Fascinating Specialty Quilts

Over the past month or so I’ve seen a few quilts that are so unique I just have to share. Last week I posted about the Capital Quilters show in Bismarck, ND. One of the quilters who was in my Beginning Fiber Art class, Colleen, had a quilt in the show that really made me smile. It’s called Mod TVs (I apologize that I don’t have Colleen’s last name, nor the quilter of her quilt – the picture of the card on the quilt was too blurry to read):

Colleen said she made it from a pattern, but the special part was she picked some of her favorite cartoon characters from the past and her long-arm quilter came up with patterns to put them on the tv screens.

What a trip down memory lane. Thanks Colleen!

The next quilt I want to share was made by Debbie Hawver. She was asked by a friend to make a memory quilt from her granddaughter Grace’s clothes. Debbie did an amazing job of fitting the clothes together:

She kept many of the flounces, straps, and ruffles, and even repliquéd Grace’s name in her favorite colors. What a treasure! Great job Debbie!

Debbie is a regular in my Open Lab class, as is Jean Casey, who also made a fascinating quilt for a friend. Her friend’s husband died unexpectedly and Jean was asked to make a memory quilt from his shirts and ties. She decided to match them up and created this amazing quilt in a “quilt-as-you-go” fashion.

Jean used the collars along with the ties, and then quilted each block in a pattern to match the tie.

The border is made from leftover shirt pieces and she even put a few pockets in for fun! Well done, Jean.

Three very different and delightful quilts. Thanks for letting me share them ladies.

***************************

Also – last week I mentioned a great idea for making sample quilt sandwiches to practice free-motion quilting on:

Purchase pre-quilted muslin fabric with your 50% off coupon at JoAnn’s and simply cut it into smaller rectangles. I spent a few days teaching for the Shawnee Quilters in Carbondale, IL this past week (a wonderful group) and tried it out. It worked great! No basting sprays, no pins in the way, and it’s quite easy to ignore the cross-hatching in the background!

While I was in Carbondale I had a delightful surprise. Nancy had been at a meeting where I presented my Quilt Tales lecture – complete with tuxedo.

She snapped a pic of it and created her own  😀 ! front:

and back:

I love it – hope it made you smile.