Author Archives: jeanswenson

About jeanswenson

My granny taught me to sew when I was 4-years old, and after 50+ years of sewing, and many sewing projects - including my eldest daughter's wedding dress - my favorite thing to sew are quilt tops!

Apothocary

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Apothocary
December 2022

I began making this quilt sometime in mid-2022 as a Christmas gift for my son-in-law’s parents. The top was made with Lisa Audit’s A Country Weekend 5″ charms, a collection for Wilmington. The birds, butterflies, and beautiful flowers remind me so much of their home, which while close to the big city, is remote and so picturesque. It reminds me a bit of my Granny’s home when I was a kid: it has lots of fun garden vignettes to explore and enjoy, each unique and beautiful.

While this was gifted to them for Christmas, I am only getting the chance to blog about it now. With the hustle and bustle around around the holidays, a family skiing trip, and then helping my Dad with relocating to an assisted living facility, my January slid past much too quickly! So here is February, and I’m finally pausing a bit to catch up here on my blog. I think this is the perfect quilt to welcome Spring, even though Punxsutawney Phil says we have to wait 6 weeks. I can’t wait to see Fred and Becca’s garden when Spring officially arrives!

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Regatta

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Regatta
October 2022

This is a ‘tummy time’ quanket for a baby. Simply place it on the floor with some toys on it, and it gives a baby a clean place to play while working to strengthen their arms, backs and core muscles.

As a sailor, I couldn’t resist the cute, and very colorful, sailboat fabric. I didn’t want to cut it up to turn into quilt blocks, so left it as large pieces, and made my quilting focus on the larger sailboats and the baby’s name, Myles. This is finished as a traditional quanket, with a pieced quilt front, fleece for the backing and then tied.

This was gifted to my sister’s nephew and his wife, who welcomed their son back in early July. I hope Myles grows to enjoy sailboats (and maybe when he’s a bit older, sailing too) as much as I do!

Shark!

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Shark!
September 2022

Back in July, when Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter sent the baby quilt tops that I finished into Polka Party 1-4, she also sent a box stuffed full of scrap fabrics and remnant pieces. One of the remnant pieces was the shark fabric, which I thought was too cute to fussy cut, so I used it as bands at the top and bottom. I also used some blue scrap fabrics she had sent, and pulled a bunch of scappy blues from my scraps box to create the center section. The pieces to create the rows were 1.5″, 2″, 2.5″ and 3″ (unfinished).

I had read an article recently about quilting “rules”. I apologize for not noting down the author’s name, as it was one of those articles that you see go by, you do a quick read, and then move on to the next article in your feed. I then spent a bit of time reflecting on her take on quilting “rules”, which was basically that the creative process thrives with no hard fast rules. However, the creative process usually does well when there is a plan – that may include some tentative rules – at the outset of a project. For this quilt, in addition to using blues as one rule, I decided to use a pattern for the rows, as opposed to just placing them randomly. So, for all those out there that love to figure out patterns, what pattern did I use?

This will be donated to a child in foster care.

Where Pink Happens

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Where Pink Happens
September 2022

Did you know that scientists question the existence of the color pink? I hadn’t really been looking for information on the topic of the color pink’s existence, but the internet seems to have many rabbit holes for one to fall into! It is actually quite a fascinating topic – one to tuck away for a potential conversation starter. My take away from the Scientific American article is that I’m quite happy that our brains provide us with the sensation of color, as pink has always been a favorite of mine. When my sisters and I were kids, my mother always dressed us in an “assigned” color. From my eldest sister down to me, we were purple, blue, yellow and pink. Family pictures were always so colorful!

Back in July, when Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter sent the baby quilt tops that I finished into Polka Party 1-4, she also sent a box stuffed full of scrap fabrics and remnant pieces. There were a lot of 2.5″ wide pink and purple scraps, that I combined with some of my pink and purple scraps to make the 5×5 scrap blocks. The white/stars and the lilac fabrics were also part of what Jocelyn sent, which I used to make the larger chevron blocks. I finished this as a quanket, backing it with pink fleece.

