Modified Tropical Turnover

This quilt is called Modified Tropical Turnover and is made with one Capachino Bali Pop of 40 strips of matching fabrics. It is basically just a half log cabin put together on point with setting triangles around the edges. I did have to buy a matching fabric for the triangles as they were bigger than could be cut from the strips. I love the 3D effect it gives you so much I've already cut out the pieces for another one, only this next one will be made from the Kiwiberry Bali Pop fabrics (mostly blues and greens). I may work on it a bit at the upcoming quilting retreat.

A couple months ago I purchased a quilting design software for my computer which allows me to be all kinds of creative in my quilt making. I really love designing my own quilt designs and I am making them available for sale as soon as I get a sample of each one made and get them all organized. I already have about 35 new patterns designed so this will take awhile, but this one is done and can be purchased for $10 if you are interested. Just email me at Arlayne.West@mchsi.com and I will let you know how to go about purchasing it.

July Update

Greetings friends! Realized I haven't added anything to this blog for several months so thought I would catch you all up on what I've been up to. This quilt is one of my own designs called Cotton Candy Pinwheel. This one is a baby crib blanket and was all paper pieced. The pieces were very small so it took some time but it really catches your eye with the unusual geometric line design. This is not a quilt that can be assembled quickly, but the small pieces really make it a "labor of love" quilt. I've already sold this one so I'm going to make another one to keep when I have the time.

This next quilt is a wallhanging double wedding ring quilt that I made for a lady from my church out of her mother's old wedding dress. It is done in crazy quilting style in the circle centers. This was my first wedding ring quilt and was quite challenging, but I love it. My son, who recently got engaged, asked me to make one for him and his fiance out of Iowa Hawkeye and Cyclone fabrics because he is a Cyclone fan and his fiance is a Hawkeye fan. Fortunately, the two schools color blend well together. So I'm doing it with pieced Hawkeye (yellow & black) rings interlocking with pieced Cyclone (marroon & gold) rings on white background. Just started working on it yesterday. It's going to be a queen size so it's going to take quite a while to get done.

I'm getting excited because it's almost time for me to pack up my stuff and head for Highland, Illinois where I'll be having a quilting retreat with my 2 sisters and my daughter who lives in the St. Louis area. Should be a lot of fun and hopefully I'll get a lot done on the Cyclone/Hawkeye quilt too. We've got the run of a quilting shop in Highland for a 3 day weekend. Stay tuned for updates on the retreat and my next designed quilt that I am finishing up now.

4 New Quilts Completed

This first little wallhanging quilt is called a Tie-One-On quilt designed in celebration of National Quilting Day. It is a yellow ribbon quilt to honor those who are overseas fighting for our freedoms.

This quilt was made from a Bali Pop roll of Batik fabrics into the Trade Winds quilt pattern. These are all fabrics in earth tone colors.

This quilt was also put together with a jelly roll of fabric. The pattern name is called Jelly Stone.

This final quilt started out as a jelly roll also. The name of this pattern is Breaking Waves.

Jelly rolls and Bali Pops are great ways of getting a large variety of fabrics for a quilt that will all blend together nicely and they cost much less than trying to puchase a small amount of so many different fabrics would. These were my first jelly roll quilts and they are definitely less expensive to make. I've got 2 more Bali Pop kits waiting for me to decide what pattern I want to make with them. Ones all browns and tans and the other is all blues and greens. I can hardly wait to start on them.

As an update on my dogs, I had to take Ginger Belle to the vet today for her to be spayed. I've done little but think about it all day. I'll be glad to get her tonight. She's not used to being separated from me and I'm just a bit worried about her. She is now full grown at 9 1/2 pounds. Her hair is getting much longer now so I have to groom them about once a week. They are so much entertainment for us.

Snail's Trail Top Done

It's me again updating you on what little sewing I got done this week. This first photo is of a small snail's trail quilt pattern with 3 borders which makes it a lap quilt size. Colors are a bit had to see in the photo but basically it is green, yellow, dark blue, and white. I did the center section last year at a quilting retreat and found it stuck in a box in sewing room this week so made myself finish the top at least. Now I just need to get it layered, qiulted, binding on, and labeled.

This block is one of 12 that will go together to make a nice size quilt. I don't remember the pattern name for this one, but it took quite a while to get all 12 blocks done. Now I just need to find some fabrics for the sashing, borders, backing and binding to finish it. If you have any suggestions on colors, etc. please let me know.

I've been working on taxes all day today and haven't had time to do any sewing, so I think it's about time to get some of that done now. Happy quilting!

My Babies: Ginger and Cookie

Last spring we purchased 2 miniature dachshunds that have turned out to be the life of the party at our home. Now Ginger is a year old and Cookie will be a year old on March 20th. They are fully housetrained and except for occasionally robbing a trash can, they don't cause much trouble. In the course of this past year we have purchased dog bedding of all sizes for them. In this first photo you will see the smallest of the dog beds that we started out with when they were little puppys. Now they still try to sleep together in this bed and as you can see, it's a very tight fit.

This next bed was a step up in size and fit them very well most of the past year and is still "do-able" if they decide to share like they usually do.

Now they have a nice big bed that they look like they're lost in, but it has become their favorite. I keep it in my office and when I'm on the computer they curl up and snooze in this bed.

