Quilt of the Day

Quilt of the Day is my tiny attempt at keeping art and beauty in the Facebook feed to brighten someone’s day and tell a few small quilt stories.

It occurred to me in the midst of lockdowns and pandemic news updates, that sharing positive images is a great idea. Plus, we have been on lockdown longer than many in the rest of the country here in the Puget Sound area of western Washington and have settled into it a bit.

Quilt of the Day started on March 21st, National Quilting Day and the plan is to post each day through March. Here they are to date:

Let Sleeping Cats Lie (pattern by Helene Knott). This quilt was made for a grand daughter who is a cat lover and has three cats; a solid black (Blackie), a black and white (Finch) and a tabby (Harper). Each cat is represented in each block made up of 4 cats, along with a pink cat, which represents my grand daughter. A single white mouse represents her pet rat. The HST borders were added to make the quilt the right size for her bed. This was my first ever attempt at doing applique. (Early 2017)

Raissa’s Lavender Garden is an Irish Chain adaptation that I designed for my daughter. Her favorite colors are green and purple. I found the incredible lavender border fabric and matching prints and immediately knew that I wanted to do a diamond presentation with the border fabric. Stash batiks and prints were used to bring more color variety to the quilt. The quilt name is FMQ into the bottom border of the quilt. A deep purple batik was used for the backing. (2015)

Cobalt blue log cabin is a traditional log cabin with a southwestern vibe made for my sister in law and brother. My SIL requested cobalt blue and I chose low volume black and white to offset the intense blues in the log cabin squares. This is one of my earlier FMQ attempts and the quilting is primitive, to say the least. I have offered to make them a new one, but my SIL loves her quilts in all its primitive glory. (Early 2015)

Isaac’s Star Wars was made for my grandson using Star Wars fabrics and a log adaptation that I designed. A lot of fussy cutting was involved! The thin lime green sections are meant to represent light saber flashes. (Late 2015)

Enterprise is one of my most popular quilts. It started out as an attempt at the Lone Star pattern, just for fun, and then I realized I wanted to make it into a full size quilt. I decided to imitate the popular Amish pattern, which features a center star and surrounding log cabin squares. At several points in its construction, I was truly stuck and spent hours going over the math and counting the inches of fabric available. I was as amazed as anybody that it turned out so beautifully. I named it Enterprise because it went where no quilt had gone before. My former boss and his wife fell in love with this quilt and gave it as an anniversary gift for their daughter. (Late 2016)

Freebird started out as a guest room quilt. I wanted to use black and white, with just a hint of color and found a remnant of exquisite black/white/aqua fabric. With slightly less than 1/4 yard to work with, I decided to use this as the square centers. I used the Missouri Star Quilt tutorial for making a curved log cabin and used the 1.5″ honeybun precuts for the white portions of the blocks. My son and his wife now have this quilt. (2016)

Arizona is made using April Rhodes Arizona line, which I just love and have used in 4 quilts. This was an experiment in using two different types of blocks in a log cabin design and was made for a dear friend. FMQ is a combination of swirls and corkscrews in the light/white sections. (Made in 2017.)

I’m Your Huckleberry is another log cabin made entirely of purple tones inspired by huckleberries, which I researched and then sought out fabrics matching the deep, deep purple/navy tone and the burgundy infused highlights of the Montana huckleberries that my family loves. It is a king size (104″ square) and was made for my middle daughter. I experimented with using a contrast middle strip in the center of the squares. One of my personal favorites. (Made in late 2016.)

Purple Log Cabin was made in 2015 after my hubby said “you love purple; why don’t you have any purple quilts?” So the search for purple fabrics commenced and this is the result, the first of several purple log cabins. It was early days in my FMQ journey and I had – in desperation – invented a FMQ motif I called “the crab”. I could not do stippling (barely can now!) and this was based on a stipple instruction I found on line. It was intended to go in the guest room, but my niece in Ohio had experienced a horrific house fire and lost all her quilting. I sent this to her along with some clothing.

Em’s Feathers. Made in 2018) is one of my few made from a pattern that I found in a quilting magazine for my youngest grandchild. During a visit to my daughter in Iowa, we The Quilted Windmilla, in Pella and picked out fabric for this quilt. My daughter said that she preferred quilts “without blocks”, which made me laugh, but I understood her intent. This was the least “block-y” pattern I could find. FMQ in all over swirls in a pale blue/light gray variegated thread.

I hope you have enjoyed my retrospective. Sharing these with my FB community has been so much fun!

Happy quilting and stay safe, Lennea