Small Four Seasons Handmade Custom Quilts

All four seasons are featured in this charming custom personalized quilt. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Small Four Seasons Handmade Custom Quilts

The earliest spring in 124 years is here, finally. I know I shouldn’t complain because we had a very mild winter - our soil in mid-Missouri never froze this past year - but I am tired of the winter grayness and ready for the greenery of spring.

To celebrate a new season, take a look at these two tiny miniature quilts celebrating spring. The small quilts were featured at the Piece and Plenty Quilt Guild in Rolla October 2019.

The first small quilt is “Four Little Seasons” by Sharrol Stuckey. She uses patchwork designs appropriate for each of the seasons and makes it clear which is which by adding the season name. Her colors are bright and joyous, I can see this little quilt hanging from a wall and brightening any room.

When you realize how small this quilt is, you appreciate the design. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The second four seasons custom personalized quilt is by Linda Sidwell. There is no story included with this small quilt, which allows me to make up my own. I love red cardinals and native plants so this is a small quilt featuring daffodils and purple coneflowers as well as pumpkins.

Each season is represented by an appropriate symbol. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

The small miniature quilt itself is 12x20 so these patchwork pieces are small.

If you are starting to quilt, this is not the patchwork patterns to use. The pieces are small and harder to understand as you begin but they can be something to attain with a little more experience.

Happy spring!

Charlotte

Birdhouse Buttons Handmade Custom Quilts

This miniature custom handmade quilt features tiny birdhouses with button doorways. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Birdhouse Buttons Handmade Custom Quilts

It’s about that time at Bluebird Gardens. Birds visit my garage to let me know it’s time to get the birdhouse real estate back out into the garden.

It’s a little early for hummingbirds, the scouts should be arriving April 1. Bluebirds, though, will start the first of their three nestings this month so I finished making repairs and got the last of the birdhouses outside with their vacancy signs.

The process reminded me of these charming miniature custom handmade quilts featured at the Piece and Plenty Quilt Guild in Rolla last year. The miniature quilts are really tiny - 15 inches by 15 inches. You will get a better sense of the size of the patchwork piecing is looking at the birdhouse button sizes. Those buttons average 1/4 inch!

The other charming detail of Judy Fox’s bluebird blue miniature custom handmade quilt are the two bird buttons she added to one corner. Looks like tenants are getting ready to move in.

Tiny bird buttons add a special touch to this custom handmade quilt. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

There wasn’t a story included with this custom handmade quilt but the information confirms how tiny these patchwork birdhouses are.

This custom handmade quilt story shares the size, 15 inches by 15 inches. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

I thought this tiny miniature custom handmade quilt was charming. Between the blue fabric colors and the bird buttons, it was something that caught my eye.

So did this version of the same miniature custom handmade quilt design only in purple and chartreuse fabrics.

Birdhouse buttons custom handmade quilt in purples and chartreuse. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

What caught my attention with this custom handmade miniature quilt was how tiny red buttons were added, see them?

It truly is amazing how quilters use fabrics as they would paints, each custom handmade quilt becoming a tiny work of art!

Charlotte

Diamond Hexies Handmade Quilt

Fun to see how the different fabrics were blended into this handmade quilt. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Diamond Hexies Handmade Custom Quilt

When I think of hexagons in a handmade quilt, I think of Flower Garden handmade quilts like Vintage Martha’s Flower Garden custom handmade quilt. Diamond Hexies handmade custom quilt is a new take on the use of paper pieced hexagons and I love the overall look.

Diamond Hexies custom handmade quilt was featured during Piece and Plenty’s bi-annual quilt festival October 2019 in Rolla, Missouri.

If you are a beekeeper, Diamond Hexies custom handmade quilt will remind you of a frame of bee bread where bees store flower pollen in honey for later use. Think of it as a bee’s larder for feeding baby bees.

If you look at the various hexagon collections, within each block there are different fabrics, all scraps from the quilt maker’s fabric stashes. Although I understand the attraction of buying new fabric, using fabric scraps is more attuned to the spirit of original handmade quilts, which were made from clothing and home decor fabrics, a true repurposing.

Close up of the different fabrics used in this custom handmade quilt. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Diamond Hexies custom handmade quilt, as most quilts do, has its own back story.

The story behind this hexagonal handmade quilt. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

One of the thoughts I have had over the many years is to spend one winter making teeny tiny flower garden handmade quilts out of very little hexagons.

I may still do it!

Charlotte

Custom Personalized Memory Throw

A friend made this custom personalized memory throw for a family member.yM

Custom Personalized Memory Throw

Just in time for Christmas planning, here's how to easily make a custom personalized memory throw.

This is a quilt one of my friends made for a family member. She had never sewn, or quilted before so you know this is going to be an easy project. So simple, she used marbled solid fabrics so family members could write on them with an indelible ink pen.

Did they write on the quilt blocks before or after it was put together? Afterwards!

We printed some of the photos on fabric and she cut them into the same size as the fabric blocks.

She added a solid frame around the blocks and an prairie point quilt edging. 

The custom personalized memory throw was finished with prairie point quilt edges.

Turned out quite well, don't you think?

Charlotte