Brother & Mother Quilts

I'm officially a year behind in posting, so the next few posts will be brief and full of pictures. Once I started quilting, my brother made a request for an LSU quilt (his alma mater). He kept getting bumped down the list for new baby quilts, which he wasn't too happy about. But I finally started working on his quilt last fall and finished it up for his birthday in November. 

This is the first quilt I've done with black sashing. I also used purple and gold thread for the quilting. Using colors on black fabric really emphasizes any uneven or crooked stitching, so I'm not sure I'd do it again, but the effect is kind of neat. Most of the fabric came from fabric.com and an Etsy shop specializing in fabrics using school colors. My favorite is the purple fleur-de-lis on a gold background. You can't get much more Louisiana than that! The backing is a basic gingham from Joann that was on sale.

Unfortunately, the original pics of this quilt were lost when my old computer crashed, so here it is at 8 months old. It's already been very loved, as it lives in the rec room with the big TV and my brother's multiple gaming systems. (It could also use a good wash! The other thing about black sashing is that it attracts lint and dust like nothing else!)

After a brief break over the holidays, I started on a quilt for my mom. She lives in Michigan and faces some cold, cold weather, so I thought she could use a nice lap quilt for watching TV or reading. I used fabrics from Bonnie & Camille's Marmalade and Vintage Modern lines. (I figured it was fitting, since they are a mother-daughter design team!) They have some nice floral patterns in soft colors, but aren't too chintzy or precious.

I wanted to do something a little different with this quilt, so I stitched together a bunch of charm squares into one large block, then used a wide border to fill out the quilt. I quilted a criss-cross pattern, which involved a yard stick and soluble marking pen, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. For the backing, I used a pink pattern from Connecting Threads and pieced a long row of leftover fabric from the quilt top. The binding is a nice grayish-taupe color from Moda that coordinates with some of the prints on the front. All in all, I think this is my most well-constructed quilt. I'm finally at the point where I feel comfortable breaking away from patterns and tutorials and doing things my own way.

A preview of the quilting in progress, to prove to my mom that her quilt was actually coming together!

She seems to love it, though moms usually do, don't they? For those of you keeping score, I've now made quilts for everyone in my immediate family, including myself. Hopefully, this will keep them happy for a while so I can focus on another slew of baby quilts for expectant friends. :)