Molly's Quilt

 Molly is another of my nieces, who also happens to live far away (same country, different state). She is the daughter of hubby's sister. I don't get to see Molly much, but I enjoy the snippets I get on Facebook 

or the stories that I hear from her grandmother, who is here in PA. 

 Molly celebrated a very special occasion in October 2011, and this quilt was a 

gift to honor her as she had her Bat Mitzvah. 

 It is full of bright fun colors, and reminds me of Molly's bubbly personality. 

It's a "quilt as you go" quilt, so each individual block is pieced and quilted separately, 

then connected to the other squares with the strips between the blocks. 

It's one of my favorite ways to quilt. No wrestling a huge quilt under a small sewing machine.

 

 This is the back of the quilt.

 This was the label on the back of the quilt.

Baby Ivan's Quilt

This is baby Ivan. Isn't he adorable? 

His daddy and my son served together in the Army in Iraq and became good friends. 

Ivan is wrapped up in the quilt sent from me, here in PA, all the way to Texas, in 2012!

Ivan's quilt is another example of a strip quilt. 

I mentioned in another post that our quilt club had a 3" strip exchange of fun, juvenile prints.

   (If there were 20 people signed up to participate, you brought in 20 3" strips of fabric and you got back 20 assorted fabrics, all mixed up with what the other ladies brought in. A strip exchange is a lot of fun!! 

You never know what you're going to get, and you get an assortment that you 

would never be able to find or purchase on your own.)

I don't know how many strips I received all together in this particular exchange, 

but there were enough to put together three baby quilts, with a few solids and backing 

fabrics added from my stash.. Ivan's was the first one completed. 

And of course, I wasn't thinking "blog", so I didn't take any photos of the 

quilt's design or the piecing process, and had to ask Ivan's mommy to send me a photo. 

Thanks Ivan's Mommy!! 

Jenny's Quilt

 This is Jenny. She is one of my beautiful nieces, daughter of hubby's brother.
She received her quilt while here in PA for a family reunion weekend in 2012.
Coincidentally, she graduated from high school this past spring. 

My hope is that she takes it with her as she goes off to college,
letting it wrap her in the love with which it was made.

This is a strip quilt. It's made by sewing end to end, 40 2 1/2" strips of fabric 

until you have one long strip that's about 1,600" long! In quilters lingo, you can use a Jelly Roll 

(a roll of 40 2 1/2" width of fabric strips, usually put together using all the 

fabrics in a design block.) 

It's not a particularly difficult quilt to make, but it sure was fun to put together!

 We have "Show & Tell" at our quilt club meetings. I was showing the quilt to the ladies
and explaining how it was made. They loved the fun border print.

 And this is a shot of the back. You can see the beautiful quilting much better on this side.
This quilt was quilted by a friend of mine who has a long arm quilting machine.
I think she did a beautiful job!

Kristen's Quilt

Kristen is my oldest niece. She's my husband's brother's daughter.  When she was born, there were just three cousins - my two oldest sons, and her, all born within a few years of each other. Whenever we would visit Grammy's house, hubby's mom and my sweet MIL, the three of them would get a chance to play together. It was fun watching her grow up into the beautiful young woman she is today.

My goal was (and still is) to make quilts for all the cousins by the time they graduate from high school.  There are eight cousins on that side of the family (twelve if you count my four) and when it came time for Kristen to graduate, I wasn't as prepared as I should have been. I guess I procrastinated because only seeing her at her grandmother's and infrequently at that, I really didn't know what she liked. Was she a "pink and purple, ruffles and lace" kind of girl? No, I didn't think so. But I just wasn't sure what her tastes were. So around the Christmas holiday's in 2005, when she was visiting my home, I took her into my quilting room and started opening drawers and pulling out fabrics. We decided she liked BRIGHT fabrics! So that's what I went with.

 I finished her quilt in time for Christmas 2007. Late for graduation, yes. But I think she forgives me.

And of course, not realizing I would need a blog to keep track of the quilts I've made over the years, I didn't take any photos before I gave it to her. So she was kind enough to take these herself (or with a little help, I think!?!) and send them to me. Thanks, honey!!