While I had intended this quanket to be donated to a foster child, sometimes life just has different plans. In mid-2022, my connection to CPS sort of just dried up. The facility I had been dropping my quilts off to, closed. I left many messages for my contacts with CPS, to no avail. So, the quilts were just sitting, waiting to find a home.

In early 2023, my Dad was admitted to the ER. It’s a long story. Anyways, Toni, a family friend, was a huge support to myself and my siblings, giving us the peace of mind that someone was hanging out with him, and advocating for him, while he was in the hospital, as we scrambled to make arrangements to relocate him closer to myself and my sister in Southern California. I gifted this to Toni as a huge THANK YOU, and as a remembrance of her time with my Dad.

Polka Party

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Polka Party 1
August 2022


Polka Party 2
August 2022


Polka Party 3
August 2022


Polka Party 4
August 2022

Here are four baby quilts that were designed and pieced by Jocelyn over at Happy Cottage Quilter. She had made these as part of this year’s Hands to Help Challenge, but had sustained a shoulder injury before she was able to quilt and bind them. She reached out to me to ask if I would like to finish them, which I did! I really enjoy quilting baby quilts, as they are a great way to practice and improve my quilting techniques. For Polka Party 1, I quilted straight lines, a 1/4″ on both sides of the seam lines. Polka Party 2 is quilted in large, overlapping circles. The third is quilted in a harlequin/diamond pattern, and Polka Party 4 is quilted in hourglass/wavy lines.

Why Polka Party as the theme across the names? As it happened, after I had done the binding on the first three quilts, I realized that I had unknowingly chosen polka dot fabrics for each of them. So, I kept this going and found another polka dot fabric to use on the fourth. I will be sending these to Little Lambs Foundation based in Utah, who were one of the handful of recipients of this year’s Hands2Help challenge comfort quilts. At the close of the challenge back in the Spring, there were a total of 562 quilts that went to the participating charities! Little Lambs Foundation provides backpacks full of comfort items for children from newborn to 17 who are transitioning into foster care, emergency shelters, or hospitalization.

Love Hugs Back

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Love Hugs Back
June 2022

First a disclaimer: I did not make this quilt, my daughters made it as a surprise birthday gift for me! They began earlier this year, working in tandem, using my husband as a courier to pass cut fabric pieces and finished blocks between their two homes. All the while, I never knew that anything was going on — yeap, totally oblivious — which is quite amazing considering we are at each of their homes to hang out and play with our grandkids every week. Also, as a quilter who often tracks random threads from my sewing room all across the house, I am impressed that there was not one thread that gave away that they had been conducting clandestine sewing activities in their homes.

Some of the blocks were designed by my grandkids, some were blocks I’ve made in past quilts, and some are ones from Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks that they liked. Considering neither of them have made a quilt from start to finish before, I’m in awe of how small some of the pieces are, of how most of the points are pretty dead-on, and of the geometry in some of the blocks, which would give even the most experienced quilter a headache!

I’m going to go ahead and bore most readers with a list of the blocks, as while perhaps not important for others, I want to document it for myself and my family. The blocks were typically not intended as exact replicas of the original quilt, but to provide a resemblance to the original quilt.

  • Top row, from left to right:
    • Plumage, July 2021 – gifted to Kimi and Tracy
    • Quiet Start, January 2021 – gifted to Jeff and Miguel
    • #20 Crosses, Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks
    • Ivy’s design (used tangrams to design)
    • Sticks and Stones block, June 2002 – gifted to Amber (college quilt)
  • Second row
    • #7 Crosses, Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks
    • Phillip, September 2020 (row 5, column 1)
    • Hoplon, March 2019 – gifted to Jamie
    • Country Fair, September 2015
    • Aurora, August 2020 (row 2, column 2)
  • Third row
  • Forth row
    • #2 Crosses, Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks
    • Nolan’s design
    • Palahdee, September 2019 (adjusted version)
    • Pocket Full of Monsters, August 2020 – pandemic distance project with Amber & Felix
    • #3 Crosses, Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks
  • Fifth row
    • #55 Triangles, Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks
    • Firsts, June 2021 – first quilt I ever made, for my first love
    • Opening Day, December 2018 – memory quilt gifted to Ryan
    • Further, May 2021 – gifted to Amber & Skyler
    • Persistence, July 2020 (row 4, column 1)
  • Sixth row

They chose the name. They said that the quilt represents many of the quilts that I’ve made for others, and they wanted to return the “hug”. As I finish writing this post, I am choked-up and tearful as this is the most beautiful and thoughtful gift I have ever received. I’m so thankful for the wonderful family that is mine.

