A Gray Quilt

After having grandkids here most of the summer, along with mom’s home-going, I realized I hadn’t sat down to sew for months. And I NEEDED to. My friends Ann and Ryan had a wedding approaching, so I gave myself permission to sew for a whole day!

The pattern I used to make this quilt is by Ruth Ann Berry (click here to visit her site). She owns the Quilter’s Clinic in Michigan, and she vends at many shows. I love her 3-D style of piecing. I took her class on Zen Doodling a few years ago in Madison. She’s a very good teacher and I enjoyed the class but I found that, even though I was a pretty good doodler in my college notebooks and I love to free-motion “doodle” on my quilts, Zen doodling isn’t really my thing. I did however really like the pattern she included in our kit for using the doodled fabric blocks we made in class. While my granddaughter Rainee was here we visited Ann, and I noticed her living room was decorated in neutral grays and beige. So I picked these favorites from my stash.

Ryan’s last name is Gray, and Ann said she likes that color ~ so my palette was decided. I had to adjust the pattern a bit, but was pleased with the results when the piecing was complete (please note – the gray border fabric is bluer in the photo than in reality).

You might have noticed that I used two different fabrics for the sashing and borders. That’s because I didn’t have enough of the gray or the brown to do it all 🤣.

After piecing the top I came to the realization that my life had gotten back to some semblance of “normal”, and I’ve been able to find more time to quilt – praise the Lord! So I was able to quilt and finish this piece in time for the wedding (whew).

For the back I chose a soft Shannon gray and loved the quilting process. When I teach classes on quilting I often tell my students that I don’t have the entire quilting design in mind when I begin. I pick an area that looks like a fun place to start – and I start. This time I decided to straight line quilt all the sashing around the blocks using a ruler and my Sweet 16.

Then I noodled on what to quilt in each square. A “G” was a must, along with a heart or two (free motion quilting around a freezer paper heart made that block a breeze).

I also wanted to include a cross:

and an appropriate Scripture verse:

When done I had quite a sampler of quilting designs, and the back was as interesting

as the front:

Now to get a photo of the newlyweds with their quilt!

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And one more thing…

Diane sent me an email with a photograph of a quilt she owns. Here’s her message:

“I live in a Retirement Apartment in Hartland and my neighbor Sue gave me your email. I have a beautiful quilt that I was going to give to Goodwill, but would prefer to give it to someone who has more interest in quilting.
Sue thought it was handmade and it’s in good condition. It is 74” x 96”.

It is lovely, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I have enough vintage quilts in my collection. So I asked Diane if she’d like me to put it on my blog and she was thrilled. If you are interested in giving Diane’s quilt a good home, you can email her at: (ps I can’t seem to get my blog to just allow you to click on that email address and send an email. It takes me to a weird site. So, if you have that problem, please just copy and past Diane’s email into an email of your own and reach out to her that way. I’m looking into how to adjust that in the future)