This project has turned out differently than I had originally envisioned. During the course of the year, instead of personally finishing fifty-two quilts, I only completed a couple of dozen or so and gave away enough fabric and other supplies to have made more than the fifty-two I had intended! Cleaning out the basement and hall closet fabric stashes with an intent to move out of state necessitated such a purge.
My friend Jennifer came over today to show some of the things she has done with fabric I shared with her. I hope other friends and relatives have had similar fun with what they took home.
This quilt was made with some darling blue fabric with cowboys on it. It was a Christmas gift for one of Jennifer's sons. My mother gave me this fabric, probably to be a backing for one of the quilt tops she sent for my own little cowboys, but they had very definite ideas about what they wanted on the backs of their quilts! The red flannel on the back is a very soft one, originally purchased to do a project for a neighbor.
These denim quilts were made from jeans that I had collected for the same purpose, and the flannel backs were purchased at a great price several years ago. Jennifer made a quilt for her husband, then I think she made three more for her sons! I have been on several denim quilt kicks in the past thirty years, making "emergency quilts" for each of our family's vehicles and as Christmas gifts for the families of my husband's siblings, neighbors, and friends. For our family, they have mainly served for emergency picnics, but they have also come in handy for cushioning on campouts, hiding Christmas surprises after shopping trips, and as cozy wrapping during evening rides home in the wintertime.
This fabric did not all come from the same store, but I sure felt clever to find a flannel to coordinate with the designs I got for the front! A local quilt store had a kit that made up into a baby quilt in very feminine colors and prints; this was cut out as an attempt to re-do the design for a baby boy. After a decade, I never got to assembling the sewn blocks, but Jennifer finished it! She also did the machine quilting. This design, sewn in a set of yellow-on-white fabrics for a friend's nursery, was the pattern I used on the very first free-motion, machine-quilted project I ever attempted.
This is the back of one of Jennifer's denim quilts. She has done a clever job of stretching the scraps and making it into a nice framed piece. The lighter-colored fabric was a very soft one that I had always wished would grow more yardage if it sat long enough in its box. Jennifer made it work.
Jennifer's daughter made this quilt. She first pieced the grid, then she appliqued the palm tree on the front. It is tied onto a soft clouds-in-the-sky flannel backing. She was rightly pleased with her work, and beamed as she showed it off this afternoon.
I love fabric with hearts, and have collected quite a few over the years. These blocks were made by cutting nine-patch blocks into quarters. I had intended to set them together in a quilt for my sister's 40th birthday, but the birthday arrived before I finished; I imagined the blocks were probably happy when they went away to a new home. Jennifer's younger daughter was so delighted with this feminine quilt that she required a bit of coaxing to part with it long enough for me to get a look at it! The back was a Wal-mart find, purchased with a baby gift in mind. Jennifer quilted little hearts in her stipple-strings; it turned out very well.
I made several of these square-dance pinwheel quilts, and had quite a few solid squares saved to make another. Jennifer wondered what I had had in mind for this and it was difficult to try to explain without actually bringing the pattern over. I actually like the way Jennifer has spread the color throughout this bright, cheery quilt better than the demonstrations in the book.
Many, but not all, of the flannels Jennifer used for this strip quilt were from the stash of leftover flannel pieces from my basement stash. These strip and snip quilts are quick to make and can be very warm.
Jennifer's oldest daughter saw a little yellow tulip block that I had made up nearly 18 years ago and got an idea to make a quilt in multi-colored fabrics to represent the Young Women Values. Jennifer made the square borders for this quilt and they all tied the quilt this morning. It was so pleasant to see Jennifer's daughter's delight at completing this quilt and to hear her children say how fun it was to work together on this project! That, for me, is one of the most rewarding aspects of sharing sewing activities with my own children.
My friend Jennifer came over today to show some of the things she has done with fabric I shared with her. I hope other friends and relatives have had similar fun with what they took home. 
This is the back of one of Jennifer's denim quilts. She has done a clever job of stretching the scraps and making it into a nice framed piece. The lighter-colored fabric was a very soft one that I had always wished would grow more yardage if it sat long enough in its box. Jennifer made it work. 
Many, but not all, of the flannels Jennifer used for this strip quilt were from the stash of leftover flannel pieces from my basement stash. These strip and snip quilts are quick to make and can be very warm.
