2024 Quilts

   The first quilt I made this year, I started piecing in March while Emily was home to help with me with the cutting and pinning.  I was doing everything from the wheelchair and even the quilting was done from the wheelchair, with a lot of help from Rowen and Marlene, in April.  

This was made for Charissa.  She wanted a more grown-up quilt than the one I made for her when she was 3 or 4 years old!  I designed this quilt completely using a picture of elements she wanted to have included, graph paper, and algebra.

Here it is on her bed.  It was my "comeback quilt."  I did not know if I would ever be able to make another quilt after my bad femur break in October 2023.  I asked God to let me make quilts again, especially Charissa's, because I had promised it to her for a year but put more urgent ones ahead of making hers.  God has blessed me to make many more this year, and I am grateful!

I made Micah and James new quilts next.  Their somewhat matching Noah's Ark quilts were from when they were really young.  I wanted to make quilts that reflected their more grown-up teenager interests.  They both love hunting and shooting pheasants.  I was given a length of fabric that had 12 pheasant and grouse panels.  Since they are both into the sport, I split the panels between them.  The blue and green one is Micah's.  The other blocks are the Whirligig pattern.  It was fun and easy to make.  Emily helped me get a lot of the piecing done, and she was invaluable in cutting out the bird panels.  Micah's full name is quilted into the quilt, and something about 'made with love by Grandma' and the date.

James's quilt has the same bird panels and the other quilt blocks are called Streak of Lightning.  It was tricky, because the pattern had to continue beyond the interruptions of the bird panels.  I did a lot of ripping and resewing to get it to turn out right.  These quilts are extra long twins for our very tall grandsons.  James's also has his full name, made with love by Grandma and the date quilted into it.  

Jonathan's quilt is called "Fishing at Sunset."  It incorporates some fishing panels and his favorite colors of orange and blue and a modified Log Cabin block.    It was a lot of fun to make, and pretty fast.  Any time there is a panel involved, there is a lot of algebra also involved.  With each panel, you have to make a block that will match the dimensions of it exactly.  There's graph paper and mechanical pencil, ruler, and calculating that goes into the plan.  All of the quilts in this post so far had a lot of math involved.  Never think you won't use your math skills later in life!!

Mishael's quilt is called "The Bear Quilt."  The quilt block is Bear Claw.  I experimented with 3 different instructions on how to make the block before I knew I could duplicate the process and make it the same every time.  The fabric had many bears on it, in different positions.  It was not a panel.  So after I knew how big the 4 bear claws blocks were when they were sewn together with sashing, I fussy cut the bear blocks to match the size.  Each bear block is a little different.  When I was done with sashing, I decided to make the bear claw borders.  Some may think they are fall leaves, but they are really bear claws.  This is the only one of this family's quilts that does not have the name written in the quilting.  I was trying a loopity-loop quilting pattern, and there was no place to quit and start writing.

Jewelyn is a bookworm, and she wanted a bookshelf quilt.  This is the second bookshelf quilt I have made.  I really enjoy making them.  They are a lot of work, but a lot of fun.  I worked 'way too hard on the quilting on this one, trying to make each book binding unique.  With the 6-7 inch swath of quilting I could do at a time, by the time I got back to finish the rest of the books I'd started (which were rolled up and not visible), I had a really hard time remembering what the plan was.  So some of the books' bindings are very unique...  Some of the books have Jewelyn's names and made by Grandma and the date on them, and one is named Bible.  One design looked like the ASL sign for I love you, so we said she had an ASL book on her bookshelf.

This quilt was made for Randy and Joy.  Their wedding colors quilt had worn out years ago, and they needed a new one.  I saw this pattern on Pinterest, but I don't know its name.  It is "on point," which means it is put together on the diagonal.  It has Randy and Joy names quilted into it, made with love by Mother, and the date.

This quilt uses the same fabrics, except for the green, but is based around a panel that Marlene found in her favorite quilt store.  As stated above, a panel requires lots of math, and in this case, a whole design to be made up to go around it.  Marlene had given me all these fabrics (except for the green above), and I wanted to make this Be Still and Know quilt for her.

