Sleeping Family Quilts

On February 5, 2025 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Pets, Quilting, Scrap QuiltLeave a comment

Okay, these were really fun to make!

A while ago, I saw an image of a pillow that looked like a family of dogs sleeping under a quilt. Using this image as inspiration, I put together a couple quilt ideas.

The main part of the quilt is a pieced design with a border to make 72″ square. The top part of the quilt is 16-18″ tall with a “family” appliqued on so that they look like they are sleeping under a quilt. For the applique pieces, I used clipart images found on-line. These images were drawn out onto fusible medium, ironed onto fabric and then stitched in place.

Dog Family

For this quilt, I used several pieces of scrap fabric that had dogs or dog-related themes (bones, etc), cut into 4″ squares randomly sewn together.

Teddy Bear Family

For this quilt, I used scraps of hand-dyed fabrics, paired with various black print fabric scraps. These 6″ Half Square Triangles randomly sewn together.

Cat Family

For this quilt, I used scrap fabric left over from making a bed runner for my bed (see Millefiori Garden), cut into 4″ squares randomly sewn together. Of these five quilts, this one is my favorite – I do like cats and the colors just pop!

Owl Family

When sorting through my fabric scraps, I had lots of fall colors in the mix. So, I thought a leaf block quilt would be nice. For the animal family, I had considered turkeys. However, I really dislike the ones that hang out in my yard and make a mess of my sidewalks and lawn. So, I settled on owls, and they turned out really cute.

Snowman Family

In my collection of quilt ideas, I had an image of a snowflake design that I had been wanting to make. But, I kept putting it off because I couldn’t settle on a way to make the design fit the rectangular shape of a twin sized quilt. The sleeping family quilt idea gave me an opportunity to make this quilt. Adding snow people sleeping makes this a really fun quilt as well.

These five quilts were really fun to make and will be donated to Sleep In Heavenly Peace. Hopefully a few kids will enjoy sleeping under these quilts

Apple Table Runner (& Checkerboard)

On September 27, 2020October 14, 2023 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn 3D printing, Applique, Fall Colors, Quilting, Scrap QuiltLeave a comment

With fall weather settling, a week ago, I decided to make a new table runner for my kitchen. This runner was made with apples to depict the bounty of the fall harvest. The runner turned out really nice.

After it was done, I realized that the center section could be used as a checkerboard. All I needed was some checkers.

Originally I thought about purchasing some apple shaped wooden pieces that could be painted. However, when I looked at the options available at the local craft stores, I thought I would need to do some carving of a crown on one side. This, to me, seemed like a lot of work. Then I thought about engraving a crown. This also seemed like a lot of work.

One day, while I was at work, I had a great idea – I could print checkers on my 3D printer. Using Tinkercad, I designed some apples that could be printed. I did try to make the checkers interlock so that they could be stacked for designating a King. This, however, did not turn out well. So, I went back to Tinkercad and designed an indent on one side of the checker that showed a crown. Problem solved.

Having extra fabric, I decided to make a second table runner/checkerboard. This one, I have posted on Etsy. Hopefully someone will like this item.

The person behind the Mask

On April 6, 2020April 6, 2020 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Family, Life, PetsLeave a comment

Wash your hands, practice social distancing, stay home and, now, consider wearing a face mask when outside of your own home. These are the recommendations from federal and state governments during this current pandemic.

While following this advise, we can loose connection to the people around us. We all need to reach out to our family members – our older parents who have had their ability to interact with their friends severely limited, our children (even adult children) who are home schooling or working from home, our friends whom we can’t see but can certainly talk with over the phone and internet, and our neighbors.

Everyone has a story. And, while we are wearing our masks, we should consider their story and do what we can to help where needed.

With the current recommendation for mask wearing, my son asked if I could make a couple masks for his girlfriend who works part-time at Target. Her story is that she is a high school senior. Like so many students, she is now separated from her friends and doing on-line classes. And, she will be missing out on all the fun activities of her senior year – senior prom, senior project presentations, graduation, grad parties, etc. On top of that, two weeks ago I implemented a quarantine for our family. So she has not been able to spend time with my son. She is also working very hard at her part-time job. To help support her, the least I can do is make some masks.

Using the pattern described at North-Memorial-Health-homemade-healthcare-masks, I made some masks. My son wanted plain black. His girlfriend wanted a red one and a yellow one.

This pattern has an internal pocket to insert a piece of HEPA filter material to improve the effective filtration. I also modified the mask slightly to add a nose wire for improved contouring to the face. After topstitching around the entire mask, I stitched a channel 1/2″ from the top of the mask. A pipe cleaner folded in half and inserted it into the channel can be molded to the bridge of the nose.

