Big Quilt or Little Quilt?

Sometimes it works the other way too. I had originally planned to make a LITTLE Orange Peel quilt for Remembering Adelia, but gosh darn it those appliquéd pieces were so much fun to stitch. I became obsessed with making the orange peels from my reproduction scraps—carried the 3-in background squares and the peels with me everywhere I went in case I had a few minutes here and there to sew. Before I knew it, I had made over 90 blocks to piece together into a larger quilt. I'm so glad I did too because the quilt turned out to be my favorite, after obsessing over the border for weeks, and it made it onto the cover of the book (publisher chooses cover design).





I didn't have a lot of experience with appliqué and I wanted to try to make it the way Adelia would have made it—without freezer paper or stitching down the pieces by machine. Just traced the shape, finger pressed the seam under, pinned and then needle turned the edge. It's not perfect, but then, neither are antique quilts if you look at them closely. Of course, the rest of the quilt was pieced by machine (I'm not nuts) and I found a wonderful, talented woman (Dawn) who machine quilted it for me with a simple stipple design.

There's one entry in Adelia's diary where she says she needed to get away from the little girls (her sisters) and ran off into the woods with her sewing and nobody knew where she was. Wonder if she was making an orange peel quilt??




Adelia's daughters (and dog)--late 1800s

Crazy for Little Quilts

I love making small quilts and if you're reading this and following my blog, you probably do too. Quilts come in all sizes. Small quilts or doll quilts are SO much fun to make and you can actually crank them out pretty quickly in between larger ones. I like to experiment with quilt blocks or styles I wouldn't necessarily try in a large quilt. There's a little Amish quilt and also a crazy quilt in American Doll Quilts, my first book. I may not ever make a large quilt in either one of those styles, but the little ones sure are cute and you can make them in no time at all. Little quilts are also perfect for practicing your hand quilting--it really adds something, I think. Even if the first one you try isn't all that good, keep at it and you'll get better.

Little Beginnings

I started quilting 9 yrs ago by making small quilts or doll quilts for my daughter's dolls. I wasn't very good, but I kept at it because it made me (and Caitlin) feel sooo good to create something small and still be able to call it a quilt. One night before bed we were looking at the infamous American Girl Doll catalog and she asked me, "Why isn't there a quilt for MY doll?" I told her I'd make one for her doll (Felicity) and began a small quilt like those from the 19th century using reproduction fabrics (not the one pictured here). I thought it would be fun to make one for each of the dolls in different styles and began making kits and designing patterns to sell at craft shows. "American Doll Quilts" was born when I accidentally stumbled upon Martingale's website in 2003 and saw that they were accepting submissions for quilting books. Don't know why, but I took the leap. The rest, as they say, is history.

Jumping in

In a very nice way my new friend, Chickenfoot, told me I was slightly behind the times and needed to get started blogging already! Well, it sure seems like I am the only one left in the entire world who doesn’t have a blog. It's been fun reading all of the other quilting blogs out there, so after numerous urgings from well-meaning friends and fans, I'm jumping in . . . . I've always been a little bit of a late bloomer. Stay posted.