Eileen's Sea Glass Quilt

Eileen from Massachusetts made this sea glass colored quilt for her sister who lives near the ocean. Isn't it gorgeous? I love those colors. See Eileen's blog at eileensideways. 

Nice job, Eileen!

Adirondack Quilt

This is my new camp quilt "Adirondack." It was beautifully machine quilted by Linda Aquavia of New Hartford, CT. The quilt measures 65" x 88," good for a tall person's bed quilt. I like the saw-tooth borders and the odd fabrics. Some are the latest prints and some are oldies. 

Take a close look in the photo below to see the quilting, a digital design called "Curly Arcs." The quilt top is so busy that the quilting doesn't show up very much.

Do You Pin? (I Don't Mean When You Sew!)

Do you pin on Pinterest? If so, would you please pin the collage above? Thanks. Here's the text to go with it:

Quilt Patterns: Fun to make, no stress. www.etsy.com/shop/KarenGriskaQuilts

If you haven't visited Pinterest, I suggest you give it a try. There are so many wonderful things to see there, and you can easily keep "bulletin boards" of all your favorite stuff. You can gather stuff from other sites too. You can see my boards here.  If you want some or all of your boards to be private, you can do that too.

Make a cup of coffee or tea before getting started! You can browse quilts, gardening, recipes, fashion, travel, diy ideas, interior decorating, anything you can think of! Have fun.

Thinking About a Sea-Glass Quilt

I've recently been gathering fabrics for a sea-glass quilt. I love the colors. They are brighter than they look on my screen. I'm not sure about using the lime green and the dark green. Maybe just a little bit. And a little sandy tan will be good. And maybe some amber/root beer brown too. I have no idea what the design will be. I'm thinking rounded edges, not straight lines. Any ideas out there? 

Knitted Eyeglass Cozy!

Haha! Knitted eyeglass warmers from Sheepish Knitting & Crochet. 

See her archive here.

This tickles my funny bone.

New Camp Quilt

Another camp style (rustic lodge) quilt is in the works. This photo is just a sneak preview. I'll pick it up from the machine quilter on Saturday and show it to you on Sunday. I can't wait to see it. This one is similar in personality to Golden Pond. I searched my stash for some unusual fabrics for this one! 

HST Scrap Quilt

Here's another quilt that I made years ago, during my HST* and 1" strip phase. 

I'm sure that phase has passed because making that many HSTs doesn't tempt me now.

But I do like the little red frames around the coin border. Not so sure about the yoyos in the corners. 

*HST = half square triangles (for you new quilters out there) 

Pincushion Give Away! And a Virtual Trip to Cape Cod

New pincushion give away: wet felted and needle felted wool. Nice and soft. 

Random winner will be chosen on April 1st. Your comment below is your entry.

Tell us what your favorite dessert is. Mine is apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

The winner of the red rick rack basket pincushion is June Calender! Her blog is Calender Pages. She lives on Cape Cod. I can't resist showing you some photos of the Cape.

National Seashore. 

Whales sometimes come right up to the boats.

Harvesting cranberries. They flood the bog and the berries float.

Provincetown, MA is at the very end of the Cape.

Crazy Quilt with Corner Fans

I made this crazy quilt with silk fans in the corners about 10 years ago. My Mom crocheted the little white fan in the photo below. She made it for this quilt. She also taught me how to embroider about 50 years ago, and I'm so glad she did. I love to embroider on quilts. Beads make it nice to run your hands over the surface of the quilt too. You know what I'm going to say: click here to see how to make fans.

Barbara Harrison's Silk Fan Quilt

This gorgeous silk quilt is the creation of my friend Barbara Harrison of Doylestown, PA. I wish you could see this quilt in person. The colors are so vibrant, and the quilt looks different as the light changes. She used some plaid silks too. I love the pointy gold border. Nice job, Barbara!

Barbara is an accomplished artist and a frequent lecturer and encourager of other artists. She certainly has inspired me.

My Mom's Sampler Quilt

I made this sampler quilt for my Mom years ago. She has it on the wall in her guest bedroom. She likes green and the shamrocks are a favorite Irish motif. She has a good sense of humor, so I put some goldfish swimming around in there too. 

The house (above) is her house. Haha, I used artistic license here!

If you want to see how to make fan blocks, click here. 

Sampler Quilt with Fans and More!

Sampler quilts are so much fun to make because there's very little repetition. I made this one years ago. See the photo above, in the middle, there are 4 red and gold 9-patch blocks? That's what started this whole quilt. I made them with 1" wide strips, so that was enough! Instead of making more, they became the centers of 4 log cabin blocks. There are 2 more identical 9-patches in the quilt; see them (below)?  

This quilt has 2 center medallions.  Notice there are solids and a few prints? There are even some batiks in there. I like the triangles in the outer border. I was surprised (and delighted) to see how this quilt looked when it was finished.

