My great big Beautiful American Birthday quilt

My great big Beautiful American Birthday quilt

Kim and I watched How to Make an American Quilt last summer and I thought it would be a great quilt for a birthday quilt...hmm guess someone was listening....this is MY BIG BEAUTIFUL American Birthday Quilt....

Our bee makes birthday quilts for BIG birthdays...this one is mine...25 members....made blocks about me...its so interesting to me how the blocks really reflect something of themselves AND me....its as they say a real SHOW stopper.....so much to look at and see....There are 25 blocks in this quilt and I HOPE i put them all in this blog post...I trapuntoed alot of the blocks...almost all of them so had to quilt pretty heavily to make them pop up...but the trapuntoing really worked a treat as the Brits would say...the jack Russell and the House and the sewing machine and the cake and those applique blocks really pop with the trapuntoing....

This quilt has really been touching because so many of them made blocks that were both a piece of them and a piece of me...and so much thought went into them...AWESOME JOB ladies!

THANKS For My great big Beautiful American Birthday quilt!!!

My great big Beautiful American Birthday quilt- part two

Kathy Mullis made this block..i could NOT resist trapuntoing the ladies...also wrote words about Kathy ..sort of a memory block about her...
Dear Paula is big into art quilting...a SAQA member....she did this lovely soft landscape with Caran d'arche Neocolor ii..
Reverend Linda did this fun block..i LOVE the poem in the center which i surrounded with a feathered heart...and then though i am a UGA girl...i added things like ROLL tide to it..as well as the name of her church and Alabama...
Dear sweet Linda...this block is called Margarets Choice...how cool is that....I will never think of Linda without thinking of one of her awesome miniature sunbonnet sue quilts..what else would a Kansan quilt??? but a farm girl...or one of her wedding ring quilts...smaller than a piece of paper...I quilted a feathered star in the middle with a sunbonnet sue cat...she loves cats too...



Paula...dear Paula...this one reminds me of that first birthday quilt of Rachel's when i kept asking everyone for hands...I trapuntoed the hands...


Dana LOVES Laurel Burch and cats....and also took my hoochy mama quilt...keep meaning to ask her if this is the only block she finished...I love the way it shows off the lilac colored quilting thread.
Margaret Wesley designed this block and Sue executed it....Sue painted the background fabric...GOOD job SUE!! Trapuntoed the pallette and brushes
Long story about this block....I am fairly sure that I made the flower and it was a reject from my tiger quilt...and ended up in the scrap bag which i gave away at bee one day...Pat ended up with alot of those scraps...made some great jackets and now this great block from them...Trapuntoed the flower.
Siobhan Furguson LOVES hand applique and spiced her normal repro colors up for me...I threw in a few words about Sio with this...like Irish...and Boston....trapuntoed the design....

My magic sewing machine...designed and executed by the other Margaret, dear Margaret Wesley:> I trapuntoed it...looks mahvelous!!



Joyce Lytle...Ms. Tech Editor...had one like this on her going away quilt for C&T...is this not a NEAT idea?! and precise like our dear Joyce...who can wave her magic wand over chaos and create order...

Dear marie and Sami her daughter made this block together...Marie usually likes browns...so it was a big reach for her but with the able assistance of her daughter Sami who LOVES brights she did it!!

Kims take on Bella wearing one of the Dreadlock hats i made last year....shes a silly dog...
My beloved Jack Charley by my dear friend Pam Beeler who did an awesome job...she would rather use civil war prints...I added How About them dogs because shes a big UGA fan....and so is my other Jack Jazz who sings the song!


Margaret W designed this block and dear Ille executed it beautifully ...I trapuntoed the house....
Kay is an avid appliquer and did this lovely wreath for me....I am not thrilled with the quilting...I trapuntoed the wreath so i had to quilt it heavily...and wish i had quilted it somehow differently...i may pick it out...


This is such a fun block from my birthday sister Rachel Watson...her birthday is the day after mine and she got the very first birthday quilt four years ago...trapuntoed cake...

My dear friend Marsha Boasso is crazy about Halloween and skulls so I trapuntoed a skull on her block...she made this in the hoochy mama class that i taught last fall....


This block was combined...made by Kitty Lamb one of our oldest quilters who did the sunbonnet sue and Angie F who made the nine patch...thanks girls!
Judy and Ille are wonderful appliquers and are making this lollipop quilt of Kaffe Fassett fabrics..and judy made one for me....NO JUDY I AM NOT making one:> well maybe:> there are I think 18 blocks in this quilt...with a jillion little circles and big ones too...I am just happy judy made one for me!! THANKS JUDY!

Kim copied one of my sketches of my Jack Russell Jazz doing what she does well..snoozing on one of my quilts...replete with her favorite things...snacks ball treat play repeat endlessly:> And PS Jazz you are NOT sleeping on this quilt!!!


Betsy made several books about quilts and things that I do ....one is the skater book for her big birthday quilt that we made...I designed it...with a skater in it...skating to gold!!


Mary Verdery knows that i am a mad knitter and a mad piecer...another perfect block....and i quilted twins into it....

I love this block because it combines one of my fabrics with some of the ones I always think of my friend Connie when I see the moda sampler print...and i know she thinks of me when she sees Kaffe Fassett...


Shelvy did this one....partially for my dad the Marine and partially for her dh the Army guy....
I wrote in the borders why the quilt was given and the date and who it was from....


quilted borders of the only Phillip Jacobson print i bought when i went to Intown...the people that picked this border out did NOT go with me on that trip.. and they did not know that i loved this print....think they know me too well....its quilted with wonky feathers....