As you can see they are both doing very well and growing. Ginger is almost 10 pounds and Cookie is about 8 pounds. They are both scheduled to be spayed in the next couple of months. We've decided against breeding them as we originally thought we might. They both have their own unique personallities, so different they are from each other. Ginger is the high strung hyper "guard dog" type always looking to growl at anyone that comes near me. Cookie is so laid back that I wonder sometimes if she isn't just too lazy to even eat. When I get them up in the morning, they are both in the same crate, and when I open the door Ginger runs to the back door to be let out. Cookie just rolls over on her back and wags her tail and will stay there until I pick her up and love her a bit and carry her to the back door and make her go out. I guess she's just doing her part in making sure I get at least one stretching exercise in each morning.

My First Kaleidoscope Quilts

Here are my first tries at making kaleidoscope quilts. These two are 4 patch quilts made with some funky fabric that came from who knows where and ended up in my stash. It wasn't the kind of fabric I would normally use for a quilt but it was a large print, so I figured for the first try they would work and I wouldn't be out an expense if they didn't turn out very well. I've found out since making them that they are favorites of my grandkids.

In this first quilt I only had enough fabric to make 8 blocks so I just cut a block from the actual fabric that the other blocks were cut and pieced from and put it in the center. It seems to work okay I think and it's interesting to see the unique designs that came from the fabric along side the actual fabric.

My prize kaleidoscope is one I made using a 6 patch block and some beautiful large print flowered pattern fabric. This is not quilted yet nor bound, but you can get an idea what it is going to look like from looking at the top which is now finished.

The colors in this quilt are black, white, pink, and green. They are really quite pretty but it was hard to get a good photo of this entire quilt that shows the colors up well because I have to get back so far to get the whole quilt in the photo. This is a twin bed size quilt.

Here are a few close up shots so you can see the cubes better.

My Pattern - Flippin' Bowtie

This quilt was my own design. I called it the flippin' bowtie quilt. I made the smaller one (above) and entered it into a contest but didn't win. It was quite a learning experience to try to figure out the measurements for each piece to make it come out just right. Needless to say, in the beginning I had a few "weird" looking squares before I got it just like I wanted it. This is the small wallhanging I entered into the contest. It is currently for sale on my 2009 - For Sale post if you are interested.

This is a larger lap quilt made from the same Flippin' Bowtie pattern. It was made with only 3 fabrics, red, white, and blue and the fabrics are patriotic fabrics so it can be used around the 4th of July and other patriotic holidays. It was finished with pieced red, white and blue binding.

Grief Quilts for Another Family

The grief quilts I'm going to show you this time were all made in November and December of 2009 for a lady from St. Louis whose husband died. They were made from his t-shirts and dress shirts. She sorted out which shirts she wanted in each quilt. Two were for her daughters and one for her mother-in-law. She chose the shirts for each one according to the events and who was with him at those events. Shirts that could go in all three were put in another bag. This first quilt was made for her mother-in-law.

The last two quilts were made for her daughters. All the quilts are hand tied per her request and both the fronts and the backs were quilted from the shirts. Fortunately, there were a lot of shirts to work with.

This last quilt was made with the stack and whack technique except that I kept the templates the same for each block rather than varying it as some do. The t-shirt parts were then appliqued on top of the quilt.

Grief Quilt Pillows

These pillows were made from Savannah's sweatshirts and jackets. In some cases I've included a photo of the backs so you can see how these were made.


Some times I sewed down the sleeves and hoods and some times I didn't. I just stuffed them or tacked them down in just a few key points.


These are easy to make either by hand or on your sewing machine IF your sewing machine can sew easily through all the heavy fabrics.


I had trouble with a couple of them being too thick for my machine to handle well and ended up sewing some of them by hand. It still didn't take as long as you might think.

More Quilts in Memory of Savannah

Here are the other 3 quilts I made for Savannah's family. The two T-shirt & jean quilts were made for her two teenage brothers.

This rag quilt was made for her father. It is made from all denim jeans that were Savannahs, and it has her name in letters on it.

I'm Back!

Hello everyone! I can't believe it's been so long since I've written anything on this blog. My how time flies by. We are seeing all our snow finally melting away now and see the beginnings of green grass. Yeah!

Today I am going to share a memory quilt I made for a friend from my church in memory of her daughter, Savannah. It was made from her cotton dresses and blouses for the most part. I made 3 other memory quilts for the other members of her family a year earlier, but this one was special for me. Savannah had been one of my piano students.

I have started a small business on the side of making memory quilts (I call them grief quilts) from the clothing of dear ones that have died. The family members really treasure these reminders of their loved ones. So far I have made 7 such quilts. The website is located at http://www.griefquilts.com/ if you are interested in having one made.

Here are a few closeups of this sampler quilt. Michele Pettorini did a beautiful job of the quilting on this quilt, so I wanted you to see the close ups so you can see that too.

My two puppys are both a year old now and very good little dogs. They were a lot of company for me during the long winter of staying inside a lot.

Today I'm going to share a sampler quilt I made for a client from my website http://www.griefquilts.com/. I make memory quilts from the clothing of those who have passed away. I made 4 this past winter. I'll show you all four of them here. The one that was most special to me was the one I made for Willie in memory of her daughter, Savannah. Savannah was one of my piano students and I was so happy to make memory quilts for each member of their family. I did the rest of the family's quilts over a year ago, but I just finished Willie's quilt last week. This was made from Savannah's cotton dresses and blouses for the most part. Here are a few close up shots. Michelle Pettorini quilted it beautifully.