This 66″ x 61″ throw was made for a very thoughtful husband who gave it to his wife as a Christmas present. She loves tigers and even has a tiger tattoo. The quilt is made entirely of flannel material, except for the tiger skin fabric and the nose, whiskers and chin of the tiger which are made from some sort of glistening polyester fabric. I found the tiger skin at my local Hancock’s Fabric store, only a few miles from my home. After searching the internet for tiger skin fabrics – of which there are many – this was by far the most realistic. The background flannel fabrics were all part of my stash.

To keep the cost down, I attached a simple border design, which happened to suit the quilt better than more elaborate ones. Although the tiger and background “bamboo” and leaves are appliqued, the overall effect is a light but warm quilt which can be wrapped around one for comfort.

I had a blast making this quilt.

My good friend’s cat Felix died suddenly in his sleep and she has been having a hard time grieving for him. I’ve made many quilts for her and I knew she loved bright colors, so I made her what I call a “poster quilt” with the brightest fabric I could find and with two pictures of Felix printed on fabric. They show this sweet, laid back little fellow relaxing on the polka-dot duvet which I made for his owner several years ago.

Surprised and pleased, she e-mailed me and some of her friends to say that “I received in the mail today from my friend Rosie Rhine this beautiful surprise – a memory quilt for Felix – that I thought I would share with Felix’s fan club.  Rosie’s specialty is bereavement quilts but for me she made the polka dot quilt that Felix is pictured lying on plus many other cheerful items.  This quilt is just gorgeous and so reflective of Felix’s happy nature, and it will hang in my bedroom, which was Felix’s special napping place.”

Felix leaves behind his great buddy Vlad, also a Russian Blue, and to help with the grieving a new arrival named Clarabelle has been introduced into the family.

A customer sent me a box full of fine cotton shirts custom made for her father in Hong Kong. Most were striped shirts in various muted colors, with white collars, but a large amount were plain white. These shirts were made of exceptionally fine cotton and felt almost silky to the touch. I used some of the shirts in the little baby quilt featured in yesterday’s blog, but the bulk of the shirts were destined to be used in the quilt above (a Christmas gift for her brother) and a future quilt for herself.

She wanted something simple but elegant that would be used rather than hung on a wall, so I chose the basic rail fence design and quilted it using a clam shell pattern that left it pliable and inviting. This quilt begged to be snuggled against, from its satiny feel to its comfortable softness. But what made it special was the binding, which the client herself suggested – a binding made from her dad’s ties.

The ties added a needed sparkle to this otherwise calm and quiet quilt.

My customer said that her brother and his wife both loved receiving this quilt.

I’ve been neglecting my blog for far too long because since October I’ve been focusing on making Christmas quilts – with hardly a moment to spare.  Now that that is over, I get to show them all off.  This little beauty wasn’t made as a Christmas present, but as a gift for a baby due soon after Christmas. Shirts of this baby’s great-grandfather formed the white block backgrounds and the blue blocks and borders were made from pillow cases of the great-grandparents. The lovely blue flowered material was from their duvet and the striped material was from their bed ruffles. A white satin ribbon was used for the binding.

This is the first time I’ve ever used bedding in a quilt. The material had a satin sheen to it and was thicker than cotton usually is, but it made a perfectly lovely little quilt, which will be passed down from baby to baby in this family – and treasured as a memory of ancestors which these little ones will never have a chance to know.

I had fun designing the little figures, using clip art. These days you can find most anything on the internet.

Soon after Marge lost her beloved husband of just three years (they had known each other for thirty years and had finally gotten together), she decided to send me his shirts and jackets for a quilt.  She wanted me to make a throw which she could wrap around her, made out of the sleeves of his clothes, so she could feel “his arms around her” again.

