Magpie Quilts

Santa with yoyo's Cross stitch windsock. Folded Star Christmas ball

I am finally decorating the house for Christmas - and along with my regular ornaments, Santas and snowmen, I pulled out my Christmas quilts. I have more than I thought, so I'll take a couple posts to share them with you.  Here's my tree skirt. When we lived in Beaumont, Alberta (not Texas!) I was part of a wonderful group of women who quilted together. The blocks in the tree skirt were 6" blocks exchanged by that group. I don't have a pattern for this - its just made up as I went, but I think of my friends every time it comes out for the holidays!  I love that there are so many good happy memories with this little quilt! -Ann

There are many ways of sewing a quilt together. Some quilts are meant to be sewn together piece by piece by carefully hand stitching. Those are reserved for very special people and occasions. Other quilts are pieced together with methods that are quicker and I'm going to show you my favourite way to sew blocks together while keeping their layout intact. Continuous piecing is just sewing blocks together, one after another without a break or having to cut any threads between (or minimizing the cuts!) It's also called chain piecing and you'll be able to see why when you've tried it out. Start by laying your blocks out in the desired pattern or order.  This is a basic, simple 9-patch block, but the technique works with much larger quilts as well. There is nothing directional in these squares, but if you are working with blocks for a large quilt top, you'll want to keep track of which end is up on your blocks. I do this with a scrap of paper pinned to the top of e...

When I think about the roots of quilting in North America, it is usually connected with making quilts from found cloth gathered from used clothing and gently worn fabric. Quilting today is farther from those roots than ever as many quilters buy fabric only for quilting and often in coordinating pre-packaged kits. So, it was a surprise to me that I said yes to a friend to make some quilts from the clothing from her husband. And so I found myself with a pile of shirts and no plan of action to turn these into a quilt (or 3). I did a little online research and found a variety of memory quilts, some that I liked and some that I didn't. The first step was to cut the shirts apart so I could cut quilt pieces from them. I used Bonnie Hunter's method that she describes here . Don't you just love the quilts she's made from thrift store shirts? This was a great activity for in front of the TV and in a couple evenings I had the shirts cut up. I did realize after I had the shi...