My Country Tis of Thee Quilt

We have finished another baby quilt. This one is for my cousin, Miles, and his wife, Shannon. They were married a few years ago and so appreciated their wedding quilt that were exciting to make them another one.

 Miles is in the US Army and they are stationed at Fort Riley. The couple requested red, white and blue. My mom and I worked on this quilt together and we immediately knew we wanted to do something with stars. We settled on this patter that we saw on Pinterest:

We tend to gravitate toward wonky blocks. We identified the color swatch we wanted to use and went through our stashes.

We weren't sure if we want to keep each block the same color or alternate the color of the center square.

 I'm happy we chose to alternate.

 Here is a not so great of the finished quilt.

 Here's a better picture of the happy couple at their baby shower.

And here is baby the beautiful baby.

Cooper's Troopers

I can't imagine the pain a parent experiences when losing a child at a young age. Friends of ours recently went through this horrendous experience when they lost their 6 year old son to Mitochrondira disease. Little Cooper will be remembered by many. When Kara approached me about making a quilt from his t-shirts, I immediately agreed. I was honored to help create a lasting legacy in honor of Cooper.


Kara provided my a tub of shirts and clothing. Here's the pile of t-shirts I started with.

I have a strange way of designing my t-shirt quilts. I measure them and then I randomly draw out a design. It's like a puzzle, trying to get everything to piece together - without doing a Y-seam. ONce it's designed, I cut the shirt to the correct size.

When I complete a t-shirt quilt, I always pick out my favorite shirt. Although it's always tough, this one immediately stood out. Cooper loved Star Wars.

This was another favorite. (Until I had to quilt through that iron on image. That was PAIN!)

It's important to pin often before quilting a t-shirt quilt.

Here's the finished project. It's not easy to see in this photo but Kara had provided some non t-shirt clothing like pajama bottoms, athletic shorts, and oxford shirts. I used those pieces in the border.

And I used his favorite bed sheet on the back.

Kara really want to pay me for this quilt but I had another idea. I asked if instead we could exchange services. She's a wonderful photographer and agreed to take our family photos. It was the perfect trade: