The fabric of our lives

For months my house has been taken over by bits and pieces of men's shirts.

My cousin died in March, and at his funeral, his wife asked us to make a quilt from his dress shirts.

Turns out she found 55 coloured shirts, so the project grew from one quilt to at least four.

I volunteered to take the blue shirts, as well as a few orange ones,

to make quilts for his two sons, one still a teenager, and the other in his early twenties.

This project grew even further when we realized how much fabric is really in an XL size shirt.

My mother made two quilts from the aqua and black shirts in that closet,

my aunt figured out how to make two from the grey and lilac shirts,

and my cousin made a quilt from the pink and grey shirts, and gave me her scraps.

So that got us up to seven quilts, enough to give to the extended family.

Here's a couple of shots of them laid out on a table.

I made the blue and orange one.

I still had lots of scraps, but I'm finding this project emotionally exhausting,

so I handed a pile of cut squares to my mom and she finished another top.

That's eight now.

A photo of the quilted in label in the two blue quilts I made.

Since Sunday, I've been sewing sleeve plackets and yokes with labels and shirt hems

into a string quilt. I'm about 10 long seams from being completed.

This last project seems even more personal, since I'm using bits and pieces from the inside yoke

or the shirt tails that are usually tucked in.

Yesterday I found myself thinking of losing my own loved ones,

and how hard it would be to lose my husband in mid-life

and I had to stop sewing.

There's no moral here,

except I think fabric from clothing carries more weight than yardage off the bolt.

These shirt parts have been speaking to me in a personal way.

We plan to take beauty shots of all of the quilts before we present them.

They are all very different, and all very beautiful.

15 Finishes for February

I spent the holiday weekend (Louis Riel Day in Manitoba)

making a dozen of these needle books

I used up scraps and sewing prints and little bits of patchwork

to make each one slightly different.

I use wool felt for the inside pages.

I love the saturation of colour in the wool.

I used to make them from selvage dots like the one at the left,

but now I make mini quilts. 

The one at the top used leftover blades from a Dresden project

on a Westminster Liberty Art fabric.

That one had flown off to QuiltCon as a gift for someone

before I got the picture of all 12 together.

I also said goodbye to this little guy,

who didn't mind sitting in the snow in his new track suit.

He is now fully clothed and has a new home.

I started this quilt at a retreat in January and finished it two weeks later.

It has a pink Eden print by Tula Pink on the back.

Here's the front, made from one and a half charm packs and hourglass blocks in two colours.

It is a really simple quilt with a great visual effect. 

The two grey colours make on point squares around the charm squares,

making the quilt look like it was set on point.

Here you can see the beginnings on my design wall.

I spent 45 minutes quilting this top which had sat in a drawer for two years.

I used a Warm and Natural batting and a micro fleece for the backing.

I'm donating it to an organization outfitting people affected by recent apartment building fires.

I figure there's some little kid out there that will have fun driving on these roads.

And my last finish:

A Valentine placemat for my mom, made from a set of charms with love and heart themes.

Here she is with it and her birthday roses.

She turned 82 on Valentine's Day.

Making Christmas Trees

Inspired by a tutorial by Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company,

I put together a Christmas tree quilt from scrappy HSTs.

These finish at 2 inches. Hers are much bigger.

I run my small scraps through the die cutter and store the shapes in small tins.

Then whenever I need a little project, or some parts I've got them.

This is now pieced and quilted,

and I'll show you the finished product once I have the binding sewn on.

I saw another tutorial for easy cathedral windows.

You know the kind -- where you place a square folded diagonally on another square,

sew the seams, and then curve back the diagonal.

It seems like a good technique, but there are six layers in those middle seams.

I used over dyed white on white fabrics for the trees,

and linen for the background, and put in lots of quilting stitches.

It is quite stiff, which is perfect for a wall hanging.

I helped set up a craft and bake sale last weekend,

and nearly took these folks home with me.

The other volunteers debated with me on the price.

I said $100, but I think they settled on $60.

Too cheap when you consider the amount of work in this.

All the pieces were beautifully knit and finished, and the faces were great.

And it is very tactile.

I debated buying it myself, but the organizer didn't want to pre-sell it,

so I consoled myself with posting pix on social media.

I put together 10 trays of 36 assorted cookies for the same sale.

