Tag Archives: Graduation quilt

My Favorite Fabric Purchase in 2018

You know those big dinner salads you can get at some restaurants? The greens cover a platter, and there are a variety of toppings, and at least two condiment containers for the dressing. You can eat and eat and eat and eat. Your dinner companions can finish their entree as you just keep eating, with little apparent progress on your meal. Using fabric stash is like that, with the added problem of the server coming ’round and putting more salad on your plate now and then.

Some people measure stash in and stash used over a period of time, a calculation that is not interesting to me. Since all my fabric collection is in a fairly small space, it’s easy to see when it’s increased or decreased. Most years in October, I do a “state of the stash” post to review it. This year I didn’t, but the text of the post would be similar: It changed! I have a bit more! or a bit less!

As I look at this quickly-passing year, I do notice how my stash has changed. It is a bit smaller than a year ago, and I didn’t buy a huge amount this year. As always, most of my projects relied heavily on stash rather than new purchases. And as always, my favorite fabric purchases are those I used right away. 

I did buy mostly new for two projects. Georgia’s graduation quilt is from white and light grey, at her request. I rarely use grey, and white is not typical, either, so this was a rather hard quilt to make. I don’t remember the size, but it covers her queen-sized bed nicely, so something like 96″ square.

Georgia’s graduation quilt. Queen-bed sized. May 2018. Photo by Jim Ruebush.

Almost all of the grey got used up in Georgia’s quilt. The leftover greys became the back of Heather’s baby quilt. Leftover white went on the front.

Another project that required new fabric was the wedding quilt for Son and his bride. To make Hands and Hearts, I needed to buy solid black Kona for the background, and a variety of batiks for the hands. The green batik in the wreath and corner Celtic knots was from stash, as were the components in the Claddagh ring and the fussy-cut hearts. The hearts actually came from something purchased in 2007, so it’s one of the older pieces in my cupboard.

Hands and Hearts. 29″ x 29″. July 2018. Photo by Jim Ruebush.

It would be hard to pick a specific favorite fabric from 2018. Since I don’t think of myself as a fabric collector, the best fabrics are those that are most useful. Sometimes that means they’re quite ordinary. Solid white, solid black, pastel batiks, grey and white prints. None of these are exciting, but the quilts they made were gifts of love.

The Lost Gallery

A couple of days ago I made a comment to my new friend Doreen at Treadlemusic. My comment was about a graduation quilt she made for her grandson last year. It was a medallion quilt with a panel center and a hunting theme, perfectly suited to the young man. This post shows the finished quilt and the lucky graduate!

In my comment to her, I shared a link to the graduation quilt I made for my son in 2012. Except, I didn’t! The link didn’t work, and with Doreen’s patience and help, I was able to figure out why. The gallery I had built for Some Old Favorites was still in preview status in WordPress. I hadn’t actually published it. As the author, I could see it. But you couldn’t!

Well, now… TA-DA!! Here is the gallery and here is the quilt.

Graduation quilt for Son. About 81″x81″. The background fabric is the same as used in FFDIL’s quilt.

Today is the first anniversary of the blog Jim and I share, Our View From Iowa. I hadn’t started Catbird Quilt Studio yet, and occasionally I published quilting posts there. One of them was this post on the graduation quilt. It includes photos and some about my process, both for design and construction.

I found the lost gallery. I hope you will enjoy seeing some of my old favorites.