She later asked me to make her pillow shams, so I designed them to go with the design of the quilt and made her two.  The quilt and the shams have her name and sweet messages from me to her quilted into them.  Only one is pictured.

This is Mandylyn's quilt.  She loves pink and hearts.  It is a pattern I found on Pinterest and printed out the picture to go by.  It is called Random Hearts.  It is really not random, because there is a definite pattern to follow, but I did quilt it all over with random hearts.  All of the above quilts, except the Bear Quilt, had random hearts in the quilting every now and then.  But Mandy's is full of hearts!  It also has her name, made with love by grandma, and the date.

I dabbled in making quilted aprons this summer.  A girl in our church was turning 13 and having a surprise party.  Her favorite color is teal, and so I quilted two teal fabrics together and made her an apron out of it.  It is reversible, and Elizabeth was my lovely model for the apron.

I found some chicken fabric in one of my fabric totes, so I decided to make Jeffrey and Lesa matching aprons, since they raised five hens this year and keep us enthralled with their chicken stories.  I gave them the aprons when they came to see us in July, but Elizabeth and Rowen were the models when I finished them.  These aprons feature pockets that will hold a cell phone, or a salt/pepper when grilling.

With the leftover teal quilted fabric, I made three potato baking bags.  I gave them to Regina Stetler, Marlene DeOrnellis, and Emily.

I was asked to make another Bookshelf quilt for a Christmas gift for an acquaintance.  I did it early, rather than waiting near to Christmas, in case I had a health situation come up.  It was done in plenty of time and the person will be happy on Christmas Day to open her gift and find this blanket for her reading nook!

I had a plan to make two guest room quilts for Joy, but I only got one of them made this year.  It is a wide queen.  I got the pattern off of Pinterest, but didn't have a name attached to the pattern.  I have never counted to see how many different fabrics I used in it, but I have enough big squares left I could do it again sometime.  This quilt was the first to be quilted on our new Moxie 15 quilting machine and table that the Lord gave us a tremendously good price on.  I also went to a seminar and spent three hours getting comfortable on a big machine similar but fancier than ours, before I quilted the Guest Quilt.  I did not feel comfortable writing on it, so I think I just quilted the 2024 on it.

This was before we got the other black table pieces in the mail.  It quilts an 11 inch swath, so quilting takes about a third the time it used to.  It has monster bobbins, which means you are not always running out of bobbin and having to stop and pull up the thread ends.  We are blessed!  We were able to sell the other quilting machine to a friend.

Our dear friend, Leta Witt went to heaven this fall.  Her husband, Lonnie, asked me if I could make him a memory quilt to have in the living room for when he was chilly.  I said yes.  When I had to cut into those garments of our dear friend, I decided to make as many squares as I could out of each one, to see if there would be enough for Lonnie's daughter and daughters-in-law.  So I made four quilts.  The pattern is Chandelier Quilt.  I saw it on Pinterest and watched a YouTube from Missouri Star Quilt Company to learn how to make it.  But I made the squares bigger and only had to have 25 blocks per quilt instead of 41.  It is set "on point" so is built on the diagonal.  Lonnie's has a tan background, and I added a small border to make his most special.  The others have different white-on-white backgrounds.

The following ones will be given as gifts to his daughter and daughters-in-law for Christmas.  If you know them, don't tell!

It was a fun pattern to make, and I enjoyed thinking about Leta and her life while I made them.

I hope they will be a blessing to the ones who receive them.  I used the new Moxie on them also and the quilting of them was very fast.  They all say "Made with love in memory of Leta Witt," "2024," and my initials on the right lower sides.

To have started out the year not knowing if I would ever make another quilt again, I just have to say "Thank you, Jesus, for letting me make these gifts of love!"  

I am recovering from a left total knee replacement, so I'm not currently making anything else.  But, I really hope the Lord will let me make some more.  I discovered this year that the quilt we've had on our bed since 2011 has tears in it.  I dearly want to replace it!  I need to make another Guest Bed quilt for Joy, finish up the grandchildren: Josiah, Felix, and Piper, and I have already been asked to make another queen Bookshelf for someone's sister!  There are always more quilts to make.  

Is there time?  Is there health?  That is in God's hands.