Another UFO, the tale of many Lone Stars.

In 2001 I worked on the book Great Lakes, Great Quilts for the MSU Museum and C&T Publishing. It was my job, with my colleague Mary Worrall to reproduce 12 quilts from the collection and write the patterns, too. One of the quilts I reproduced was this Native American Lone Star from the Museum's collection.

Below is the reproduction quilt that I made (with fabulous machine quilting from Kari Ruedisale).

I strip pieced the diamonds and had extra left on each strip. I used them to make this little quilt. It measures 28" x 32".

 I still had more diamonds left so I put them together. Just last week I got the star out, added the setting triangles and rectangles to come up with this.

The center diamond is 36" x 36". I pinned it to my design wall to admire it and noticed I put one diamond in backwards. Now I don't believe in putting in a mistake on purpose to appease the quilt gods. I error all on my own. So I took it apart and fixed it. Another of my goals is to master my EQ7 program. I went to my computer, created the center lone star and played around with the borders. I came up with this.

This week I'm on vacation from work. I was going up North, but the weather is bad so DH decided to delay our trip one day. That gives me today to sew. I'm working on the corner blocks in the border. I'll post when the top is done.

So 10 years later, I'll get this project done. Did I mention, I'm only using fabric from my stash? Bonus.

Till next time....Happy Quilting

Old Favorites

In 1995  I wrote my first book, Block By Block. My favorite quilt from the book is Ships That Pass in the Night. The boat block is traditional and the star is my variation of the Ohio Star. Add to that four patch cornerstones and you get diagonal squares running around the boats.

That quilt was made over 15 years ago, so I was delighted when Debbie Dean from North Carolina sent me this picture of a quilt she made for her grandchild just last week.

It's so fun to see this in other colors. I love the red, beautiful job Debbie, thanks for sharing.

Till next time.....Happy Quilting

Graduations

Last night, Tom, Katy and I took Colleen out to dinner to celebrate her graduation with a bachelor's degree in Psychology. It's been a long haul for Colleen and we're very proud. She chose Weber's Inn in Ann Arbor for our little party. We had a wonderful time and I highly recommend it. Also yesterday, my block exchange buddy Terry had an open house for her daughter Erin's high school graduation. For this year's block exchange Terry has requested 12" quilt blocks based on her daughter's favorite musicals. Terry and Erin planned to display the blocks at her open house. I didn't finish the block until today, so it didn't make it to the display. I chose Beauty and the Beast and made the block below.

I used the logo from the Broadway version and did reverse applique for the beast and the rose and hand embroidery for the letters. I'm pleased the way it turned out. I've seen some of the other blocks for the quilt and it's going to be a stunner. 

Till next time......Happy Quilting

A Quilt for Cruz

My daughter's best friend from high school had her second baby. I decided to use a UFO to make her new baby boy Cruz a quilt. The pattern is The Lattice and you can get a free pattern for it by clicking here. I had fun with the machine quilting. In each of the white squares you will find, a letter from the alphabet, the letters in Cruz' name, the numbers 1-10, or an outline of an animal, fruit, or other fun thing.

Photos by Pearl Yee Wong

Till next time.....Happy Quilting.