And yes, here are some more fan blocks. See the pattern for them here.

Eileen's Fabulous Green Quilt

Here's the other green quilt that I told you about yesterday, made by my sister Eileen Lovett.

Didn't she do a great job? She and her friend Nancy had a quilt challenge to use only green and white in a quilt. How about that fancy binding? I love how she sprinkled the yellow-greens around too.

Nice work, Eine! (rhymes with "fine")

Eileen Lovett's Green Quilt

This Burgoyne Surrounded quilt was made by my sister Eileen Lovett of Michigan. 

The main part of the quilt is shown below; part of the border is shown above. 

I love how she used fans to go around the corner. Yayy, Eine! 

She has made several beautiful green quilts. I'll show you another one tomorrow. 

New Give Away! Red Rick Rack Basket

Let's have another give away! This little pincushion basket has a rick rack print cushion and two pretty pinsies. I put some rocks in the bottom so it has some weight and won't flop around when you use it. The rocks are wrapped in batting so they won't jingle around.

Your comment is your entry. Random winner announced on Monday March 24.

Tell us how old you were when you 

made your first quilt. I was 13. 

The winner of the little purse is Karen M. from Kentucky! 

Her blog is: Karen's Sewing Room. Congrats, Karen!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Lucy's showing the quilt that she made for her mother for Mother's Day. Doesn't she look happy? Lucy is from Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. This is from the Love to Sew blog. I love this photo! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Sawdust Fan Quilt

I made this quilt years ago for the AQS/National Quilt Museum "New Quilts from an Old Favorite" competition. This time it was chosen for the traveling exhibit and book: "Sawtooth." 

This quilt started with the four pineapple blocks in the center of the quilt. I played with them on the design wall until I got them into this funny arrangement. You can see this was made during my 1" strip phase.

I like how the fans look like wheels in this quilt. Ironically, these busy wheels seem to provide the "place for your eye to rest" in this quilt. Could it be?

Click here to see the pattern for making fans. 

Worldwide Quilting Day is Today!

"Three Sisters" by Hiroko Nakayama of Japan. Wowzers!!

To celebrate Worldwide Quilting Day I searched the Internet for 

interesting Japanese quilts. Enjoy!

This quilt by Sake Puppets was exhibited at the Tokyo Quilt Festival 2013.

"The Candy Shop" by Miyuki Hambaba. The block is called Sun Dial.

Amazing house quilt from the RandomThoughtsDoOrDi blog.

****Enter to win a fabric shopping spree at: Worldwide Quilting Day Block Contest.****

Fans in an Amish Setting

Are you all planning an intervention to get me to stop posting about fans? I'm kind of shocked too, to see all the fan quilts that I have in my photo archives. I don't see it as a problem yet though.

If you want to risk getting addicted too, click here. 

Golden Pond, A Camp Quilt and Pattern

This is my latest quilt, still warm off the sewing machine: Golden Pond. Each log cabin block (courthouse steps variation) has an "+" on it. When I added the coin sashing, the quilt became rather chaotic. I really like the wild black and orange striped fabric, the hounds tooth fabric, and the large prints too. I think this quilt would be perfect in a casual camp setting, like in the movie "On Golden Pond." 

See the pattern here.

Give Away - Purse Ornament!

 This week's give away is a clear purse ornament filled with little bits of fabric. You can open it up and change the contents of course. Use the beaded handle to hang it in your quilting room.

Your comment below is your entry. Random winner announced on March 18. 

Question: Do you listen to music when you sew, 

or do you like it quiet?

The winner of the purple and orange pincushion is Laura from Virginia.

Her blog is Sewing Our of My Comfort Zone. Yayy, Laura!

Fan Quilt - Another Variation

I made this quilt using the same method as for the Ferris Wheel quilt. This quilt now lives in the Netherlands. I love it when my quilts have interesting lives. 

As I chose each strip for the fans, I tried to keep it basically "dark, light, dark, light," with some areas of higher contrast, and some areas of lower contrast. I think that adds depth. There are so many interesting ways to use this block.

Tree of Life Center Medallion with Fan

This is the center portion of a red and white sampler quilt that I made a while back. When I learned a fast and easy way to make half square triangles, I made a bunch of them and decided to create a tree of life design. The foliage got so big that it needed a big root system to balance the design. I made the "root fan" by eye. It's the same method as used in the Ferris Wheel pattern. Are you getting sick of me talking about all the cool things you can do with these fans? I hope not because I still have more, I'm pretty sure. 

This is the whole quilt. See what happens when you learn how to make fast and easy hst's? This is one of my favorite quilts ever. This photo is from a quilt exhibit at the Pearl S. Buck estate in Dublin, PA when I was a member of the Charm Girls quilt group. Hello to my friends Barbara, Helen, Linda, Ellen, and Stephanie!