This community quilt edition shows quilt tops made by Susie in Richardson, Texas. Susie is a blog reader who lives near Cheryl in Dallas, so she delivered a stack of quilts directly to Cheryl — they met at a local quilt store, of course. I’m showing here the first two quilts that were completed.
Susie’s first quilt top gets loaded onto the longarm. This is the “floating” method of quilting, the end of the quilt and batting are not attached to rollers. But won’t that excess fabric get in the way of the quilter. . . ?
No. . . just kick the excess fabric under the quilting frame.
It looks like Susie got her inspiration for the colors in her top from the border fabric. The circles show up in so many beautiful colors. Susie has a good eye for coordinating the colors and patterns. Don’t you love her color combination?
This block shows the use of gray polka dots with a teal fabric. The border fabric is gray (it looks black in this picture.)
The inspiration for the quilt pattern came from the quilt top itself. Many quilters I know let the quilt top tell them how to quilt it. This digital quilt pattern is “Circle Play” designed by Patricia E. Ritter, and it’s available at Urban Elementz.
If you quilt tops for yourself or others, how do you pick the quilt pattern? Let me know in the comments below.
Susie’s quilt is 76” x 97,” which is just right for a twin bed.
The backing is a peach-colored sheet that came from Cheryl’s stash. Can you see how she used a variety of bindings to finish the quilt? Pink, green, blue, and purple remnants from the leftover binding’s basket.
Susie’s second top is…
another unusual color combination. Olive, orange, and teal! I’m calling this the Black Bird Quilt.
Blackbirds show up on the olive fabric. You can see several patterns here: stars with the olive fabric, stars with the orange fabric, and 4-patches with teal and white. There’s so much going on, and I think it’s a great combination.
The digital quilt pattern shown on the computer screen is “Celtic Braid” by Patricia R. Ritter. You can find this one at Urban Elementz, too.
Now if only someone would come up with a way to quilt blackbirds on a top!
This small quilt is 44” x 44.” The size and colors will be suitable for a girl or boy. I’m sure a child will love it.
Cheryl wrote me that she didn’t have solid-colored fabric that would match this quilt, so she took an unusual step of using white binding.
A white sheet was used for the backing.
Both of these Texas-made quilts were sent to Oregon for families that lost their houses in fires that swept through the Echo Mountain area on Labor Day 2020.
Thanks, Susie and Cheryl, for sharing your quilts with us. They will bring a bit of cheer to people who lost everything when their houses burned to the ground.
Love seeing the beauty of these two Texas quilters working together to help victims of Oregon fires. Amazing❣️
Cheryl did a great job on both of Susie’s quilts! Donating to fire victims was a good idea. Quilters across the country were SEW generous with spreading the quilty love those who lost everything! Thanks for sharing these, Jo.
I think those are great quilts and colors are perfect! I think we might be sending some quilts to Texas soon.
Beautiful quilts Cheryl. Thank you for donating to the Oregon fire relief. That touches my heart as I don’t live to far from the fires. In fact my brother in law and his wife had to evacuate. They were very lucky as the fires were stopped before they got there. Our church quilters donated I believe 85 quilts but when they have lost everything so much more is needed. Thank you again.
Very beautiful quilts for a worthy cause. Does anyone know if quilts are still being accepted for the wildfire relief effort and where to send?
Susan from Michigan. There is a Facebook group call Oregon Fires 2021. You could probably check with them to see what they need.
Way to go –team effort by Susie and Cherry turned into beautiful finishes!! Thanks Jo for sharing— knowing these quilts will be loved by those receiving them in Oregon.
Amazingly beautiful quilts. I know Susie personally and she make beautiful quilts! :)
Both of the quilts are lovely and going to a good cause!! I rarely “see” an all-over or E2E pattern when I put a quilt on the frame. The quilts talk to me and tell me what they want. I had one quilt on the frame 3 times before it talked!! I “see” custom quilting on just about every quilt so when someone wants E2E, it is so hard for me to come up with a motif to quilt! E2E would be much easier if I had a computerized system, but I’m totally hand-guided, so I do custom quilting on 99.9% of my quilts.
I really like those quilts. Does anyone know what pattern was used for the first quilt?
For edge to edge I look at the quilt and who it is going to. Then I decide what pattern to use.
The pattern I used was called Skip from the book 12-pack quilts by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobsen. I changed the layout and added the extra borders. A very flexible block. Hope that helps.