Behold, My Quilt Tops

Even unquilted they’re surprisingly heavy. I suspect when I get the backing and batting on they’re going to be very cozy for the cold weather months.

Library of Dreams

Library of Dreams is a twin quilt made with batik strips I’d picked up at the Dallas Quilt Show a couple of years ago matched with latticework made from white-on-white cotton fabric and a pretty cool-colored batik (which also serves as the border). This one is for my niece Jessica (and if any family members read this I’m happy to make a quilt for you—just tell me size and color preferences and don’t expect it before December).

Garden Path

Garden Path is a full quilt made with two types of green floral fabric, two types of cream floral fabric, and one type of mauve floral (because I’d bought enough of that type). This is the quilt that uses a pattern from an old quilt I bought when I first got to Dallas. The quilt fell apart within the year, but I was able to draft the pattern with the intention of recreating it in lavender, green, and cream.

So. Many. Curves.

In retrospect it’s not surprising that this one’s been languishing in my office closet since 2010 or so. But I’m proud of myself for mastering the techniques needed for sewing curves.

Sunflower Memories

Sunflower Memories is a queen quilt made with antique sunflower motifs appliqued to white-on-white cotton squares and set in lattices made from dark green and sunflower fabric. The border is made from a floral fabric featuring sunflowers, bees, and a golden honeycomb pattern on a black background with a gold stripe and pale orange corner squares.

Back in 2002 or so I’d found a quilt top made from thirty hand-sewn sunflowers attached to a white cotton surround. The white cotton was fraying badly but apart from some bleaching here and there the sunflower motifs were still in pretty good condition.

I bought them with the idea of appliqueing each motif onto a square of white cotton, then connecting them with sunflower fabric lattices. I even got as far as cutting out all the lattice pieces, then stuck the motifs in the closet because detaching them from their fraying white surrounds was such a hassle.

Ha. Ha ha ha.

I now have two office garbage cans full of stripped-off white cotton and my seam ripper got one hell of a workout last week. But I wound up with thirty circular motifs which I appliqued onto squares, then put together into a lattice. I’d gone out and purchased the fabric for the border, but after adding a 4″ border I looked at it and thought, “…that looks really narrow.”

A quick trip to Joann later, and I had a golden stripe around the existing border, then added the remaining black honeycomb fabric strips with light orange corner squares that echoed the orange in the motifs (frankly, I’m utterly shocked that I was able to find a color that matched so closely). And what had originally been a full quilt became a queen quilt.