Quilt 76 - Julia's Blue Jewel Box

2000, 64" X 80"

For several years I made a jewel box quilt for one of my siblings each Christmas. This is the quilt that was made for Julia. I often start with a color scheme or border fabric and match all the "jewel" pieces to that.

Julia, You are my inspiration. Love and Memories last forever.

-posted by Ione

Quilt 75 - Julia's Red and Yellow Quilt

Year?, 50 x 50
Aunt Glad and Aunt Julia went to a quilt retreat at which Julia made this quilt. I love the vibrancy of this color combination. (This picture is about 3/4 of the quilt.) She sent it to Mom to do the quilting. The quilting design in the blocks was meant to resemble flames. (Hey Mom, is the border fabric on this quilt the same fabric you used for the red blocks on her Scrabble quilt?? On purpose or just a coincidence?)

Quilt 74 - Scrabble Quilt

1998, 24" X 24"

This week we will be posting quilts to honor the birth date of Aunt Julia to Karen and sister to Ione. Julia's scores in Scrabble have always been numbers that would truly amaze others. In 1998 I was making a lot of color wash quilts and one day thought it would be fun to make a scrabble board. Scrabble players look at this quilt and know it is a scrabble board even without the words or letters on it.

Quilt 73 - Midnight Star in the Garden of Hope

Midnight Star was made for the Gig Harbor Quilt Festival in 2006. Approximately 30 x 30".

The Gig Harbor Quilt Festival raises money for local breast cancer charities, and has a silent auction as well as a challenge for small wall hangings each year. Mom and I made this quilt together as part of the color challenge for that year.

We started it at a quilt retreat in Staples, MN, and finished it shortly there after. Definitely outside our box as far as color and technique. (It was my idea to do these blocks, which take forever, and have now been relegated to the "been there done that, never doing those again" list!) We added the dark triangles as an after thought, and loved the dark star that appeared. We put a small pink ribbon on all of our quilts for the Quilt Festival, and this one was no exception.

We decided to buy this one back ourselves and gave it to my Aunt Connie Whitney as her survivor quilt.

More information on the Gig Harbor Quilt Festival can be found on their website: www.gigharborquiltfestival.org

Quilt 72 - Jan's Purple Leaves

Many of my quilt ideas start from simply seeing two fabrics in my stash (or more likely in Mom's stash!) that look good together. More than one quilt has been conceived because a pile of fabric has been tossed around and suddenly a wonderful color scheme appears. Such was the case with this quilt.

On my birthday trip to the ocean in 2007, the fabrics in this quilt ended up on the same pile when we were unloading our quilting bags. I loved the contrast of the golds and purple (Go, Huskies!) and the tone on tone purple could not have been a better match to the leaves on the batik.

I whipped up some leaf blocks and filled in with some coordinating batik. The block I used usually has a bias or applique stem on the leaf, but I decided to leave it off. I did the quilting myself on my small machine, and tried to accent the leaves with stems and veins in a variegated thread.

For good measure, I've included a picture of the back, which has a third coordinating batik with dragon flies.

I always have a show and tell at work after my ocean trips to show my boss all the projects we made. She absolutely loved this one, so I saved it and gave it to her for a birthday present later that year.

Quilt 71 - Adele's Patriotic Stars

2000, 50" x 75 "
On May 7 (Quilt 42), we posted Ione's quilt using these same exchange blocks. This is Adele's Patriotic Star Quilt done for the Sister's Gazebo exchange. It is always fun to see how everyone sets the blocks differently!

Quilt 70 - Red, White and Blue Friendship Star

2003, 25" x 25"
Made as a class sample for a Friendship Star class, this quilt has different background fabrics in each block to add a little texture. The piano key border is a great way to use up those tiny scraps.

Quilt 69 - Patriotic Ohio Star

2003, 25" x 25"
Another in our patriotic series, this was made as a class sample for the Ohio Star. The center and corner blocks were made with "cheater" fabrics. A simple but effective pattern.
-posted by Ione

Quilt 68 - American Hero Quilt "From Scraps to 12"

2008, 51" x 68"

I designed this quilt pattern after hearing my quilting friends say they didn't know how they would ever use up all their scraps. I designed From Scraps to 12 as a mystery class for one of our Pacific Beach Quilting Getaways. It didn't take long to realize that this is also a great scrap organization plan. This pattern is good for charity workshops and has been used for American Hero Quilt Project, Project Linus Workshops, Harrison Hugs Workshop and several church groups and quilt guilds. This quilt has checkerboard sashing but works well with several sets of blocks just sewn together.

FREEDOM ISN'T FREE and this quilt will be donated to the American Hero Quilt Project(www.americanheroquilts.com) with the quilts going to injured service members in Washington State through Madigan Hospital who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. This 4th of July we fly our flag proudly and thank the veterans, active duty service members and all our Fallen American Heroes. Erwin Harder, 1948 - 1969 and Andrew J. Shields, 1988 - 2008, you are not forgotten.

HAVE A FUN, SAFE AND HAPPY 4TH OF JULY.

-posted by Ione

Blog to continue next week.

Quilt 67 - Edith's Whole Cloth Quilt

2004, 70" X 90" I thought I was purchasing cotton sateen but when I got the bolt of this blue fabric home, I found out it was a poly/cotton blend. It would not take my marking pen for designing my own whole cloth quilt so decided to use the pantograph, BAROQUE HEARTS by Keryn Emmerson from Golden Threads (http://www.goldenthreads.com/) to make comforters for Edith & Lyle for their 60th birthdays. It's that time of year again and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EDITH!

-posted by Ione