quilts – Quest Quilts

Small Business Saturday

Hey everyone, I’m still working on getting my Christmas commissions completed, but I took a break earlier to make some wall hangings. I made a Rey and BB8 silhouette wall hanging as well as two rainbow guitar wall hangings. The guitar quilts are very popular, so I think they’ll sell fairly quickly. I’ve made two Rey and BB8 wall hangings before, and they went fast as well, so I’m hoping little Baby Yoda and the Mandalorian haven’t outshined my girl Rey as far as searches and gifts go. I’ll add these to the store page in a bit.

I’m all up and ready as tomorrow is Small Business Saturday! Here’s hoping some of the smaller crafters are feeling the love tomorrow as the holiday season kicks in to full gear.

Online Market Quilt Showcase 3 – silhouette quilts

The Yellow Daisy Festival Online Market begins on Tuesday, Sept 8th. In anticipation of this, I’m making some posts about the quilts I have ready to go. Each day I’ll feature two or three quilts and tell about their process and what I like most about them. These and other quilts can be found in the Quest Quilts shop on this website or in my Etsy shop.

These quilts were made using one of my favorite forms – the silhouette. I’ve used it for many quilts before these, and I just love it. The idea that you can convey detail and form with just an outline fascinates me.

The wine quilt was one of two that I had made, but the other one sold rather quickly. This one can be draped across a couch or even hung on a wall with the proper curtain hardware. It features a wine bottle and white wine glass silhouette with complimentary wine-themed fabric. In the black area I kept up the theme with a vine quilting pattern. I love this style of quilt and think it would fit in nicely with any wine-enthusiast decor.

The next silhouette set features the often overlooked viola. I like having a silhouette inverted set and think it lends some fun and style to any decor. This set already has a hanging sleeve attached to each hanging. These are meant specifically to be wall hangings. They would look great in any musician’s home or in a school orchestra room. The cool blue, green, silver, and gray tones help it maintain a gender neutral look.

Yellow Daisy Festival – Online

Ok, so yes, all of the craft fairs I was exited about were canceled. However the biggest one, the Yellow Daisy Festival in Stone Mountain, GA, decided to help out their vendors as best they could and is going to offer an online market for folks, Sept 8 (starting at 9am) through Sept. 13(ending at 9pm). It won’t be nearly the same experience, but I am excited nonetheless.

In anticipation for that, I will be posting showcase posts throughout the week. Come back throughout the week to see more features.

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Take a look at the new items in the shop!

Girl Scout Quilt

I made this quilt based around some green and pink Girl Scout badge fabric I had. I was experimenting with color and such. It did end up looking busier than planned, but I like it. It was also bigger than planned as it came out to a twin size once I added the outside pink border. I ended up going for a pink flannel-backed satin backing. It feels so sleek and smooth!

Kayak Quilt

This was a special commission for a dad as a Father’s Day present/late anniversary gift. The couple met while kayaking, and she wanted to give him something special in honor of that first meeting.

Funny enough, there isn’t a whole lot of kayak in this kayak quilt. I found a picture of a canoe going down river, and I really liked the first person perspective. And they met in the spring, so I decided to use greens to make the hill foliage instead of autumn colors.

The water was a neat task, and I knew I wanted to make it unique and have a cohesive-yet-scrappy effect. Using two different shades of navy blue and adding in lighter accent blues, I was going for a watery movement effect, and I gave it an overall unity with a horizontal quilting pattern.

The hills are an element I am particularly proud of. I mused a while over how to approach them. In the end, much like the water, I just dug in and started cutting and let them lead me where they may. When it came to quilting them, I decided to do a different quilting style depending on which shade of green I was on. I even tried to create an evergreen effect for the darker greens.

They weren’t quilted yet when this picture was taken.

The kayak element at first was nothing but a red triangle, and I added an inner line and black strap to help create the look found with most kayaks.

Overall, I am very proud of this one, and I know it’s going to a home where it will be loved. This client and I have worked together on commissions before, and she is fantastic at getting me to try new styles!

The unfinished top – known in the quilting world as a “flimsy.”

Rainbow Mariner’s Compass Quilt

This quilt falls under the “things I’ve been meaning to make” category. English paper piecing is a tedious technique. Each star is made from a wedge, and each wedge is made of two scalene triangles. The design I used for this quilt was a simplest mariner’s compass pattern in the book. The pattern comes from the book Mariner’s Compass Stars by Carol Doak. I’d bought it years ago to make a gift for my husband.

I had originally wanted to make all the stars with batik fabrics, but it didn’t take long to realize that I wasn’t going to have the effect I wanted with what I had on hand. The biggest goal of mine was to use 100% fabrics that I had at home in my stash already. I had the rainbow fabric for the backing and based my colors around it. This was definitely a “quarantine project.” In the end, the only thing that was purchased was some extra white thread. Not bad.

