Quilt- Swiss Army Style

I have slowly, so slowly, but surely tried to make quilts for everyone in my family. I have been knocking around ideas for this guy's quilt for quite awhile now. He's my big boy and he travels a lot, to far away places. I hate to saddle people with "things" if it is not convenient to their lives but I finally just had to do it and I'm glad I did. Cause, look at that face. Yes, I know that he is all grown up, but yikes, it seriously seems like yesterday that this man was only seven.

 This is my take on the old Swiss Army Blankets. I love those things and thought why not interpret it into a quilt? Since my son is 6'2" I made it long. Maybe ridiculously long, but I wanted him to be warm. I think it ended up over 8 feet. Silly me, I didn't measure but you can see when he holds it up it still drags the ground. When they originally produced the wool army blankets, the maker embroidered their initials and the year made on the blanket in the lower left corner. My twist on that was to embroider his initials and the year in the same corner. Of course I forgot to get a picture of that, because I waited until the day before he left to take the pictures and I may or may not have been close to boo hooing.

 I used Kona Cotton in white, coal and cardinal to piece the quilt and quilted the many, many mostly straight lines in Aurifil 50 weight Dove Grey. I kept the back simple with the same fabrics.

I love that he wrote me a few days after he left to let me know that the length of the quilt was the best part, and it was in fact keeping him warm. That's the whole point, isn't it?

The Wedding Quilt - Things Got a Little Fishy

My sister's son married a sweet girl this summer. We couldn't be there, so we decided to make them a quilt, hoping they'd know how much we love them in spite of not being able to make it. They are fishermen (people?) and artists. We tried to encompass both of those things with the quilt we made. 

Oh, and by we.... I mean I did the background and Jess did all the epic stuff. I do like my background but I LOVE what Jess did.

The lure was taken from a painting that my new niece, Shelby, did of a lure Tayler made. The fish is from one of his photos. Jess did an amazing job translating them into the quilt. I believe she may post some details of her process.

We chose batiks to help give it a water feel. I had some anxious moments trying to figure out how to get what was in my head to work with the fabric. I'm sure I could have found a tutorial somewhere but apparently I need to torment myself sometimes..... When it finally clicked with me, it was a lot of fun and I want to do it again.

The fish and lure are both raw edge appliqué. The trout also has painted details.

We backed it in a lovely plaid flannel, perfect for cold winter nights. 

Quilt details:

Approx 60 x 70

Fish and lure - Kona Cottons 

Background - Batiks from JoAnn Fabrics

Backing - Flannel from JoAnn Fabrics

Thread - Aurifil 50w

Batting - Pellon's Nature Touch 100% cotton

I've added our quilt to the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Art quilt catagory.

Quilt's Of The Past

This was for a special boy. A nephew of my heart. I started making a quilt for his big brother and decided that I needed to go ahead and do his too. I'd love to show you the quilt I made for his brother but I've lost the pictures somewhere.

 

I used my "Go" cutter to make the tumblers. Random was the plan for this layout. 

I quilted a single line down the edge of the tumblers and finished it off with a scrappy binding which I love more than I thought I would.

I remembered to take the time to tag both quilts. Mostly because Jessica helped me get these done. She helped A LOT. 

I 

I used all Kaufman Kona Cottons for the front and their "spot on" wide quilt backing to finish off the back.
Both boys love their quilts and that makes me so happy.

A Little Charm Quilt

The other day Jess said, "We should make some stroller quilts."

Then she made three.

With appliqué.

I managed to eek out one in twice the time!

 My challenge was to use fabric I had, and I did. Even down to the batting. Of course it's tiny, 35 x 35, so I'm not sure it should really count as fabric out...

Michael Miller Pod Pozy charm pack.

 Kaufman Kona chocolate border.

 Michael Miller Ta-Dot for the binding and back.

Sorry about the not so artistic sun spots. I wasn't in the mood for a do over. 

Next up is my gratuitous baby shot. Avert your eyes if you are tired of these........

Trying to capture golden baby lashes on a wiggly boy.

Heaven.

The Boy and His Blanket

Just in case you're wondering, quilts and blankets are not the same thing and anyway, his mom bought the fabric and said make it. So I had to. Poor me.

 Made with Urban Circus by Laurie Wisbrun, Shannon Cuddle in brown with blue dots, and kona cotton in a color I would know if I could ever get my hands on a color card. I "quilted" it with straight lines about every third row of elephants. 

He loves it and I love him. Perfect.

Sophia Trench Coat

Have you ever made your husband turn the car around, park, cross a street and help you climb a fountain? No? Um, yeah, me neither……

The pattern is from Serindipity Studios. I used a black chambray by Kaufman Fabrics, with a bit of Basic Grey's Figgy Pudding for Moda as a fun surprise on the inside.

Next time there must be pockets.