Two guys in my house donated some, and a bunch of others from my church did too,

so we had 30 dozen cookies to mix and match.

I know bake sales are old school, but these trays sold for $25 each.

And a close up of a progress shot of the tree quilt.

If you're on Instagram, check out my 

#12daysofchristmastreequilts on my account @brendasuderman.

I'm linking up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Lots of little finishes here

I'm on a completion kick over here, clearing out some UFOs and WIPs

and sorting through batting scraps and fabric strips.

First up are two sets of placemats:

The top ones were made from a star die I was testing out with my Accuquilt Go cutter

and finished with some sale fabrics from a recent road trip.

This second set was made from leftover from scrappy trip around the world blocks

my guild is making for a charity quilt.

I couldn't discard the trimmings, so I made a set of placemats

and tried out some free motion quilting motifs.

The backing is leftover from another project. 

I ran out of that striped fabric,

so two of the placemats are bound in yellow.

The star placemats have a coordinating table runner.

I was in a big clean-up mood, so I cut up this machine quilting practice quilt

into potholder filler.

Which resulted in 16 potholders

ready for my kitchen or gifts.

Here's some green ones, using various scraps and fat quarters

and some orange/red ones. 

That boy/girl print in the centre diamond was the backing of the practice quilt.

I used up lots of bits, and cleared out batting pieces too small for quilts 

but too large to throw out.

I'm linking up with

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Don't stop Friday finishes!

Don't Stop

72 inches square

pieced by my mom and  machine quilted by me

I finished this quilt a week ago and it is now in the hands of its new owner.

The name comes from the Fleetwood Mac song

and some of the lyrics are machine quilted into the darker triangles.

I did a simple motif on the dark triangles

and more intense quilting on the neutral ones.

I varied the background motifs to avoid boredom

and to give the quilt some energy and motion.

Here's a view of the quilting from the back.

it has quilt shop quality flannel on the back, 

and sale wall quilt shop fabrics on the front.

Close ups of the background quilting motifs

This quilt started as a birthday kit for my mom.

I cut four coordinating prints and background fabric into 6.5 inch HST

with the Accuquilt Go cutter.

Now my mom is an award-winning quilter who makes beautiful applique quilts,

but I wanted her to have a mindless sewing project

where she could just piece, and then put the top together.

Since all of her kids and grandkids are well supplied with quilts,

she was happy to give this to another family member dealing with a serious illness.

I bound the quilt with a zig zag print cut on the length of grain to get diagonal stripes.

I'm linking up with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Cute baby on quilt, part 1

The best part of making baby quilts is seeing the new owner enjoying them.

Here baby Nico is napping on his new quilt.

and posing with Dad and Mom.

His mother, daughter of missionary parents,

 lived in Africa and South America as a child,

so her life was the inspiration for the global village on the quilt.

Here you can see the variety of houses and skies and trees.

And another shot.

This was made entirely from stash, and used up every bit

of a yard of hand-dyed blue I purchased at an AQS show,

as well as some of my Dutch wax stash and lots of novelties as well.

Although it is quite densely quilted,

it drapes nicely and is very soft to the touch.

Welcome to the global village, Nico!

Turning a pile of pants into a Friday finish

There were  too many jeans at my house with irreparable rips.

I will patch knees, but can't see my way around fabric rips

near the back butt seam.

So I decided to make a car blanket for my son's birthday,

and he provided the raw materials

I cut the legs into rectangles in three widths,

and sewed them together in long colums

and backed it with a 108 inch wide Henry Glass print.

Here you can see that I quilted the layers together 

(no batting, just top and bottom)

with red 28 wt. thread to match the backing

and I free motioned his name and address onto one of the patches.

You can see the imprint of his wallet on that dark blue pocket.

I also spent four days earlier this month free motion quilting a quilt for my mom.

She made if for my niece's high school graduation  (last June)

but for many reasons, it only got done now.

My mom made similar quilts for my other niece and my son for their grads,

and I also quilted those for her.

We took the opportunity last weekend to get a shot of all three of them with their quilts.

You can see the colour variation in them.

And here's the proud grad with her grandma.

I'm linking up with other Friday finishers:

Confessions of a Fabric Addict 

Crazy Mom Quilts

TGIFF