The Next Generation

I have been a quilter for a long time.  I learned at 8 years old while playing with my mother's scraps.  My son Vincent has learned at my feet too and finished his first quilt this summer.  He picked out the pattern and the fabric himself.  I cut the pieces, but he did all the sewing.  Then he got to quilt it on Grandma's longarm.  Her comment about this was that he was so much more adventurous and wiling to try that some new quilters she's seen.

Well, since mommy enters quilts in shows, then Vincent needed to as well.  We decided to send his quilt to MQX in Springfield, Illinois last week since I was sending quilts.  Little did we know that in addition to getting a ribbon for entering his quilt (an one for the mentor--seriously, how cool is that?), he received a sewing machine!  Thank you to the sponsors!   It came in the mail when the quilts were returned and he couldn't be more thrilled.  We unboxed it on Saturday and grandma gave Vincent his first lesson on how to use his machine.  Sunday he was back at it playing some more.  He used some of my scraps with fusible on the back to make a quilt and is working on quilting lines on it.  He's so excited.  He's bummed that I will be in Houston this week and he won't get to quilt on it until I get home.

He of course asked me when I got my first sewing machine.  It was when I graduated from college.   His comment, "Ha, ha!  I got mine at 8!"  

I am off to International Quilt Festival Houston tomorrow.  I hope I sleep tonight.  I've been working on a group quilt for the last 5 years and we took a ribbon!  I can't wait for awards Tuesday evening as we will all be in attendance (MN, CO, and TX residents!) to accept our award together.  It promises to be a memorable evening!

Come back all this week to see the events unfolding in Houston!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Quilting with My Sons

A few weeks ago my sons asked to make quilts.  I've done this before with my older son Vincent who is 7, but my 4 year old Roland is new to quilting though he often asks for me to draw him what I'm working on so he can color it in.  Now they've both watched me forever, so upon being told yes, my 4 year old ran off to the other room to draw what he wanted to make.

Next we picked out background fabric and cut fusible-backed scraps into the desired shapes.  Here are the "tops" of their quilts:

Since I love to applique, these two see me drawing flowers all the time.  Clearly, they were inspired to create their own.  It certainly made this mama melt!

Next, I added backing and a layer of batted and stitched the edge.  Then I flipped them inside out and stitched around the edge to hold them together.  Finally, it was the boys turn to use decorative stitches on the machine to do the quilting.

Vincent has used the machine a few times before and was quite happy to quilt away all by himself this time!

This was Roland's first time sewing and he was nervous, so he decided I should move the quilt and he would press the pedal.  This was how Vincent started too.

And here they are with their finished quilts.  Roland must have his to sleep with every night now.  :)

Suzy