Design Wall Monday Memory Quilt

This is a little late Design Wall Monday post. By trying to do a set every day I got all the blocks for the Hawaiian Shirt Memory Quilt done. Here they are all arranged on the design wall. The odd solid blocks have the shirt pockets on them. I sewed the shirt labels and buttons onto the pockets.  My design wall wasn't quite big enough to get it all up there. There is one more column wide and two more tall.

Linking to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

The Beginnings of a Memory Quilt

Design Wall Monday, and I had a productive weekend.  I got the teal and grey scraps quilt assembled into a top. Adding it to the stack to be basted.

Then there was some quilting. A friend has requested this swirly design on a quilt I am doing for her, so I figured I better practice on one of my donation quilts.  I last tried this on the batik quilt from last summer.  I got this one done, but it is waiting for 2 things: a break in the rain so our septic system will drain and we can do laundry, and a sunny day so I can take pictures.

Finally, I started de-boning shirts for a memory quilt I volunteered to make for a friend.  I never met this man, but judging from his shirts he must have been a hoot!  This mosaic shirt with the sea life was one of my favorites.

I was sent 6 hawaiian shirts and 2 solids, that makes for a surprising amount of fabric. Better yet, hawaiian shirts don't stretch, so they don't need to be stabilized.

There is something reverent about literally taking apart the seams on someone's life after they are gone too soon.  I feel honored whenever I get to make one of these keepsakes. I sure hope the design I choose reflects him, and his life.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

A Non-Quilty Finish

It is still dreary, wet, and cold! I know in August we will be glad for all this rain but right now it sure is miserable.  Since it continues to be cloudy for my to photograph quilts I have a non-quilty finish to share today.

My friend Libby who blogs at No Airplane Here is getting married soon, so I made her a coptic-bound journal from her wedding invitation.

Coptic bindings are nice because they are beautiful and because they allow the book to lay open completely flat. The design is made from the thread that holds the "signatures" (pages) in place.

For the pages inside I used a shimmery metallic paper from Office Max.  The most fun part is picking out the scrap book paper for the covers and end pages.

Happy Wedding, Libby!

Design Wall Monday

Here's what is on my design wall this week.  It's a scrap quilt using turquoise and grey squares and HSTs.  I blatantly copied this design from Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework, who is a scrap quilting genius! This is part of her series of "A Scrappy Quilt Every Month" tutorials.

Linking to Judy at Patchwork Times and Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.

A Finished UFO

I started on a Disappearing Hourglass Quilt back in September of last year. For some reason it got swept aside, but I pulled those blocks out last week and finally finished them!

As you can see it has been pretty dark and cold here. These pictures were taken a few days ago, but today the sun actually came out!  I used a combination of stipple and echo quilting on this small quilt.

Sometimes it's fun to quilt the heck out of a little quilt.  (My idea of dense quilting obviously varies a lot from some other peoples'...)

I found the perfect backing in my stash and bound it with scraps of leftover bindings. It finished at 36"x48".

This quilt will be donated whenever I next send off quilts, probably to Margaret's Hope Chest.  Crazy Mom Quilts is on vacation this month so I will be looking for other end-of-the-week linkups and add them here as I find some!

Whoop Whoop Fridays @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict.
Oh Scrap! @ Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.