John Deere quilt

This piece may be the envy of every grandfather, husband, son, grandson, or uncle who has a quilter in the family. Tractors, combines, and JD logos galore! This cuddly lap quilt will be a great comfort to its recipient.... if he can keep his friends from steeling it!

Wendy's Tis The Season

Here's the sixth version of "Tis The Season" that I've gotten to quilt. So much beautiful embroidery. This was Wendy's first embroidered quilt. Didn't she do a fabulous job?

Caroline's Tis The Season

This iteration of "Tis The Season" came from my new client, Caroline. This is the fifth version of the quilt I've gotten to work on. Many of the students that took this class at Rumpled Quilt Skins in Okotoks, AB, have come to me to quilt it for them. I think I'm really getting it dialed in!

Caroline did an excellent job embroidering and piecing this quilt. It was a pleasure to work on!

Lisa's Christmas Sweater in quilt-form

My quilty friend, Lisa, brought me this quilt, just shaking her head and giggling. This was one of those cases where the fabrics she picked on the bolt at the quilt shop, ended up translating to a completely different effect when pieced into a pattern. All quilters have been there!

Lisa thought the colors/prints were to bold and busy - like an obnoxious Christmas sweater. I think she's NUTS! I love this quilt! I quilted it with meandering holly leaves and berries. I think it's festive and fun! Fa la la!

Ann's Rail Fence

This lovely jewel-tone quilt came from new client, Ann. It's a traditional "rail fence" pattern, constructed out of jelly-roll flannel fabrics. "Jelly Rolls" are pre-cut fabrics, bundled into a spiral, which make piecing a quilt top like this so much faster. Ann did a great job, and this cuddly flannel quilt will be sure to keep the recipient warm and cozy in the coming winter months!

Meandering loops and hearts from edge-to-edge was the quilting order of the day. And I used the excess backing fabric to apply my "Effortless Binding", so that the quilt was completely finished and ready-to-use when Ann got it back from me. Yay!

Frances's Beloved Quilt

This quilt was so very special for me to work on. It was originally pieced (by HAND, no less!) by a woman named Frances Rhoades. Frances was one of the wonderful women who were the backbone of the church of my childhood in Webster, Ohio. She was my Sunday School teacher, Vacation Bible School leader, 4-H adviser, and even something of a surrogate grandma. In our little country church, our congregation was close. Frances's grandkids were the same age as my sisters and I, and we often spent afternoons at her house and called her "Grandma Frances". Even many years later, if I close my eyes, I can hear her voice, I can see her hands, I can feel her hug, I can see her just like it was yesterday.

Last summer when I was visiting my family in Ohio, "Aunt Cyndie" (this would be Frances's daughter-in-law, and not actually related to me) came to visit me at my parents' house. She brought this quilt top with her. It had been discovered when their family was going through Frances's house, following her death. No one could say when it was pieced. If I had to guess, I'd say maybe 1970s. Cyndie said that her daughter Carrie had taken the quilt top home with hopes of finishing it.

A sidebar must be taken here. The Carrie mentioned above, is the original Carrie Rhoades. Some of you may know that I was also Carrie Rhoades, prior to marrying and taking my husband's last name. The other Carrie was about 6 years older than me, and with two girls of the same name growing up in a small church family, it became necessary to distinguish us from each other. Carrie babysat me and my sisters and was a cool older girl that I looked up to. So (at least in my family) she became "Big Carrie" and I became "Carrie Beth". I think I fared better in the nickname department!

So, Carrie and her teenage daughters had taken Frances's quilt home, with plans to finish it themselves, but it sat in their closet for years while they worked up the nerve and found the time to tackle this most-honored and beloved project. It was Carrie's daughters who eventually sneaked the still unfinished quilt top out of the house and passed it along to their grandma Cyndie, who brought it to me at my parents' house when I was visiting this past May. Cyndie told me she wanted it to be a surprise for her Carrie, and that she trusted me to finish it however I thought appropriate.

I felt very close to Grandma Frances while I was working on this project. I tried to use quilting motifs that would have been somewhat common during the time frame in which Frances originally constructed it. I had to fudge a little here and there, and used more modern quilting techniques to suck up areas where there was excess fabric.

I suggested to Cyndie that we let her daughter and granddaughters finish the binding, so that they could have this final moment with the piece that their grandma started so many years ago. I attached the binding with my longarm quilting machine, ready for them to wrap it around to the back side and hand-stitch it in place.

I gave this quilt all my love, and it was an honor for me to be involved in it.

Lethbridge Classes from Carrie On The Prairie!