When thinking about making masks, I thought it would be nice to try to make some fun animal faces. Using my Bernina DesignWorks software, I created a few patterns.

A couple cat faces:

Black cat, Rabbit, Bear and Dog:

I may try some other embroidery ideas soon.

Home

On March 28, 2020 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Batik, Family, Life, Quilting4 Comments

Over the past days, the governor of Minnesota has issued numerous executive orders that have impacted my life, the latest of which is Emergency Executive Order 20-20. This order directs Minnesotans to “Stay at Home” for the next two weeks. Since my dental office is shut down and my son returned from NYC, I have already been staying home.

With some of my unexpected free time, I have finally finished a quilting project that I started a while ago. The inspiration of this quilt came from my sister-in-law. Last summer, she asked me to design a wall quilt of the Paris skyline for her to make.

ParisPattern — Brief directions to make the background of a skyline quilt.

After I designed her quilt, I thought I would make something similar – a wall quilt of the twin cities – Minneapolis and St. Paul. For the background of the wall quilt, I followed the instructions I had written for my sister-in law, except I used blue batik fabrics from my stash, rather than purple.

The background was loaded onto my quilting frame and quilted with evenly spaced horizontal lines.

For the skyline, I found several images on-line. By combining ideas and removing most of the white areas, I had a nice skyline of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

After importing these images into my Cameo software, I cut the pattern of the skyline out of starched black cotton fabric that was sandwiched between Heat-N-Bond Lite and freezer paper.

These silhouettes were then ironed onto the background. Using several different quilting fill patterns, I then quilted detail to differentiate each of the individual buildings.

Because the Twin Cities are known for the numerous parks and parkways, I added green fabric along the bottom edge to depict the landscaping of the cities.

The wall quilt was then bound and ready to hang.

Over the past week while looking at the wall quilt, I felt it needed something more. Last night I augment the design with some “bling”.

Elatan'sStarmap

With the help of one of my sons, I found a Star Constellation Chart. Using 3 mm heat transfer rhinestones, I replicated the constellations that would be visible over the Twin Cities. I also added some rhinestone on a few of the towers.

Hometown wall quilt complete!

As I went for my walk this morning, I was reminded that this may be my “hometown” for now. And, my home may be impacted by the events of today. But I need to look past today’s news and worries about tomorrow, and take comfort in the fact that my hope is not bound to the circumstances of this world. In short – this world is not my home – my home is indeed in Heaven.

Papillon/Butterfly

On March 1, 2020 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Fabric Dyeing, Fused glass, Knitting, Scarf, Yard ArtLeave a comment

I love butterflies. They are colorful, graceful, almost ethereal. Because I like them, I have used them in my craft projects, such as:

Quilting:

Fabric Dyeing:

76c2f-backing — Images from backing of Butterfly Art Quilt

and Fused Glass:

Recently, an email from a yarn store featured several new patterns. The Butterfly/Papillon shawl pattern by Marin Melchoir caught my eye. Later that same week, while shopping a a local yarn store (Three Kittens, Mendota Heights, MN), the owner was wearing the shawl. Written for fingering weight yarn, this was the weight of yarn she had used for her shawl. I really liked the pattern, so I purchased it. However, I wanted the shawl to have more “movement”. So, instead, I knit the shawl in lace weight yarn, using the indicated needle size. This created a softer, lighter version of the shawl, but the same size as the pattern.

I really like how the shawl turned out. However, I’m not sure whether I will make another. This shawl took about 40 hours to complete!

The Minnesota Great Get-Together

On August 29, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Batik, Crochet, Fused glass, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, Scrap Quilt, TreesLeave a comment

The Minnesota State Fair is currently taking place. If you are not from MN, you may not realize how big our state fair is. While MN only ranks 12th in size and 21st in population, it ranks second in state fair attendance, with over 2 million people attending each year. This is just behind Texas at 2.25 million visitors. However, Texas is second in land mass, second in population, and their state fair runs for 24 days (twice the length of the MN fair). Thus, I would say that the Minnesota State Fair outranks even Texas.

The fair is so popular that, even on a rainy morning like today, there were lots of people in attendance. What do people like to do at the fair? When I asked some of my friends, they replied: eat the food, attend a concert, eat the food, see the animals, eat the food….

I think you get the picture – there is lots of food to eat if that is what you are interested in.

For me, the State Fair is a place to go to see the craftsmanship and creativity in the Arts and Crafts Building. Today was no exception. After getting very wet walking from the transit center to the A&C building, I spent a couple hours walking around taking pictures.

