Apron Quilt

When Grandpa Great died a few years ago, and we were helping to clean out the house in preparation to sell, I came across a bunch of Grandmas old aprons. I knew they were a treasure and asked Diane if I could have them. She said yes and I put them away in a drawer waiting for the right time to use them.

Then in early February I decided to make a quilt for Diane out of them for her birthday in March so I started planning! I knew the colors and patterns of the aprons were mis-matchy and initially I wanted it to have a scrappy look to it ... but what block design?? I found one called Grandma's apron, but it was fancier than I wanted so when I came across this pixel heart quilt pattern online at Robert Kaufman, I knew it was just the thing! It represented love and that's what I was trying to portray.I had to re-work the pattern to make it larger but I was loving how it was coming together!

I ended up planning for nine blocks, each with 25 squares, and a wider sashing.

I took each of the aprons and deconstructed them, ironed them and  added a fusible stabilizer to them because the fabrics were so worn, and it was harder than I thought it would be to cut up all those vintage aprons that could never be replaced!

Next I got to cutting them up! I decided on cutting them 4" each. It was fun to see all the apron details in each of the squares!

The part I had the hardest time with was deciding how to lay the squares within the heart ... I had wanted that scrappy look but I kept changing and re-arranging before I finally decided to lay them out diagonally and I'm so glad I did because I think it helped make each apron pattern stand on it's own.

 Then it was time to sew sew sew!! It was harder than I expected working with those vintage fabrics ... getting the corners to match up was a bit of a challenge because the stretch and give was different with each one. I had them all layed out on my make shift design wall and there were a few times that Diane came over and I had to hurry and fold it up to keep it out of sight!!

A little more than a week before her birthday, I attended my guild meeting and they asked for a quilt to display in a quilt show at Grandma Great's care center the weekend before Diane's birthday ... I volunteered to show this one and finally finished it six days before the show! Luckily I have a wonderful quilter who agreed to quilt it right away for me and I finished binding it the night before the show!

This square was my favorite detail, a patch Grandma Great herself made.

The finished quilting was gorgeous and I bound it in purple - Diane's favorite color! What you can't see is in that cream block in the middle of the heart is written, To: Diane, Love, Mom. ... and I put a section of the apron squares on the back too, a detail I love!!

I left to take the boys to Idaho for their competition and so Troy called his mom up the day of the quilt show and offered to come get her to go visit Grandma Great. He picked her up, went to Grandma's room, loaded her in a wheelchair and suggested they go look for a quilt of mine that was being displayed. They went through the entire show before finding it at the very end, when they approached it, Troy said, "Happy Birthday Mom!! This is for you!!" She then noticed the embroidery, and recognized the fabric and started to cry. I was so glad to make this for her!! She deserves to feel her mother's love each time she wraps herself in it!

Grandma's Aprons

 Today I officially started the apron quilt. I'm excited about this one because of it's emotional significance. When Grandpa Great died almost two years ago, my mother in law decided to put her mother in an assisted living center so she could get the care she needed. That meant cleaning out her mother's home and selling it to help pay for the assisted living. In the cleaning out process, we came across these old aprons of Grandma Greats and because they were so old and worn, they got tossed in the dumpster. Well, I jumped right in and pulled them out of the garbage and snuck them into my car.

I knew when I pulled them out of the garbage that I wanted to make a quilt out of them, but it wasn't until now that I decided it was time. My mother in law has a hard life. She works full time, cares for her husband who is physically disabled and struggles with mental illness, and she cares for her mother, the one time owner of these aprons. She's a great woman and with her birthday coming up at the end of March, I thought now was the time to make her gift. A quilt made from her mother's old aprons.

I looked for just the right pattern and settled on this one .... pixelated heart, from the Robert Kaufman website ... I liked that it was simple and I liked that it would portray love. The process started with deconstructing the aprons and getting them ironed .... it was fun to have little cracker crumbs fall out of the pockets and when I ironed them, they smelled like Grandma Great.

Some of them were pretty worn, and I knew I wanted to keep some of that unique stuff in the quilt ... like this patch.