24.5554° N

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24.5554° N
June 2022

The inspiration for this recently finished quanket came from Kate Spain’s block #8 which was part of Moda Block Heads 4. The center of each of the four 22″ blocks was fabric given to me many year’s ago by a family friend. I had been waiting for just the right block design to use these very special pieces, as I did not want to lose the beautiful floral designs by cutting them. While the block design was intended with a white center, these sample pieces from the iconic fashion brand, Key West Hand Print Fabrics, were the perfect substitute into the center of each ‘wild geese’ block.

Between 1962 and 1985, prolific textile designer Suzie Zuzek created over 1,500 designs for Key West Hand Print Fabrics in Key West, Florida, which were used by Lilly Pulitzer. Suzie Zuzek’s design contributions were on exhibit last year at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. The eclectic patterns Zuzek designed defined a uniquely American style, often spotted on fashion icons such as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

This will be donated to a child in foster care.

Can You Teal the Love

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Donation Blocks for Can You Teal the Love
May 2022

When Kate over at Tall Tales from Chiconia announced that she is making an Ovarian Cancer charity quilt this year – after a two year pandemic hiatus – I knew right away that I wanted to contribute to this quilt project. The last one I had participated in was Go Teal it on the Mountain, back in 2018. The theme this year is love, with hearts being the feature element in the blocks’ design. To keep things interesting, she expanded the colorway from teal (predominant) and ivory, to include pink (in small amounts) this year.

I knew right away that I wanted to represent these colors in a dove, using hearts for the wings. While the pink is not intended to represent breast cancer for this quilt, the teal and pink together is meaningful to me: my sister passed away late last year from breast cancer, and her sister-in-law passed away in early 2020 from ovarian cancer. How befitting that I could combine these two colors in a dove, a symbol of love.

The final quilt (shown below) was assembled by Kate and donated for The Trudy Crowley Foundation fund-raiser in September 2022, to help support the work of the newly-opened Trudy Crowley Center. The center provides a safe space, conference room, self-care and advice haven for those with ovarian cancer and their families.

Bubblegum

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Bubblegum
May 2022

Here’s another quilt I made as part of this year’s Hands2Help Challenge that I will be sending to The Little Lambs Foundation in Utah. The challenge is being hosted by Mari over at The Academic Quilter.

This quilt incorporates a lot of “pieces of the past”. The fussy cut zoo animal centers were from my 2014 quilt, Balancing Hippopotami. The pink polka dot fabric is some from my Granny that has been in my stash and has made numerous appearances in my quankets for several years now. Another blast-from-the-past fabric is the backing fabric. I repurposed a twin sheet that was from my daughter’s college dorm days. It was still in excellent condition, and worked and looked perfect for the backing.

I enjoy using pieces of fabric, that I’ve either inherited or previously used in quilting projects, in some small way in my current projects. It sometimes makes me nostalgic, and oftentimes fills me with many great memories while I sew.

Play Ball

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Play Ball
May 2022

I used this printed panel to make a quanket (quilt + blanket = quanket). It will be donated as part of this year’s Hands2Help Challenge. The challenge is being hosted by Mari over at The Academic Quilter.

While I typically tie the fleece-backed quankets I make, I decided to try something different with this one, and quilted it on my machine. I had tried quilting on a fleece-backed quilt years ago, but became frustrated when the fleece bunched, and looked a mess no matter how many pins I used to hold it in place. However, between then and now, I have discovered the wonders of basting adhesive, which I use for all my regular batted quilts. The spray worked great at holding the fleece flat and in place. I quilted baseballs and gloves in the maroon sections, and outlined the bats, the playing field and many of the other elements.

This will be going to the Little Lambs Foundation in Utah.