Here are my quilts:

Me (with my wet hair) in front of “Burst Doll Quilt”, which received a first place in the child quilt category.

“Burst” bed quilt received a second place in the pieced bed quilt category.

20180824_ — My reversible tree quilt “Childhood Memories” received a second place in the mixed techniques category. Unfortunately, you can only see one side of the quilt and none of the shadow painting.

“Window on My World” placed fourth in the wall quilt category. I re-entered it this year because I was surprised that it did not place last year and knew that there was a different judge this year.

Some of the other quilting highlights:

Some other crafts that caught my eye:

“Childhood Memories” – finished quilt

On July 22, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Batik, Pets, Quilting, Scrap Quilt, Trees2 Comments

When designing a quilt, I like to plan the quilting at the same time as the piecing. This allows me to think about adding something unique to each quilt. My recent project for the two sided tree quilt was no exception.

The quilting of the tree, leaves and background would be fairly straightforward. Wanting to add something special to the quilt, I thought about what I could add to the tree. One idea was to place flowers or shrubs at the base of the tree. Another was to add some animals.

My final idea, and the one I actually used, came while reviewing some photos from my childhood. These photos brought back memories of things growing up. I decided to add theses memories to the quilt.

I needed to invoke the idea of a memory without overwhelming the quilt. To do that, I planned to used only thread to make the images appear very faint. After stitching, I realized that the images were there but extremely hard to see. Having recently purchase some textile medium (InFusion Textile Medium) that was very lightweight (did not stiffen the fabric) and shiny, I decided to use this to enhance the visual effect of the memories.

I am really happy how they turned out. If you look closely at the images, you will see a boy leaning against the tree reading a book, a girl on a tree swing, and their faithful dog laying on the ground near them.

Painting

Here are the full images of the quilt front and back:

Hand applique and embroidery

On July 19, 2018July 19, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Batik, Quilting, Scrap Quilt, TreesLeave a comment

How do you applique a two sided quilt?

You think, think, plan, think some more, plan again and then finally jump in and do it. That kinda describes the process I went through when contemplating the idea of embroidering an identical tree on both sides of a quilt.

Idea #1

adhere light weight fabric adhesive to the back of two pieces of fabric for the tree trunks
draw the tree trunk onto the fabric and cut out two identical trees
adhere the tree to one side of the quilt and baste in place
adhere the tree on other side and then machine embroidery through all layers of the quilt and tree
machine quilt the details onto the tree
Concern – machine quilting will cause the quilt to be “flattened” and lining up the edges of the tree on each both sides of the quilt would be difficult

Idea #2

baste stitch the outline of the tree onto the quilt
cut out fabric to match the tree
use needle turn embroidery to stitch the tree onto each side of the quilt
machine quilt the details onto the tree
Concern – it might be difficult to control the amount of fabric involved while doing hand embroidery

Idea #3

pin large pieces of the tree fabric to both sides of the quilt
machine quilt the tree details onto the tree
trim the fabric approximately 5/8″ – 3/4″ away from quilting details
use needle turn embroidery to stitch the fabric to the quilt
This was ultimately the idea I decided to use for the trees, sun and moon

DayNightTree

Daytime detail:

I decided to hand applique leaves onto the daytime side of the quilt. To do this, I pinned pieces of green fabric onto the quilted tree. Then I machine quilted the outline and veins of a leaf onto each piece of fabric. After cutting around each stitched leaf, I used needle turn embroidery to secure the edges of the fabric.

Nighttime detail:

I did not want to use the same technique on the nighttime side of the quilt. So, after completing the daytime side, I used the quilting lines as a guide to paint faint green fabric dye onto the leaves and then hand embroidered outlines around the leaves.

DayNightLeaves

Unfortunately while quilting the leaves onto the daytime side, my long arm machine handles fell off the machine while I was working on a leaf. When this happened, the needle broke and the broken needle tore the fabric through all layers of the quilt. This picture shows that even on the backside of the quilt, the broken needle tore the fabric. I was really bummed!

To fix the tear, I could applique a leaf onto the daytime side. But, how do I fix the tear on the nighttime side. I could applique leaves on this side as well. However, that was more applique then I really wanted to do. And, I had really wanted the two sides of the quilt to use different techniques. This was really frustrating.

Ultimately, I decided to add a bit more detail to the quilt. By appliqueing an owl on the nighttime side and a cardinal to the daytime side, I was able to repair the quilt and no one can even tell that the quilt was torn.

BirdOwl

A good repair and some nice details for the quilt! I have added more details to the quilt that were really fun to do. I will post about those soon.