And some of the aprons were so worn that I ironed on a featherweight interface to stabilize them a bit better so they'd last longer in the quilt.

Then I got to cutting. I decided on 4" squares.

Here's a few of the squares with the apron details I wanted to keep. I love them!

My lovely little stack of 4" apron squares.

Then I started laying them out. I'm excited to see this come together!

Quilts 3, 4, 5 ... And Maybe 6

I started quilt 3 from a kit I bought at K&H Quilt Shoppe. It's from a pattern called All A Flutter by Bonnie of the Cotton Way.  The fabrics are from one of my all time favorite fabric collections, Happy Go Lucky, by Bonnie's daughter Camille. You can find it at the Fat Quarter Shop. I just love every single fabric and tone in this collection. All I have left to do is cut the white on white and I'll be ready to start assembly!

Quilt #4 belongs to my son ... we searched high and low to find a pattern he liked and it wasn't until I went to my first guild meeting where I met Caroline Friedlander at her trunk show that we found the perfect pattern, Aeriel! So we set out to our local quilt shop to see what we could find for fabrics. I told him he could choose whatever he wanted for the quilt, and that it would be his job to put the color combinations together when it was time to sew. He's excited about it, I'm a little nervous ... I'm finding it hard to give up creative control and just let him choose what he likes. :) Regardless, he found some fabrics he loved and after I get the templates from the pattern copied, I'll be ready to learn to paper piece!!

 Quilt #5 will probably be the one that gets finished first .... it's a gift for my mother in law and her birthday is coming up. I'll be cutting up her mothers old aprons and making this darling heart quilt I found in the Robert Kaufman free patterns!

 

And then, quilt 6 kind of accidentally happened. It really came down to the fact that I didn't want to watch the Superbowl, but I live in a razed Superbowl family ... so I decided to give a little english paper piecing a try ... and I'm hooked!! I love it! My goal is to make at least a twin size quilt without buying ANY fabric for it. Everything will be made with scraps. What I'd really love to do is somehow reach out to the quilting world and see if other quilters would be willing to send me some of their little square scraps so it could have a little more specialness to it :) We'll see if that works out or not!  Either way, I have plenty to do and am having SO MUCH FUN quilting, meeting new quilters, learning new things and feeling creative again!!

Celebrity

 Today was a big first for me. I stepped out of my regular hermit shell and decided to go to a quilt guild meeting!! It all started with a comment I made to a girl I follow on Instagram ... most of you probably know @carolynfriedlander, and she was kind enough to invite me to her trunk show at the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild.

Well, needless to say I was intrigued ... and nervous ... and feeling very much like it was my first day at junior high. Seriously. I was not sure what to expect and tried to talk myself out of it a few times, but I decided to go .... and it was GREAT! Carolyn Friedlander is an incredibly creative and talented girl! Every single thing she did was absolutely jaw dropping and she was kind and friendly too! A wonderful first quilt world celebrity to meet! She had brought some of her patterns with her to sell, and I picked up one called Aerial and sent a picture of it to son #2 who has been trying to figure out what he wants for his quilt and he texted back, (and I quote) "SWEET!!! That is AWESOME!!"  ... so I bought it ... and now I get to learn how to paper piece :)

I should also say that the girls in the guild were wonderfully welcoming and easy to get to know. I was so relieved! It's never easy to be the new girl but I already feel like I have some new friends. And so great to have other girls who like quilting as much as I do ... even though I think I am WAY out of my league with the talent that was there. I'm excited to get to know them all better and learn from their expertise!

And on another note... we got this wonderful 30's reproduction fabric in the shoppe ... it will definitely be made into one of my 14 quilts!!

Sweet Nothings

Quilt 2 was a blur!! It was made from a kit I bought in 2011 from a local quilt shop (Quilters Haven) on sale for half off! The fabric and pattern are Riley Blake designs, the fabric is Sweet Nothings by Zoe Pearn Designs (and as far as I can tell, it is out of print). When I bought it, I remember loving the brightness of the colors and the happy feel of the patterns, but then I set it on a shelf ......

