Sweet 4-patch baby quilt

Aren't all baby quilts sweet?  Years ago I was a baby-quilt-making-machine (simple quilts, mind you)... but fell away from that when I started teaching.  Here in Japan I'm back to very part-time teaching, and so I do have that luxury of time for whipping up something cute like this for a gift.

In our church the women are organized as "visiting teachers" to help each other.  We each have a partner, and several ladies to visit monthly with a message and generally keep on our radar.  And we each have visiting teachers.  The beauty of this system is that ideally, no one slips through the cracks in terms of needs.  It's a great program in a setting like Tokyo, where there are expats coming and going all the time, with all kinds of needs - practical and emotional.  Almost all of us are living far away from family.

One of my own visiting teachers, a young Japanese woman married to an American and attending our English-speaking congregation,  is having a baby soon... hence.... my focus on whipping up a shower gift for her.

I brought out a handy UFO:

It was practically finished - just two rows left to piece.  Mostly 30's repros with a few batiks and one Japanese print (from before my Japan days, believe it or not) thrown in for fun.

Machine quilting went fast... first in the ditch between the blocks, and then some free motion.  While free-motion quilting I traveled straight through the four patches in the ditch to get to the white patches - easy and fast.  I meant for this large stippling to resemble puzzle pieces.

I tend to use monofilament thread in the needle - so that the quilting indentations show, but the thread itself doesn't show - it takes on the color of the fabric.  I just prefer a not-so-thready look.

The backing is a cute print I found in Nippori (fabric town) last year... originally to make an apron... but said apron never got made:)...

It's hard to see but I free-motioned some words in the border: "Lead me, Guide me, Walk beside me"... some of you will recognize these words from a favorite children's hymn. :).

Feels good to be back in baby-quilt mode, however briefly!

Harriet's Treadle Arts

My Grandma and I made not one, but two trips to Harriet's Treadle Arts while I was in Denver.  Lots of machine quilting inspiration all around.

Drunkard's Path on the right. 

Love the indigo blues.

30's Repro heaven!

Lots of "mini" inspiration if that's your thing. 

Searching for pinks for Miss K. 

Browsing books is always fun, and Sunbonnet Sue is a favorite!

What a pretty way to display vintage and reproduction quilts. 

Grandma took machine quilting and machine applique classes from Harriet "back in the day" and then taught me.  A few years ago, thanks to Grandma, I attended a "boot camp" style Machine Quilting retreat with Harriet and learned a LOT.  This kind of quilting is practical and artful, with an emphasis on the quilting line, not the thread - the quilts never have that thready "scribbled over" effect.  Hurray for monofilament thread in the needle, cotton in the bobbin!

While in Denver I photographed Al's and my Grandma's quilts.  I am working on those blog posts... stay tuned!

Simple baby quilt

Last week I visited my Grandma in Denver, and we whipped up this very, very simple baby quilt for her partner Al's first GREAT grandchild.  My Grandma picked out the fabrics - 30's repros from Harriet's Treadle Arts - and we laid out the blocks together.  We thought stripes... then, no... random will work best...

Love my Grandma's machine!  Bernina 830 Record, circa 1974

Sometimes the best quilt is the simple one that you can actually finish!

Linking with Fabric Tuesday over at Quilt Story today... 

30's Repro 4-patch

This quilt is a companion to the butterfly quilt I recently finished.  This one is reminiscent of a 4-patch my great-grandmother "Two" made.  I'm not sure I love all the brown I included (in an attempt to make it a little less girly) but I think this is a quilt that will look softer and better with lots of use and washings.  

My original idea, years ago, was to make these two quilts to go in our "green room" back home (it's like a little parlor, and with a trundle bed it also serves as a guest room - the previous owner painted it a 30's apple/minty green, and we kept the color).  

However, as it turns out, the quilts will live in Miss K's room here in Tokyo - what a curve ball life has thrown us! 

chain piecing - and aren't those doggies adorable?  

I decided to piece the backing a little.  

pressing the top.... so tedious... but almost there!  

Pin basted and ready to roll.  The red print in the foreground is left over fabric from an apron my Grandma Mary Lou made me years ago. 

 Utilitarian machine quilting for a utilitarian quilt.  Nylon monofilament thread in the needle, Presencia 60 weight cotton in the bobbin.  Batting: Quilter's Dream Cotton (Request - thinnest loft).   

I do like the pieced backing... could have added another strip for balance... but... wanted to get it DONE

Sorry about the shadow from the table.... 

Butterfly Quilt

This butterfly quilt was years in the making.  Actually, come to think of it, so was the child:). 

Miss K was in the process of deep cleaning her room to prepare for her sister Miss N's arrival from Boston for Christmas, and all of the bedding was still in the dryer.  Things got quiet in the room, and when I came along to "help", I found a napping girl under the recently finished butterfly quilt, on the not-yet-made bed.  Seeing a child napping under a quilt is the BEST!

This butterfly quilt is a loose reproduction of a butterfly quilt my Grandma Mary Lou made me in the 1970's.  The fabrics are so ugly and "70's" that they are pretty, if that makes sense.  She hand quilted it and it was on my bed for years and years through my tweens and early teen years.  Occasionally I pull it out even now.   There is batting poking through in several places, and it is almost too fragile to use, but it should still be used, I believe.  I had it on our bed over the summer before we moved to Japan.  It became Shadow cat's  quilt too. 

For my version of the Butterfly, I: 

•  made a tracing of the original butterfly and reduced it slightly to make 9 inch blocks. 
•  decided on green cornerstones instead of alternate blocks
•  used 30's reproduction feed sack fabric, which I had been collecting for years.  
• machine appliqued the butterflies using freezer paper and nylon monofilament thread on the top.  
• hand stitched the black antenna with embroidery thread. 
•  machine quilted it with nylon monofilament in the top and Presencia 60 weight in the bobbin.  

p.s. 

Yumi cat claimed the butterfly quilt long before I finished it.  Alas, she was not around when I finished it here in Tokyo, but some of her hair sure was.  And we've since had to adopt out our cats to a dear friend (bittersweet!), because it turns out that our house sitter is very allergic to cats.  

So, this will not be a blog that features cats sitting on quilts, not after this post anyway.