A two sided quilt – sounds easy, right?

On June 20, 2018 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Batik, Quilting, Scrap Quilt, Trees4 Comments

You have probably seen adult coloring books in stores over the past few years. Meant as a way to unwind from daily stress, these books can take an adult back to their childhood days of coloring.

Since my crafts are my way to relax at the end of a day, I have not purchased any of these coloring books. I have however, looked at the books in stores. The pictures are complex and do provide great inspiration for quilting patterns and applique designs.

Last summer, I paged through one of these coloring books with trees. Each design featured a tree with unique patterns. Some of the designs had animals in the trees – owls, birds and even cats. One day I may make one of these, perhaps a tree with many different owls appliqued on the branches.

Directly next to the display of coloring books, was a different display featuring paper craft ideas. One idea showed strips of wrapping paper cut and glued horizontally in the background, and featured cutouts of black or white paper animals, flowers or trees as the main object. Sorry, but I did not think to take a picture of the display. But, it was a really nice idea.

This idea stuck with me, and besides thinking about making some greeting cards with the idea, I realized that a quilt could be made with a similar design. At the time I first saw the display, my paper craft supplies were buried in the back of my craft storage closet, so the cards would need to wait. But, I did have lots of fabric that I could utilize for a quilt.

So, I set out to work on my new design. Many of my batik scraps were blue and green, which would work well for the background of a tree.

Sorting through the fabrics, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted a the colors to depict a tree during the daytime, the nighttime, or an unsorted scrappy look. After playing around with a graphic program, I ruled out the scrappy look because it was too chaotic for my liking. But, I simply just couldn’t decide which of the other two I preferred. So, I thought I would try something new and make a two sided quilt – one side with bright daytime colors, the other side with darker nighttime colors. After cutting 2 1/2″ strips, the fabrics were sewn together with some shorter pieces inserted periodically to add some variation to the background.

Since I had decided to try to make the applique exactly reversible, the quilting the front and back together would need to be done next. When loading the pieced backgrounds onto my long arm machine, I realized that making a completely reversible quilt was going to be rather difficult.

This year, in particular, my ideas for quilts have been easy in the planning stages, but more challenging when actually sewing. This quilt was no exception. On paper, it looked straightforward – sew the strips, load it on my quilting frame and quilt away. Right! Actually, wrong. Lining up so many seams on the front and the back of the quilt prior to machine quilting was definitely not easy. I discovered that even though my piecing was exact, the number and location of the seams impacted the stretch and movement of the two pieces of fabric. I ended up having to pin along each seam of the layers to try to get my quilting to look right on both the front and the back of the quilt.

Backgrounds

Once the backgrounds was quilted, I decided to get my least favorite part of any quilt (the binding) done before I would start work on the appliqued tree. More on that in my next posting.

Since moving into my newer sewing room, my paper craft supplies are now accessible, so cards can once again be made. That project will be included in a future post as well.

Millefiori Garden Bed Runner

On October 17, 2017November 10, 2017 By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Applique, Bed Runner, Quilting1 Comment

Having been busy recently with several intricate and time consuming projects, I have not posted anything for a few weeks. I will be posting progress on these newer projects soon. But, in the meantime, I thought I would post something I completed earlier this summer.

While going through photos of my quilts with a friend, I ran across a project that I had not posted pictures of. This bed runner was inspired by a pack of fat quarters that I saw at a local fabric store.

61ibtcj8YJL — Kaffe Fassett “Paperweight” fabric

The fabric made me think about some fused glass supplies that I have in my glass room – millefiori beads. The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words “mille” (thousand) and “fiori” (flowers). These beads are created by first making pattern rods. On the outside, these rods are a single color. But, when cut across, the pattern becomes visible. This multi-step process requires skill and special glass furnaces. The results of this labor-intensive process are gorgeous “beads” that can be incorporated into earrings, pendants, bowls – any variety of fused glass projects. While I do not have the skill and equipment to make my own millefiori, I have purchased some and love the look of them.

So, when I saw this fabric, I thought I would use it in a bed runner to add a real pop of color to my bedroom. The design for the runner was based off of a photo of a quilt posted on the Blogger’s Quilt Festival. While her project was made with patterned wool felt, I wanted to use my sewing machine’s decorative stitches to create the the pattern in the flowers. Going through my scraps of fabrics, I appliqued my “flower garden” and then used the lovely “Paperweight” fabrics for the border.

This was a really fun project to do. And, as an added bonus, I used up a lot of small scraps that were piling up in my scrap basket and too small to use in most piecing projects.