Senior Night

My daughter plays volleyball for Chugiak High School.  Her senior year was what she had hoped it would be...a concussion early in the season sidelined her for all but a few games.  She sat on the bench and cheered for her team.  Although our team lost, senior night was a success.  We had a great crowd of students in attendance to show their support.

In all, we have five seniors on the team.  I wanted to do something special for them all, something to remind them of high school, volleyball, teammates and friends. I thought about a t-shirt quilt, but those tend to end up in a box in the attic.  The only thing I could come up with that would last and grow up with them was a quilt in school colors.

Six weeks later....three quilts using the Road to Bali pattern, one Friendship Star quilt, and one Square Dance.  The smiles say it all.  I am so very proud of all of them.

Dreaming Pink

This quilt was pieced for Nikki in 2002.  She was the little sister of one of my students.  Nikki spent a lot of time ill and in and out of the hospital trying to determine what was happening to her.  I believe that she had a degenerative muscular disease. Her mom and I were talking about the hospital stays in Seattle and that Nikki missed the parent that stayed in Alaska with her siblings.  I pieced the quilt so that they could cuddle together under while in Alaska and then when she was in Seattle it would smell like home and mom or dad.

Play Ball

One of the best ways to fight cabin fever in the winter time is to stay busy.  Nothing beats a good movie you've seen a couple of times and an idea for a quilt.  Over the summer of 2001, I found a baseball cap fabric and thought it would be perfect for my nephew Bernard.  He is my older brother's oldest boy.  This was one quick and easy with a lot of strip sewing. 

Bug Jar

2001 was a busy year for me.  It was my end of my second year and beginning of my third year of teaching.  My daughter was three years old at the time and learning to sew on her own machine.

Somewhere along my visits to quilt stores gathering fabric, I saw a bug jar quilt.  My first thought was my nephew, Bishop, would really love a bug jar quilt.  First step was to purchase enough bug fabrics to make a large enough quilt!  That may not seem like a difficult task, but at the time, there were not as many bug fabrics as I have seen today.  Once the fabrics were collected, I started making the jars.  I didn't make them all the same size, which proved to be challenging when I started putting it all together!  I am sure that there were a few colorful words in the process.

As if that wasn't enough, I decided what would be better than creating a sandbox for the back of the quilt!  I added a truck, a shovel and pail, and some of animals out of their jars.  The small jar with the open lid has bees escaping!  If I find a close up photo of the escaping bees I will post it later.  His older brother Ben was a little jealous, because to date the only quilt he has from Aunt Katrina was a baby blanket to match his nursery.  I still owe him a larger quilt!  I haven't quite seen the perfect pattern and fabric for his yet.

Block Party

"Block Party" was pieced and quilted in 2001 for my niece Brittni. The quilt is a simple sixteen patch block with bright pink lattice.  If memory serves correctly, all of the individual purple clocks are 3 or 3.5 inch squares.  The lattice was 2.5 inches.  I had enough left over to make a throw pillow for her as well.

Square Dance

Living and teaching in rural Alaska had its challenges.  One of the biggest was fresh produce.  When given the opportunity to travel to Bethel for teacher training, we would jump at the chance, and bring a cooler, box, or large suitcase if possible to bring home our booty.

Naomi and I were befriended by a teaching couple, Jim and Debbie, and spent many weekends over the years on their pull out beds.  The money we saved on hotel rooms was used to purchase lots of fresh fruit, veggies and eggs.  We always left fresh produce for their family in exchange for their hospitality.


Debbie was also a quilter.  The square dance pattern was one she shared with us during a visit.  I decided that I would create a small wall hanging for forth of July to determine how difficult and time consuming this pattern would be since you sew quilt blocks together, cut them apart and then sew them together again to create the pinwheels in the pattern.


 
I also used this pattern to create a quilt for my ex-husband's oldest daughter, Jessica.  If I remember correctly, I sent this to her for graduation.  I am not sure why, but I decided to hand quilt this one.  I can remember sitting on the floor at my parent's house at Blue Lake hand quilting this one.  My mom sent me many of the fabrics that are in this quilt from stores in Michigan.

Deep Blue

While living in Kipnuk I had a ton of extra time to piece quilts. This top was pieced in 2000.  It is a mystery quilt from the Fat Quart Quilt by M'Liss Rae Hawley.  

This particular pattern calls for half square triangles, nine patches, four patches, double four patches, and rails and square blocks.  Many of the blocks used strip piecing which made the construction less complicated.  Depending on how you chose to put the blocks together, your design could be significantly different.

It is one of the few quilts that I've made over the years that I kept for myself.

This is "Purple Mystery" pieced and quilted by my daughter in 2008.  This quilt does not have the double four patches that are in "Deep Blue"

 This quilt, "Soothing Fields", was pieced and quilted in 2004 for my very dear friend Jenn.  The fabric was given to me so it would match her decor.  This one includes the double four patches that are not present in the purple quilt.