A Gift of Barn Quilts

My hubby and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday and what better gift for a quilter than a barn quilt?  Thanks Honey!

We have two outside buildings, a small one and a large one. This one will go on the smaller building, which is a light beige color.  I looked up this pattern and as best I can tell its a "Union Square" variation.

This one will go on the larger building, which is barn red.   The lady who sells them called it a "Stacked Star", but I didn't see it in my Quilt Block Book.

I will post pictures as soon as they are installed on the barns.

Miniature Hearts - Finish it up Friday

Here's a small finish of this Miniature Hearts quilt.
 

This pattern is from a Debbie Mumm book, but the hearts are made from three flying geese blocks.  Two smaller ones on top and a larger one on bottom.

I used scraps, but had just enough of everything.

This is the picture of the original quilt from Debbie Mumm.  Love the purples!  I have lots of ideas for using this pattern.

On My Sewing Table This Morning.....

A genius at work? I think NOT!

This is what my sewing table looked like this morning.  I'm making a miniature heart quilt.  I still have to add some borders, but isn't it cute so far?

These are scraps left from making three baby quilts back in the Summer.  Those three were:  ELI'S COMING, RILEY BLAKE SAW TOOTH STARS and PINWHEELS AND PRAIRIE POINTS.  (click to see them)

These scraps just keep going and going.  I'm sure I could make a couple more baby size quilts from them.

Finished Little Red School House Quilt

I finished binding this little quilt last night. I think it turned out pretty cute! Look at the bottom picture to see if you see the mistake I had to fix! The hubster caught it when I was showing it off to him. It is hard to fix things after all the rows have been sewn together.... but we can't have doors upside down on houses, can we?

upside down door!

Some Mini Quilts

I've been making some mini quilts for Christmas gifts. The first one is made using the Little Red School House  pattern by Kathy Tracy in Prairie Children and Their Quilts. Blog HERE. Book HERE.

I thought the school theme would be good for the school teacher on my list.  She also likes primitive décor, so the muted colors work well.  The apple fabric came from the skirt of one of those big, flowing jumpers that were popular several years ago.  I bought it at the thrift store, a long time ago.  I'm pretty sure it was an elementary school teacher's jumper. 

Here is a close up of one of the little red school houses, before quilting.

Completed top before quilting.

I machine quilted it with a small meander design.

Tonight, hopefully (!),  I will make the binding from the fabric laying beside the quilt and get it sewn on.

I made this ASU checker board quilt for the Mountaineer in the family.  I used the same pattern as the game board quilt from my previous post.  This one went together much quicker because the little squares were already printed on the fabric.  I just had to cut out and sew together sets of 4 little squares.  The border is made from the larger squares that were printed on the fabric.

I plan to buy the checkers pieces on Amazon and am leaning toward the wooden ones that come in light wood stain and dark wood stain.

I made this really small mini quilt using a rejected block from the Little Red School House quilt at the top of this post.  The colors in this one were too bright and stuck out like a sore thumb.

It can be used as a mug rug, a small wall hanging, a hot pad, etc.  I think its cute and I may make more in other colors.

Ideas for more mini quilts for gifts include:  Camouflage for my outdoorsman, ECU for my Pirate fan and Summer colors for my Summer Loving girl.

Finished The Game Board Quilt.....

I finally did some sewing.... finished the Game Board Quilt.

I machine quilted it with a small meander which helps it to be slightly stiff and not puffy, and therefore good for playing checkers.

This pattern can be found in Kathleen Tracy's book, "Prairie Children and their quilts" HERE.

WIP Wednesday - Checkers Game Quilts

I've been working on some hand made Christmas gifts lately.  But, sometimes its hard to come up with good hand made gift ideas for men.  When I came across a board game quilt pattern, I thought that might be a good idea.  So, I made this Checkers Game quilt top using a pattern by Kathleen Tracy in her book, "Prairie Children and Their Quilts".  Tracy blogs at A SENTIMENTAL QUILTER.




Checkers Game Board

I need to come up with the checkers game pieces.  I have lots of plastic coke bottle lids that might work.  The only problem is that when you need to "crown" your opponent, they don't stack on top of each other too well.  In the past, men would play checkers in the neighborhood country stores and they used metal bottle caps. 

I considered hand quilting the game boards, since they are small and would make a great "TV watching" project.  But, if I make 4 of these, plus the other gifts that I am working on, there wouldn't be enough time.  I can machine quilt one of these in just a few minutes, so that's the better option since its less than 4 months until Christmas.

I like these small quilts  for the game aspect, but also for the fact that they can be displayed in a home in many ways when not being used for a checkers game.  They would look nice on the back of a chair, on the wall, or as a table topper.

This post is linked to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced HERE.