She wanted the quilt to picture a simple and serene scene from Bora Bora, where she and Bill had gone on their honeymoon. I made the quilt, having been supplied with plenty of pictures, such as the one below:

Marge sent me a wrap that she acquired on her honeymoon, from which I was able to replicate the wall in the picture above.  The tie and handkerchief that Bill wore at the wedding became the little hut out in the middle of the water:

And the motto on the back of “Bill’s shirt” was actually Bill’s motto in real life:

When Marge received the quit, she wrote:

“The quilt arrived today and it brought me to tears – it is absolutely beautiful and exactly what I had in mind !!  I could identify each and every piece of clothing that you used.  You truly have a vision and a talent.  The border and backing is also perfect – I could not have wanted or expected more.  I just LOVE it.   I know that I will enjoy it each and every time that I have it wrapped around myself (which, by the way, will be daily now that the weather has gotten colder).  I am at a stretch in time where I am missing my husband very much and this will bring me so much comfort.”

I was told that the kids take their quilts to bed with them every night.

Missy wanted a simple t-shirt quilt made from her beloved mother’s clothes. She asked if I wanted the t-shirts or the sweatshirts, and I told her both. Above is one of the simplest quilts I’ve made and also one of the most beautiful. Each shirt she sent me was interesting, colorful, and in very good condition. The shirts themselves were the quilt.

See what I mean?

What fun!

Two of the blocks were made from denim shirts – as above in the lower right block and below in the lower left block.

I wonder how many people have this Elvis T-shirt?

I chose this color for my backing, see below with label.

This quilt was Collin’s choice out of five designs and it features a blue shirt of his, which he got on a special trip to France with the family not long before his mother died. The orange, brown and yellow material in the corners came from his mother’s dress, which I found out later his father chose for her. In the borders there is material from three t-shirts of Dana’s and one of Collin’s. All other material on the front came from Dana’s clothes.

Below is a picture of the label:

Next I made a quilt for Collin’s five-year-old sister Mackie:

The tulips are made from a pink dress of Dana’s, a green jacket of Dana’s, and a pink outfit of Mackie’s. The basket is made from Dana’s shorts, and the central feature is from one of Dana’s t-shirts. All other material except the pink border is from Dana’s clothes.

Note the tulip design on the edge of this quilt:

I’m told that the kids love their quilts and sleep with them every night. Even though these quilts are for the kids, I hope they helped their father heal a bit as well. He said he recognized every piece of material and was overwhelmed by the quilts. What a wonderful gift of love they were, from twelve ladies who all lost a dear friend.

When I finish working on bereavement quilts for a family, I’m usually left with lots of extra material. It’s hard not to stop at that point, my urge is to use as much of the available material as I can. These shirts and trousers are precious and it is difficult for me to discard them.  In the case above, I gave in to my weakness and made the throw out of two leftover shirts and other shirt scraps. Since I had made five quilts for this one family, it was my thank-you gift at the end – a traditional pinwheel throw that could be used by the entire family as needed.

Although this is a simple quilt to make, it does take some concentration to get all the pieces in the right places. I had seen this quilt made in a crazy quilt fashion in which the little pinwheels didn’t stand out and was delighted to see the pattern emerge when careful placing was used. A simple zig-zag quilting pattern was used, leaving the quilt soft and pliable.

The quilt above is the fifth quilt I made for one family who lost their beloved husband/father two years ago. I was commissioned to make full-sized quilts for the young children out of their father’s shirts and trousers (see previous posts under Bereavement Quilts) and also smaller ones that the kids could use today.  Their mother wanted a queen-sized quilt for herself, and since most of the colorful shirts had already been used, I decided to make this one out of the remaining white, gray, black and tan shirts.

Her husband had loved anything to do with the golden ratio and had even chosen the chambered nautilus as the logo for his company. So it was natural to make a center medallion featuring the chambered nautilus.

Using extra batting under this section of the quilt, I quilted excessively on the gray areas which puffed up the white edges and gave the quilt a three-dimension trapunto, which delighted my client.

After adding various borders to extend the size of this medallion quilt, I ended with a border made up of curves that followed the dimensions of the golden ratio.  For those of you who don’t know what a golden ratio is, I’ve included below this simple explanation from the website “Math is Fun” (http://www.mathsisfun.com/definitions/golden-ratio.html).

Golden Ratio	more …
The number approximately equal to 1.618033989…  It is exactly equal to (1+√5)/2 If you divide a line into two parts so that: the longer part divided by the smaller part is also equal to the whole length divided by the longer part then you will have the Golden Ratio.