2016

This year has been 365 days of a roller coaster. While I love roller coasters, there’s reasons they are usually a couple minutes long and not 24 hours. So while there’s been many ups and downs this year, there has also been a great deal of therapy done as well! And by therapy, I mean sewing, because we all know …. yeah.

You know how sometimes when you’re knee deep in a project and then once the project is over, you’re like “so what did I do with my time when I wasn’t doing this project again?!?” no? just me? ok =)

Here are the quilts I’ve completed this year. I’ll try to write a little something about who they were for, their story, etc.

J was going to have to do some working on the road the first part of the year, and since I travel with him, we packed my sewing stuff to keep me from going stir crazy while he’s working and I’m just hanging out. I know what you’re thinking – I bet he LOVED that! Well, I wasn’t going to take my sewing stuff, I told him we didn’t have the room and didn’t want to bother because there are so many odds and ends I need when I quilt. But while I was finishing packing my suitcase, I came out to the truck and J had loaded a whole bunch of my quilting stuff – all the stuff he thought I would need, bless his heart! So I gave in, went through all the stuff he had loaded up, and carried in what I didn’t need and loaded up what I did and away we were. One of the things I was telling J was that I didn’t have any material or projects ready to go. Sure, I had fabric, odds and ends, but nothing ready for a quilt. So J checked, there was a Hobby Lobby where we were going, he assured me I could get what I needed there. He even gave me carte blanche to make a quilt for our bed! Well since he put it THAT WAY ……

I walked into Hobby Lobby fabric department and immediately saw this lady bug print and was immediately in Love! In fact, I’m pretty sure I said, “I don’t know who yet, but someone’s getting a lady bug quilt!”

It didn’t take long to figure out a cute pattern for this quilt, and I remembered we have a cousin who was having their first grand baby, so immediately it became hers.

A few years back when I took my quilt class, the class that started it all, I made my very first quilt. I had no idea what I was doing or what fabrics / prints / colors to put together and I was pretty happy with my 1st quilt mostly because I learned so much and I really liked the colors. I was ok with the quilt, but it was far from perfect and no where near what I would give anyone. A lady who I used to work with and I hold in very high esteem, wanted to buy the quilt from me. I was flattered. To even THINK someone would want to buy a quilt I made was not anything that had ever even crossed my mind. So I hid that feeling in my heart for a couple of years and knew one day, sometime, I would make a quilt for my friend, send it to her at the right time.

Fast forward a year and my friend had probably one of the worst years of her life, one that I pray daily to never imagine and I knew, it was time. I was still traveling with J and was looking through the material I had brought with me, and wouldn’t you know it, I had the exact material I needed and most of it already cut out, ready to sew. Definitely a God thing. So I made her this

A close friend of my daughter was having a baby and already had a little girl my daughter was in love with, so she asked me to make these for them

One of my great nieces asked me to make her a Quillo, which is a quilt that will fold up into a pillow. So since part of her family are huge University of Oklahoma fans and she’s really, really smart and is an Oklahoma State fan, so I made this for her.

One of our favorite cousins was having a baby and since our Granny had passed and wasn’t able to make him a quilt, I stood in the gap and made one for her. Here’s what I made for him

One of the ups on the roller coaster of this year was one of our daughters getting married. That’s one of the things I remember most about us getting married is the great quilts we received. We still use them even now, 28 years later.

Here’s the quilt I made for my daughter and son-in-law

Funny story about this quilt – I learned what a klutz glove is! It’s a glove that you wear on the hand not using the rotary cutter that is cut resistant. Why, you may ask? Because I cut the end of one of my fingers off on this quilt. So, klutz glove can be a very handy tool to have! << pun intended

So after making the wedding quilt for our kids, part of our son-in-laws family asked me to make a quilt for their daughter and soon to be son-in-law. They had specific colors in mind and I made this quilt for them

I like to look through Google images and Pinterest for cool quilt ideas. I usually don’t use a pattern per se, but use images and build quilt ideas that way. I still have my one and only quilt book that has the log cabin quilt pattern I use. Sometimes my quilt ideas work out and sometimes not.

Another of my nieces let me know she had a perfect use for a ladybug quilt — she was having a baby in the summer and would like it! ha! As you can tell, my husband and I have HUGE families! Nieces, nephews, and cousins! OH MY! Here’s the quilt I made for my great niece –

So remember back in January when I went to Hobby Lobby and I got J’s ok to get material for us a quilt? Yeah, that was a LONG time ago, but anyway, I bought the material for us a quilt, but had yet to get it made. I looked and found a cute idea and in November, it finally happened!!

So this fall, we took a trip to see the great northwest of the US. It was awesome!

Someone on the trip was cold a lot, which gave me a great idea to make them a quilt for Christmas. Here’s the quilt I made for him, but sshhhhh, it’s a secret.

And the last quilt for the year was made for another special person in our lives! Here’s the one I made for her. This has some 3D effects and is supposed to look like you’re looking out a window.