Los Angeles County Lifeguard Quilt

A while ago, my cousin gave me a bunch of clothing that was worn out from his lifeguard work and asked me to make some things for him. I made a couple of pillow covers and had in mind to make a quilt.

The quilt only took a couple of years to be made. In the end, I went for a very simple design. The red is fleece and the white is knit. The problem that I did not anticipate is the different drying time for the two materials. The fleece dries lickety split, not so the knit. The backing is a white dimpled minky - the quilt is definitely not for summer use; it's heavy - and so dries as quickly as the fleece. So either the quilt has to be blasted so that the knit can dry in the dryer or it needs to be taken out with the knit still quite damp. Lesson learned about mixing materials.

With some careful cutting, I was able to salvage some of the patches. Everything is sewn with a half-inch seam allowance and then secured with a zig-zag stitch.

The quilt is a decent size finishing at around 80" x 56".

Curio Quilt

The quilt blocks below are Century of Progress from The Farmer's Wife Sample Quilt. I felt a need to use up the rest of my Curio layer cake and liked the block's design - how depending on the placement of color, the compass-like star is at the forefront or recedes.

With a bunch of quilt blocks but no final quilt layout in mind, the next step was trying to figure out what to do with them all. Although the end result was much simpler than originally envisioned, boy, did finalizing the quilt take a lot of time. The blocks sat on the floor for months in various formations.

final version

an option

another option

Little Swoon Stars ( 2 quilts)

The two oversized swoon blocks are now two baby quilts. Each one is about 40" square and quilted with diagonal lines.

I think that the pattern would make a great baby boy quilt if using a more gender neutral or boyish fabric designs.

I like the addition of the half-inch strip in the middle of the white and how it helps define the star. Spray starch was a great help in keeping the narrow strip flat and stable for piecing.

Whimsical Quilt Garden => Place Mats

These place mats used to be two lonely quilt blocks that I assembled in spring 2011. They were pinned on my design wall until they became just part of the room and I didn't see them anymore. Then I accepted that I wasn't going to make any more blocks to make a quilt and thought that I could turn them into something more functional. So I took them down, probably in early 2012, picked some backing fabric and then let them gather some more dust.

Finally, in a fit of clearing out some unfinished projects I turned them into mini quilts/place mats/whatever over the Christmas break.

gifted to niece 1

gifted to niece 2

The nieces are happy; I'm happy. Wins all around.

Paper Pieced Starburst

Why stop at one paper piecing project when I can be frustrated with more? After finishing the lily hot pads, I wanted to try putting together another pattern that had been on my to do list: a star flower pillow.

possible layout with some black sashing perhaps...

Not having learned as much as I thought from working on the lilies, putting together the star flower (what I'm calling a starburst) took longer than expected, but seeing each quadrant come together was very satisfying. Each quadrant ended up taking about one hour each. I got to use some great Curio fabric by Basic Grey and now I'm entertaining the idea of making a large quilt over the course of the year.

another layout possibility

I'm using a precut fabric set to make these blocks so it'll be interesting to see how the quilt takes shape should I end up pursuing the idea. For each quadrant: the background uses two 10" squares, the white stripes 3-2" x 10" strips, and the 12 wedges a total of three 10" squares.

happy accident of strip placement

Or more likely the blocks will languish in some corner until I get so tired of seeing them that I turn them into something else. Maybe some more hot pads.