Baby quilts for twins

 I still haven't got my sunshine 16 up and running.  Too much work and projects and I want a block of time that I haven't got yet but next week should be the week to get to it.  In the mean time I did some quilting on my little sewing machine.

I made two similar quilts for twins babyshower



Boys or girls??  It's going to be a surprise!

They're decorating with an "UP" theme so I painted a picture for the room.



You can see the machine quilting on the back. 

Green and purple quilt



green and purple quilt



Here you can see the blue flower that RBD selected to put by his garden path

volunteer sweet peas

Lovely sweet peas!



cute garden shed

Cute shed that RBD and I built a couple of years ago

A little over a year ago I was a very beginner quilter. At my church, we make quilts for the graduating girls to welcome them into the women's organization. I couldn't find any cute sheets to "tie" together and embarked upon a challenge to piece together two quilt tops for the girls who were graduating, one of them my daughter and this is the quilt that we made for her. Another church lady long arm quilted both quilts and they turned out delightful! My inspiration for this green and purple quilt came from a book called "Through the Garden Gate".

Molly's quilt

My friend's mom who was a sewer, died.  My friend inherited some odds and ends of things including a puppy named Molly and several little ironing boards in different sizes and shapes.  I was lucky to receive the small ironing boards.  I wondered what I could do for my friend and decided to make Molly a quilt.

Quilt for Molly

I ordered some 10 inch squares of a collection of fabrics called "Parlour Pets" because it was cute and Molly preferred pink and purple.

"woof"

 It needed some special free motion quilting and luckily I took the class last year and love to make swirls and echos of the swirls.  This time I tried words like Molly, woof, ruff, bow wow, and even added pictures of balloons, sleepy moon faces, and hearts.

"Molly"

 My friend spoke with such love for this little puppy (Molly) who assuaged her grief  and it touched my heart.

quilt label

At my quilt guild meeting they said that quilts have a lot of history and meaning but often the years go by and no one know when or where the quilt originates and therefore every quilt should have a label.  

Sunshine 16

I'm starting this blog to celebrate my new Sunshine 16 quilting machine and frame that should arrive any day.  I am looking forward to making many wonderful quilts and want to share my creations.  I have a place to put this 10 foot long quilt frame because a few years ago when we pitched our roof, I was lucky enough to get an attic with a craft room where I spend many happy hours!  I'm so excited!  Received Sunshine 16 midarm quilting machine April 27th, 2012.  RBD (husband) helped me begin the assembly but then went on his annual weeklong fishing trip so we completed the assembly yesterday.  Instructions were a bit difficult to follow.

Sunshine 16 midarm quilting machine instructions

Sunshine 16 quilt frame assembly



Sunshine 16.  Isn't it pretty?  Made in U.S.A!!!

Now I have to figure out how to load a quilt and then learn to use my new machine.

Rainbow heart quilt top

Rainbow Heart Quilt

When my daughter was 3, I made her a rainbow heart cake for her birthday.  When I asked her what quilt design she wanted, she said, "a rainbow heart quilt".  Each heart block has 49, 2 inch squares.  This will be the first to be quilted on my new Sunshine 16 quilting machine.

January 2018 Update

Debra asked for some pointers and so I typed up a few instructions and figured I'd update this orignial post in case anyone else is interested.

 I really still love this quilt  My daughter uses it for her 10 month old baby son to sit on with his toys.  It's well washed and a little faded but still charming!

    Here are a few instructions:

The squares finish at 1 1/2" (so 2" unfinished).  Originally, I started with scrappy long strips of one color family and made the hearts each in one colorway with complementary color borders (like a scrappy purple heart would have a green border) but when my daughter saw the blocks, she said, I thought you were going to make the hearts multi color and so I took apart parts of the blocks and put them back together with another color block and they mostly have just 2 or 3 colors, but you can still see some strips of greens, yellows, or purples in the background of each block, which helps the hearts to stand out.

    I did sew about 3 strips together and then sliced them up so I was rarely actually sewing little 2" squares together (too time consuming).

For Each Block

1.  Gather colorful scraps and cut into 2" strips (or you could make them wider)  Divide the colors into "heart" and "background" colors. Just make sure that your background colors are different than your heart colors for each block.  You can have hearts and backgrounds in the same color, just not in the same block.  

2.  Make a 9 patch from heart colors

3.  Make two heart corners.  Two strips of 3 squres with half square triangle on two corners.  One of the half square triangles needs to be of heart color and one of background color.

4.  A background four patch in the top (one square makes the V indent of the heart)

5.  A background border 

6.  Make as many blocks as you wish and sew together.  I put mine together on point.  I added a blue border, another border of rainbow squares and bound it in green.