I did get to practice the colors and design on my new quilting software, so that was an extra bonus, and it helped me catch a mistake in my color placement. Can you see what I did?

EQ8 Quilting Software trial run with my colors.

I’ll admit that red fabric is notorious for running dye, even if one pre-washes like I do. This quilt had too much time and love put in to it to take any chances, so I pinned a color catcher sheet over the white sections of the red star. I did NOT come here to play.

The finished result is worth it, and I am in love!

Here is the Etsy listing if you’re interested in purchasing it.

Boy Scout Lap Quilt

A while back I made an Eagle Scout Quilt, and I had a fair amount of the Riley Blake Modern Scouting fabric leftover. I wanted to try something different, something a little more chaotic and less predictable. It’s been a while since I’d gone with a mosaic design. I also had varying amounts of the fabric samples left, so I added in some solids to balance out the patterns. Overall, it was fun and took very little work up front with the planning. I just cut out squares of 9″, 6″, and 3″ and arranged them as balanced within each square as I could.

It has a green flannel backing. And in the end, I had enough to make two!

Theater T-shirt Quilt

This quilt was fun and a definite break from my usual mold. We divided the shirts into color families. I knew the some of them had rather big designs, and I wanted to make sure nothing “cool” was left out. For some of them, I just cut the central image in half and made sure each was still in. I rather like the crazy-quilt-shadow-box combo.

A fun bonus is that the white section is excellent for signatures! And can I begin to say how much I just LOVE the neat green and gold scroll design on the backing fabric?!

The Value of Handmade Gifts

This is an article I wrote a while back for our community magazine last fall. I wanted to share it on the blog as well.

The holiday season is upon us, and people are already beginning to buy gifts to give – if they haven’t started already. Gift-giving is an art form in and of itself, and it takes many factors into consideration: age, cost, usefulness, etc. The best gifts can also remind the recipient about the giver as well, and this is where a unique group of gift-givers excel – the handmade gifts.

It’s a common misconception that handmade gifts are low cost or even “cheap.” But nothing could be further from the truth. When someone takes the time to buy/collect supplies and craft an item specifically for a loved one, that takes a personal investment that simply cannot be duplicated in an item purchased from a store. Not to say that bought items aren’t special because, of course, they can also be cherished. But there is something about a handmade gift that endures beyond its time and even beyond the item itself. Some of my favorite pieces of furniture, while not the most attractive, are special to me simply because my great-grandfather made them. And as of the last several years, they are also a lasting memory as the man himself is no longer with me. So what is it about a handmade item that gives it that lasting power? The explanation is more profound than one might first think.

In 1992 Gary Chapman released his book The Five Love Languages. He identifies five areas where people express their love for others as well as how they feel the most loved. These areas include Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, and Physical Touch. As a quick review, Acts of Service translate to doing nice things for a person, like washing their dishes or mowing the lawn. Words of Affirmation simply mean a person likes to be told how much they matter. Quality time can mean a date or any one-on-one time. My eight-year-old daughter feels most loved when we spend time together, so a trip alone with her to the grocery store can help her feel connected and loved. Receiving Gifts doesn’t mean that a person is greedy – just that a gift, no matter how small, is a gesture that means more than just the item itself. My sister showed her love to her friends every year as a child by spending her birthday money on Christmas gifts for them. And she is so very proud when she knows she has found THE perfect gift for someone. And Physical Touch doesn’t have to be overly dramatic. It could be as simple as hand holding. My six year old son feels loved if we are sitting beside one another while watching a movie. As long as some knee or foot is touching me, he feels loved. And while it is possible that some gestures can fall across multiple areas, I can only think of one thing that combines all five.

A handmade gift is unique in that it covers multiple Love Languages. The act of making it with a specific person in mind, the time spent on designing and crafting it, and even a sweet note accompanying it all touch on multiple routes wherein people feel loved. It says over and over again, “I love you.” A person made this item specifically for that person, spent time on it, made it with their own touch, gave it freely to that person, and it often includes an explanation or sweet note with it. A handmade gift has the potential to say “I love you” in all five Love Languages. And in that, it is no small feat.

So if you are lucky enough to receive a handmade gift this holiday season, take a moment and realize exactly what you have been given. It isn’t a mere item or token. It certainly isn’t cheap. It is the ultimate expression of what it means to love another person from every conceivable angle. Honor the handmade gift for it was made with love.

Doll Quilts

I’ve been sitting on this project for a while because it would give away a surprise. However, I learned that the gift has been bestowed and was given permission to post away!

I played around with the notion of doll quilts for 18″ dolls and came up with these after finding some diamond cuts left over from a previous project. I’m thrilled they’re being put to use, and I can’t wait to see what all I can come up with on down the road!

I am loving the central star design, but I don’t think I’m ready to make a quilt bigger than this using it. I’ve enjoyed the more traditional look of them, though. They’ve been posted on Etsy already. You can find them by clicking here.