some quilts to share

This first quilt is one that I made for my nephew Paul. He's so adorable and I really love him. I wish I lived closer by. I started making this quilt before he was born, before any of us knew if my sister was having a boy or a girl. I wanted to make something gender neutral. I found the pattern in a book called Great Little Quilts that my great-aunt gave to me. The pattern is called Single Wedding Ring, but it's also known as Crown of Thorns.

The book didn't really give very specific instructions, so I just made up my own size block. Unfortunately, I forgot to add in seam allowances. I cut all the fabric before I discovered this. Luckily, it still sewed together nicely, just a little smaller than I anticipated. Which also meant that it took longer. I think I also underestimated the complexity of each block. The quilt has 12 blocks, each made up of 25 squares and 16 of the squares are HST (half-square triangles). Each square ended up 1.5" finished.

I eventually finished it up and added a couple borders to make it a little bigger. I was only going to make one border originally. I took some time to think about how to quilt it. I didn't want to take away from the beautiful blocks or to be too densely quilted. I ended up doing straight diagonal lines that brought out some of the secondary patterns of the blocks. I also chose to do a fun binding on an otherwise traditional quilt. Don't you love the backing fabric?

This is a quilt that I made for my sister Frances (Paul's mama) on her birthday last year. I forgot to take any pictures of it before giving it away, so it has been unblogged until now. I think that I bought it as a quilt kit, but can't remember where. It's made of fabulous, bright batiks and a white on white fabric. The design is from Atkinson Designs called Lucky Stars.

It came together quite quickly because the blocks are 15". The quilt ended up being 45"x60" - a nice size to snuggle on the couch with. I quilted it with a loopy meander - my go-to free motion quilting.

The back is just a solid green with a few scraps thrown in. I like the simplicity of the design.

The last quilt to be featured today is one that I made with Cherry House Quilt Along. She called it the Socken quilt. It was quite simple to put together. The little squares finish at 1". I was inspired by the quilting on another of her quilts, and attempted to do something similar. I really like how it turned out. I gave it to a special baby in our church a few weeks ago. I hope that he loves it and gets lot of use out of it.

Thanks for stopping by!
xo Nicole