Quilt 2 was supposed to be for my second son, but he was having a hard time deciding what pattern he wanted to use so in the meantime, I pulled this kit back out and re-fell in love with this fabric! I was able to get it cut out in about an hour and then pieced more than half of it that same night!!

Today I finished up the piecing and prepped the sashing and binding.

Then I packed up my supplies and headed to the Shoppe for a machine quilting class. The class was WONDERFUL and so full of information!! It was taught by Renae Allen and she taught her Skill Builder book. I learned so much! From how to properly stretch and pin baste to how to free motion quilt! Here's my very first attempt!! I obviously need practice. Lots and lots of practice. But it was really fun and I can't wait to learn more.

Making Progress

 I got this cute little valentine SPROCKET PILLOW finished and I love it!! I think I'll make one for each holiday.

Then a few days ago when I picked up the mail this little wonderful bundle was waiting for me from Fort Worth Fabric Studio .... every bit of this darling fabric was on sale and I can't wait to work it into one of my 14!!

And speaking about my 14 .... here's all the blocks of #1 stacked and ready to lay out ....

 ... and here they are on the living room floor ready for piecing. What I really want to get is a vinyl tablecloth with the felty backside .... a customer came into the shop with one that she used for her design wall. It was such a good idea! The squares all stick to the felty side and you can fold it up to move it around without messing up your layout. Definitely looking for one of those at my next trip to Walmart!!

And I'm working on designing one of the 14 ... We got some of the cutest 30's reproduction fabric in the shoppe the other day and I think this will be the pattern I use with it .... maybe some of you can give me ideas of where I could find genuine 30's quilt patterns!

And one last thing .... Take a look at this AMAZING hand quilting!!! This quilt is on display in the shoppe from one of our local quilters and it just absolutely amazes me!! So much talent!

For The Love of Quilting

 Fourteen quilts is my goal for 2014. I would like to make 14 quilts this year to improve and test my skills and because quilting makes me happy. This blog will be a place where I share what I'm doing, and hopefully post all the tips and tricks I learn along the way. I am a self taught quilter and am hoping to learn all that good quilty (I just added the word quilty to my dictionary) stuff I would have learned if I would have had an incredibly talented Amish quilting grandmother. :)

I'd love to have you follow along with me, share ideas and thoughts you have and especially make new friends in this awesome quilting world!

For starters ... this pillow I made with my craft group with the most amazing technique! I had seen it a tutorial for it just a few days before our group met and was excited to try it out.... it was so easy and I loved how it turned out .... I foresee doing and entire scrappy quilt this way... Oh, and I found a tutorial for it here at SewMamaSew

Here's my first two tips that I learned in a Quilt Academy class I just started at my quilt shoppe ...

Tip#1: Get a third yard of army duck to put on your iron. It absorbs the steam and helps press your blocks flatter! Love it!!

Tip #2: A thread catcher ... this to me was MIND BLOWING!! All it is is a bit of selvage that you run through your machine before chain sewing ... then at the end of your chain you sew a second one through, that you leave, just like this, on your machine. Why? Because it keeps you from having long threads at the end of your blocks!! And if your machine is like mine, it keeps the thread from pulling out of the needle in between sewings! I LOVED this tip!!

Anyhoo ... here is quilt #1 in progress. As of now, I'm ready to lay it out and get it pieced. I'm excited about it because I've loved this fun little line since the day it arrived in the shoppe. If you're local (Kaysville, Utah) you can get it at K&H Quilt Shoppe or if you're not you can find it at Pink Castle Fabrics here. The pattern I'm using is by one of my favorite pattern makers and quilters, Allison Harris of CluckCluckSew ... seriously ... I love every one of her patterns and am sure that many of my 14 quilts will be hers. It's called Chain Reaction and you can order it here. I actually am making it almost double the size (I like big snuggly quilts) and I can't wait to see it all together (hopefully tomorrow!!)

Thanks so much for stopping by!!