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[doodledo]

I love to quilt also. But I have to be "in the mood" and if I am I even forget to eat! I piece by machine and only 1 quilt I hand quilted. YIKES. I hated that, I just cant sit to long I guess. No one taught me except Eleanor Burns and Alex Anderson, hehe. I do love Eleanor Burns and her techniques are easy. If you are a beginner and machine piecing, I highly recommend her. I have made quilt as you go and that wasnt my favorite. Made that for my niece when she got married. By the time she got it, she said I was lucky they were still married! lol. Made a picture quilt, I guess thats what they are called. I would say if you are hand piecing I would keep the "Stuff" right where you sit, so when you do sit at night or for lunch you will pick it up and work on it, if only for a bit.
No matter how they look to you, no one sees the flaws. If they do, maybe they should try to make one better. This is what I called homemade with love. Not from China or a factory.
Not sure if you have a JoAnn Fabrics near you, if you do sign up for their flyer and you will get 40% off coupons in the mail. This is how I buy some of my quilting tools.
Best of all ENJOY

 

[Marianne]

Nice, Moolie!

AND if I haven't said it before, welcome doodledo! The Amish usually have one flaw planned into their quilts, as they believe only God can make something perfect (or so I was told). Mine ALWAYS had some flaws, but then you knew it was handmade! :/

I had to laugh about the quilt for the wedding present. I told my daughter I'd give her this huge white on white quilt for a wedding present. This thing is so fancy, I knew that it'd take me forever to make it...but I also knew that she'd probably never get married (she was dead set about ever tying the knot then). Fast forward 16 years...she got married, divorced and the dang quilt is STILL not finished. I got all the blocks hand quilted, just never got around to finishing it as all the other pieces have tons of hand quilting, too.

What was I thinking!!!! But I do like looking at it every so often.

Windy, you might find some ideas by looking at the quilts they make out of neckties. A popular one (but wouldn't be what you'd want probably) was Daddy's Ties. There were all kinds of patterns using neckties, so the blocks and pieces had to accomodate smaller pieces. Also, what about the quilts that they used women's hankerchiefs? You could applique ribbons on instead...maybe? I think I'd worry a bit about color bleeding when it's washed, though. What about a small hanging type display quilt? You could maybe add some picture fabric blocks, too. You know, the ones where you take the picture of your daughter, and they transfer the image to fabric? Those are washable.

 

[Neko-chan]

...

 

[hoosier]

I was at an Amish quilt auction for a short while Saturday

OMG!!! Was that the Milroy auction? I allowed myself to get too busy and I forgot all about it.

No, it was in Odon.

 

[Farmfresh]

The first quilt that I made I used a nice lightweight poly BLANKET ready made from the store for the filling, a single solid sheet of cotton material for the back and then pieced the top. I did "stitch in the ditch" to machine quilt it - after laying it all out smooth and flat with about 300 safety pins!! worked really well to hold it all together without bumps and lumps.

 

[BeccaOH]

The first quilt that I made I used a nice lightweight poly BLANKET ready made from the store for the filling, a single solid sheet of cotton material for the back and then pieced the top. I did "stitch in the ditch" to machine quilt it - after laying it all out smooth and flat with about 300 safety pins!! worked really well to hold it all together without bumps and lumps.

Ah, that would make a great filler/liner/batting.

 

[Marianne]

Yes it would. Did you use a regular sewing machine? My machine has a do dad for quilting, but it still fed the top layer faster than the bottom one and looked like crap after a bit of sewing. I too, used tons of safety pins. *sigh*

I wonder how the blanket would be to hand quilt through?

 

[lorihadams]

My mom is a ridiculous quilter. Here's one she did for my dd...it has 3 dimensional flowers and butterflies and a sun peeking out from the top

Here's one she did for my son

Here's one she did for a relay for life raffle...she donated it

Here's one I did a couple years ago for my daughter. It was fun! This is a pic of just the quilt top before I quilted it

I did a lot of bags too...tote bags are quicker to do...here's some cute ones I did

I really like some of the traditional squares and starting with a one patch is really easy and much easier to quilt. We hand quilted some baby quilts too. My mom hand quilted a lot of stuff but my dad built her a frame with help from my granny. Her mother used to hand quilt and she had a separate bedroom in the house just for her quilt storage and her quilt frame. Great granddaddy used to cut out all the pieces and she would sew.

The first quilt my mom and I ever did we did in the kitchen of great grandma's house....it is gone now (the house) so I couldn't part with the quilt even though it was supposed to have been a present for a friend. I still have the baby quilt. We did all the embroidery by hand. It is a one patch in the center with trains embroidered on it. We did a train track all the way around the border and embroidered it and the train on there too. Mama and i hand quilted it together.

here's the back

Here's the first quilt project my mom and I did for kicks...we started with a LaMoyne Star...do NOT start with that one. Geesh it was hard. We machine pieced it and my mom hand quilted the whole thing. It is red white and blue

Here is the first one I did completely on my own...I made two of these exactly alike. One for my little girl and one for my BF's little girl...she has it hanging on her wall in her bedroom.

 

[abifae]

Those are INCREDIBLE!!!!!

Okay. Now I'm inspired. Only I have sooo many other projects going LOL!

 

[lorihadams]

I can't wait until winter so I can start quilting again....I take the summer off every year it seems. I really like doing one big patch and then turning it into a tote bag. I have a book that has one with several smaller squares on it all in different traditional blocks and they put it together on a tote bag. It's really cute. I've made tons of little pocketbooks for my 4 yr old cause they are quick. We got my MIL a nook last year for xmas and I made her a small tote with a storage pocket on the outside and stuffed with really thick batting to put it in. I made it bright purple so it would be easy for her to find if she misplaced it. It was small enough she could stuff it in her purse without the fear of anything poking it and damaging the screen.

Fat quarters are also really easy to work with and you can buy them in different packs. You can also buy precut squares and then just sew them together. I don't know that I would have the patience to do it all by hand though so kudos to you Neko!