A quilt is such a perfect baby gift, isn't it? Small enough to whip up quickly, and the sky's the limit on colors and design - because babies love everything! Here are some baby quilts I've made for some little sweeties. I made this as one of two quilts for twin baby girls.  For the second twin baby girl. On the back of each quilt I added one block from the other quilt; so the back of the pinwheels quilt had a heart block, and the back of heart quilt had a pinwheel block. Because 💕 twins! My Overlapping Color Bars Quilt was for my niece's baby girl. See more here . The Fancy Forest Baby Quilt was for my nephew's baby boy. See more here . Another nephew's baby boy got this "Zoology" quilt with hearts. For my next baby quilt, I would love to work with bold black and white patterns that even a newborn could focus on - perfect for tummy time. I'm thinking Tula Pink's Lineworks would be so much fun for a baby.       .      .      ...

There's something therapeutic about making a modern quilt. When you are piecing simple shapes in a simple design, your focus shifts to color and detail. And for me, a white background is less forgiving - and I pay closer attention to my work and try to make fewer mistakes. This was my first quilt from designer Nicole Daksiewicz of Modern Handcraft . All of her quilt designs are very modern, stunning patterns. Check out her variations of this Dot and Dash quilt in bright colors in a rainbow design, in pinks, and in soft pastels - gorgeous!  For this quilt, a gift to a BFF, I chose Ruby Star's Candlelight line of fabrics. augmented with blue and taupe solids that I agonized over, because they just didn't seem to match. I even emailed Nicole and asked her advice. (How these designers put up with me, I'll never know.) In the end, the solids I chose worked well. The quilting gods are so kind to me! I loved making this quilt so much that I am ready to make it again, this ti...

I have loved Victoria Findlay Wolfe's quilt patterns and fabrics since I first discovered her shop in New York's garment district. When I saw this scrappy, boho design, I knew I had to make it for a special wedding gift.  I purchased this in a kit directly from VFW. Her kits provide a generous amount of fabric, the scraps of which have shown up in so many quilts since this! Her patterns and instructions are error-free and so easy to follow.  This quilt is not for sale, but I would make another one in a heartbeat. 💗 This quilt brightens up any room. For backing, I used Modern Patch Gray by Marcus Fabrics. Quilting is in a modern circles pattern. I love the vintage colors mixed in with the cheery bright ones. And that binding is one of my fav fabrics. 🦆 To learn more about this quilt and Diane's other quilting projects, contact her at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com. And check out her  Instagram  page.

  Don't you just love when all the elements of a quilt just come together? This quilt was a gift to a friend with the absolute most hometown spirit of anyone I know. Our school colors were blue and white, and I just knew she had to have a quilt that spotlighted this particular shade of blue. The quilt world is full of stars. Each state has a few star designs and I had some fun choosing just the right Ohio star to work with.  There are some fascinating stories behind the state stars in quilting and Ohio is no exception. Here's the story of the Ohio star, which I found at Suzy Quilts : " Buckle up your bonnets. This one’s good. Our story today is brought to you by famous quilt scholar Barbara Brackman. Brackman gives us some great Ohio-related Civil War history that we can connect back with the Ohio Star Quilt pattern. "It all starts in the mid 1800s in Oberlin, Ohio. You may have heard of Oberlin College – I had, but I hadn’t heard about the incredible values it was fo...

  Quilt makers know that sometimes you don't choose the quilt, the quilt chooses you. In the case of this cardinal quilt, it chose the recipient. I was looking for a quilt pattern for which to make for a friend who loves birds and has created a backyard Shangri-la for them. When I saw this pattern, Cardinals by Margot Languedoc Designs for The Pattern Basket , I knew I had to tackle it. I chose a layer cake of fabrics, Roselyn by Minick & Simpson for Moda . The various shades of red, pops of pink, florals and bold stars added such variety, and made this a really fun quilt to work on.  It was a process, that's for sure. Getting the seams to match up so the tails didn't look like they disjointed was a challenge. There were lots of do-overs.  My design board was starting to cheer up my sewing room! Lap quilts are so warm and inviting. The cardinal is Ohio's state bird. Since my friend lives in Columbus, Ohio, I added this small panel to the back of the quilt. For the...

In early 2021, I had only been quilting about a year, but thanks to the pandemic, I had already amassed a pretty big fabric stash. I decided to make an entire quilt without purchasing any new fabric. I was going to use up some of these scraps, doggone it! Make room for some new purchases!  If you're a quilter, you know that's not how it works. No matter how big the quilt, your scraps seem to multiply, despite how much you use. It's a sewing room miracle. But back to the story. I drew up a design of my own, kind of a wonky log cabin block. I wanted to make a rainbow of colors that transitioned through the rainbow in a nice gradual flow.  This is going to be a long-term project, I thought. I'm not going to rush through this like a maniacal sweatshop foreman. Here, I'm going to put all my different colored scraps over here in this big box in the corner and I'll just bring it over to the table when I want to work on it for a few minutes. In the meantime I have all t...