My very early quilts....1986?

I'm rather embarrassed to post these at all, but if this is an archieve of my quits, I have to include the earliest ones, too. After making Steven a bluejean quilt and my daughter a rainbow quilt, the next one was a lap quilt for me!

All green fabrics....of course ......and notice that it has birds on it! I haven't changed much over the years. All of my first quilts were cut using a piece of cardboard for a pattern and using scissors. The backs are always a flannel sheet with the edges turned to the front. They are tied and it is a wonder that any of them still survive.....I never washed them much....I'm afraid to because the batting would all ball up inside.
When I made myself a newer bigger one, it was once again green and has dark green flannel on the back. It is still my favorite quilt to snuggle under while reading. I tried to do some machine quilting across a few diagonals....after the binding was done.....and without a walking foot. Groan! Looks saggy and baggy and terrible....but it's cozy!

That first Christmas after I learned to make these lap quilts I made every woman in the family one. I had a lot of leftover pieces that went into this strip quilt and I made the back with half pink flannel and half white flannel left-over pieces! I guess this is what you call "pioneer quilting".....use what you have! Most of these old quilts are now "cat quilts" that protect the furniture from cat hair.
One of my older quilts has a story of sorts.
The TD quilt.

Mike built an MG-TD repli-car. It was an open 2 seater and a lot of fun to drive around in.

Emily liked to ride in the area behind the seats, so we put a seatbelt back there and I made the pillow and quilt that you see for her to keep warm.

We drove around out in the country listening to golden oldies from the 50's and 60's while we explored all the back roads. I wish that I had a photo of Emily in the back with the quilt.
We later traded the car in to get Emily her first real car......a more practical one.

I now use these as my "hammock" quilt and pillow and the cats use the quilt sometimes, also, as shown in one of the sidebar photos.

9-Patch top.....

This top is at the quilter's right now....can't wait to see it done! More information about it after Christmas :-)

Sew Saturday....not all my quilts, but lovely stuff!

Earlene's wreath.....hard to see colors!

We had a Sew Saturday......a morning of quilting at the local library meeting room....this past week. Here are some of the lovely items different people were working on.Linda's Bowtie....beautiful!

....and her Butterflies.

Linda's Krazy Patch with baseball fabric for her grandson

Mary's stocking for the Christmas exchange....

....and a table topper.

I missed a couple projects. I was so busy looking at MJ's rainforest quilt pieces, I forgot to take a photo...darn! And Rosie was busy teaching us how to miter our binding together when we put it on and sewing away on her Yellow Brick Road blocks. She always has several projects going at once.

I got my Batik bed top done....now I need to find something for the back.

I have all these wonderful short pieces left over the make either a runner or pillow shams, or even a small lap quilt!

Got this back from the quilter and am busy binding the edges.
It was a great day of quilting and fellowship! Monday we have another quilting bee....I may get all my hand sewing done before Christmas at this rate!

Batik bed quilt......in progress

I am so excited about these gorgeous batik fabrics that I have to post this even though it is a long way from finished! I decided that Mike and I needed a new bed quilt.....I've only made us one before! I have fallen in love with batik fabrics and chose all of my favorite greens, browns, golds, beige, orange, and touch of purple.....nature colors and patterns!

(click on any photo to see the colors and patterns better) It is a really simple pattern.....take fat quarters and cut strips 2 1/2", 4 1/2" and 6 1/2".

Mix and match them and sew them together with the smallest one in the middle. Then cut a 12 1/2" square from the strip. I have a lot of lovely left over ends to make a runner or pillow shams or something with!

I had a ball playing with these and matching up combinations!
Unfortunately, I still need about 21 blocks to make a quilt big enough for our bed, so I must get busy on more! I do not want borders on this quilt....just binding on the edges.

I love every one of these fabrics! I can't wait to get it done.

I know that I'm going to sleep really well under this when it is finished! I may never want to get up!

Lynn's Ducky Friendship quilt.....2003

I'm posting this lap quilt today, because I made if for a young girl named, Lynn who's birthday happens to be today! She used to help me teach Sunday School and also led me to the part time job I now have.Her favorite color was purple and she loves ducks! I had never made a Friendship Star quilt and thought it would be fun to try. I then decided to add the duck blocks in the corners.
It's a generous size lap quilt and I really didn't take hardly any photos, as you can see! I don't even have a photo of it completed.

This is when I was laying out the border on my bed trying to figure out how to do it.
Every quilt in those early days was a "learning experience" and still are!

I like the way the colors and pattern work in this quilt and don't know why I have never made another one. It is a fairly simple quilt with just half-square triangle blocks and plain blocks. It is the positioning of the light and dark triangles that makes the pattern.

Farm theme baby quilt.....2005

I made this baby quilt for a friend's grandson. I like this pattern and would like to use it again. It just requires 4 fabrics and one block done in two different sets of fabric.
Eleanor Burns has come up with a way to make this block fast in her newest book. You sew a large 9 patch and then cut it through the center both horizontally and vertically. I actually think making it the way that I did with strip piecing is probably just as fast :-)

I put flannel on the back continuing the bandanna theme.

Bella's Butterfly quilt......2008

I've made quite a few baby quilts, but this one was special since it was for my very cute great niece, Isabella.......known as Bella. I was wanting to try this butterfly pattern, so this seemed like a good chance to do so.
They were a bit harder than I thought they would be......lots of pieces to keep track of and getting the center straight gave me some problems. I decided 4 would be plenty!

Here is Bella with her quilt the day I gave it to her. Isn't she adorable?

At the last minute I found a beautiful flowered print for the back. Probably would have used it in the front, it I had found it sooner!

I managed to do some simple machine quilting on it.
I need things like this to challenge me instead of sticking with the easy things.

Marie's lap quilt......2004

I've made so many small lap quilts that I hate to post each one separately, but here is one that I made for an elderly friend. Marie is sort of an "adopted Mom", who we eat dinner with every Friday night at our favorite Mexican restaurant, and then bring her back to our house to watch old musicals :-) My kind of evening. It's the only Log Cabin quilt that I've made and I made the logs large so it was a quick quilt to make.
The color is a bit more accurate here. These were before I was using a digital camera.

It's small, but cosy with flannel on the back for her to use while watching TV.

This was when I still didn't like to try quilting, so I tied it.