piecing. 

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Many quilters suggest starting your free motion quilting in the center of the quilt and working towards the edge.  On the pinwheel quilt, I followed the diagram above and found that it worked really well.  I'll definitely use that technique again.

The third nephew got the one below, which was inspired by this quilt that a friend made.  It's weird how the same pattern can look completely different depending on the fabric choices.

I ran out of Levi pockets for labels, but am in love with this label also.  I've been calling this quilt 'Words with Sun'.  Sun is nephew number three's mom and we're addicted to playing a certain game.

A member of my quilt guild asked me what it's like to use denim for binding.  I wouldn't recommend it.  The edges aren't too bad if you have a good thimble, but the mitered corners are a nightmare.

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Speaking of thimbles, I discovered this awesome thimble at Joann's right before I started sewing on the binding.  I love it because...

• It doesn't continually slip off of my finger like a metal thimble does.
• I can push the needle through the fabric by sitting the end of the needle in the metal indentations.
• I can pull the needle out of the fabric by gripping it with the rubber.
• There's a handy dandy size guide (a hole in the packaging) to help you pick the right size for your finger.

Happy quilting! 

Outer Space Quilt

Last year I made this paper-pieced rocket quilt block for Joy.  I was so excited to design the pattern myself.

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Joy received all kinds of fun space blocks from the Long Distance Quilting Bee and made this quilt for her nephew.  My favorite block is the one directly below mine - so unique and very modern!  Zoom in and check out the cute quilting in orange thread.  I wonder if she did it herself?

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Here's a closer look before it was quilted.  So, this reminds me that I have two years of blocks to put together.  I better get started!

Elefante

Lately I'm a paper piecing maniac.  I got this elephant pattern from A Quilter's Ark by Margaret Rolfe.  One of the gals in the Long Distance Quilting Bee wanted 'anything baby'.  The pattern calls for embroidered details, like an eye and stuff.  But I kind of liked it without all the details.  I think a checked body and a plaid ear is detail enough.  What do you think?

Paper-pieced Pitcher

That title is a tongue twister.  Just see if you can say it five times fast.  This is one of the first blocks that I managed to make without changing my mind about the fabrics a gazillion times.  I wasn't sure I was going to like it - too girly for me.  But, I really love it.

The April challenge for the Long Distance Quilting Bee was to make something with blues and greens with a light background using our current favorite method.  I continue to be intrigued with paper-piecing so that's what I did.  Once again, I used a pattern from my favorite quilting book.  One of these days I'm going to design my own pattern again, like this one.

The Biltmore

We, the handicrafty sisters, met up at the Biltmore last week.  Jill, a friend from California, was also there with us.  The best memory is when we (Patty and I) decided not to eat lunch at Cedric's Tavern.  We made this decision after the waiter had already seated us and had brought us our menus and water.  We made this decision without the approval of Jill; and I might add, to the mortification of Jill.  

Patty and I came to the conclusion that we were not going to pay $16 for shepherd's pie made out of lamb, or anything else on the pricey lunch menu.  When the waiter came back to take our order, we told him we needed more time (time to escape).  He left us to continue poring over our menus.  We decided to make a break for it.

Before our exodus though, Patty's conscience pricked her and she decided to leave a $3 tip - one dollar for each water.  While she searched for the $3, Jill quickly vanished.  We found her seated outside, pretending not to know us.  She eventually forgave us and even ended up laughing with us about it later that evening.

By the way, I just googled Cedric's Tavern and found out that Cedric was George Vanderbilt's beloved St. Bernard.  For some reason, that tiny bit of trivia makes the story even funnier to me.

And, I just grabbed this image off of their website.  I do believe that the table on the left is the one we were sitting at!

Postscript:  Jill just confirmed that the table on the left is indeed the very table where the notorious incident occurred.