The Quilt That Almost Broke Me

Of all the quilts that have tried to break me over the years, this one almost did it. I came very, very close to allowing it to win, but I stuck with it and eventually emerged triumphant! Nice try Grandmother's Choice block - picking on a poor beginning quilter! Sorry for the poor photo quality, I had to scan these in.

I made this quilt for my step daughter Heather's highschool graduation six years ago. I chose this block so I could transfer photos to fabric and feature them in the nice open center square. Being a self-taught beginning quilter, I just jumped right into all these billions of triangles. I also used whatever materials I felt like: recycled clothes, crappy cottons, linen, polyester, etc. Yeah....hmmm...probably going to regret that. But I just happily sewed along, by hand of course, and ended with 20 blocks consisting of 34 triangles each. I was tired but happy.

Happy, that is, right up until the point where I tried to make rows with the blocks. They were not all the same size. Hmmm, guess those bias edges stretched a bit. I measured them and, no joke, the smallest was FOUR INCHES smaller than the largest! Horrifying. So I almost let the quilt win. But I finally decided to pick a measurement from the middle and make everybody match that one. The larger ones I cut down a bit (without cutting off knots) and the smaller ones I added fabric to. When all was said and done, you can't really tell! Go ahead and enlarge the first one and see if you can tell where the mistakes are.

That's Heather on the left in the first one, me and her dad in the middle with a pie, and Heather and her paw paw in the last one. Enjoy!

Wendy

House and Home Grandchildren Photo Quilt

Hello All, Today i'm featuring a photo quilt. I made one for my mom and one for my mother in law featuring their grandchildren. This one is the one I made for my mom. Each block is a house with soft photo corners pieced into the window. I was happy to find this method because before when I wanted photos in a quilt I printed them onto fabric. The photo corners are a better technique, as you can change the photo as the kids grow, using photos printed on regular or photo paper.

I hand embroidered everyone's names under their photo window so gramma knows where to put each child's photo. My mom has fewer grandchildren than my MIL so I included her three children also (me, my sister and my brother). Above is my my sister's block, my block and Gigi's.

Here is the quilt without photos and then with photos. You really need to click to enlarge to appreciate the cute motifs in each one. I made each block using motifs that reminded me of the person.





Enjoy! Wendy