Tag: quilt

Quilts, quilts and more quilts

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Batik, Minnesota State Fair, Quilting, Scrap QuiltLeave a comment

I admit, I have been really terrible at posting for the last few years. While I have been taking photos of my projects, I really haven’t had the motivation to write a post. And, when I would think about posting, I would look at my photos and become overwhelmed because I didn’t know which project to start with, so I would just give up.

This morning, I finished another quilt. When taking a picture of the quilt, I thought I should write a post. But, then the old feeling of being overwhelmed came back – will I every catch up on my posts.

So, I am going to try another approach. Instead of posting a lot of details about my projects, I am going to post a lot of photos, with just a little bit of the details. Hopefully I will catch up on posting. So, here goes…

Granny Square Quilt

When sorting through my mother’s fabrics, I ran across a pack of fat eighths (9″ x 21″ pieces of fabric). In the pack there were 16 batik blenders in a rainbow of colors. Most fat eighths bundles have 18 pieces. And, since there was only one blue piece in the bundle, I think my mother must have used the other two pieces of blue for one of her projects. After looking through the numerous ideas I have on my computer, I settled upon a granny square block quilt.

While planning out the quilt, I realized that I would need to be extremely careful with my cutting because the amount of fabric needed was nearly exactly what I had available. From the sixteen pieces of fabric (2 yards total), this is what I had left over.

For the backing, I used another piece of fabric from my mother’s stash.

Measuring 38″ x 54″, this will be a nice quilt for a young child.

Hexagon Quilt

A few years ago, I made an asymmetric Burst quilt. Since then, I have wanted to remake the quilt but with the starburst centered on the quilt like the matching doll quilt. However, I wanted to try something different. So, I designed a similar quilt with a hexagon shape.

This makes a nice complement to the original quilt.

While sewing it, I thought that a pastel version of the design would be nice to try. So, I made a smaller, baby quilt with a hexagon shape. And, I was happy to receive a blue ribbon at the 2025 MN State Fair.

Donation Quilts

Every year, I donate several quilts to a local chapter of Sleep in Heavenly Peace. This year was no exception. In addition to the Sleeping Family quilts that I wrote about last year, here are the images of the other quilts that were donated this year.

Sleeping Family Quilts

On 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

Rhapsody Star

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn QuiltingLeave a comment

One of my readers recently asked about the quilt that is displayed on the left side of the banner of my blog. Somehow, I have not written about this quilt. Unfortunately, I have many projects that I have completed but then have neglected to write about. So, thanks to this reader for prompting me to make this posting.

My inspiration when designing this quilt was to use up two pieces of fabric that I had purchased on a clearance sale. In the picture, these are the purple and green florals. I had two yards of each of these prints.

The design included several types of Log Cabin blocks. The center star was made with asymmetrical diamond log cabin blocks. Focused on the acute angle of the diamond, these blocks were made with 1/2″ strips of beige and 1″ strips of various shades of teal (to highlight the teal flowers in the inspiration fabrics).

Around the center star are eight square rose log cabin blocks and eight more diamond log cabin blocks, these focused on the obtuse angle of the diamond.

The completed design included several interlocking strips and some additional diamond log cabin blocks around the center design.

I then had lots of fun creating more design elements with my quilting, featuring some rose buds, feathers, chains of pearls, and various line designs.

This was a fun quilt to make and I like how it turned out.

To match the quilt, I also made a doll quilt.

A matching pillow sham with rose log cabin mini blocks.

And, a paper pieced decorative throw pillow.

Pencil Quilt (and a couple doll quilts)

On By Erickson's HeirloomsIn Batik, QuiltingLeave a comment

A friend recently asked me whether I had stopped making quilts since I haven’t posted about any new quilting projects for several months. This is definitely not the case. In fact, last year I gave away nineteen quilts to various organizations. Most of these nothing fancy, just easy scrap quilts to use up fabric I have been given over the past couple of years. I still have a lot of fabric yet to use, so I will continue to make quilts to give away.

In talking with her, I realized that I have made a couple interesting quilts that I forgot to post about.

Pencil Quilt. The idea for this quilt came after seeing an advertisement for an adult coloring book with pencils. These books were sold a a way to reduce stress. Not needing any more crafts, I did not purchase a book. But, I did make my idea become reality.

To make the pencil tips as precise as possible, I used a variation of a technique called Paper Piecing. However, to avoid having to remove the paper, used dryer sheets were a better alternative. When ironed and taped to a blank piece of paper, these sheets of thin unwoven polyester can be used in any regular printer. But, since the softener sheets are lightweight, the sheets do not need to be removed.

After sorting through my batik fabrics, the quilt top was pieced in a color gradient order. For the quilting, I pulled different doodle designs into a graphics program and settled on how I wanted the quilting to look.

The end product was very close to the idea I originally had in my mind – a fun, colorful quilt.

I also made a matching doll quilt.

Another Doll Quilt. When my niece graduated from high school, I made her a quilt as a gift. She now has a two year old daughter that is using this quilt.

For Christmas, I made a doll quilt to match the original quilt. So, my niece’s daughter and her Baby Lissi doll have matching quilts.