Stephanie's Harvest Song - This was one of the most interesting and difficult quilts I've ever made and one of my two favorites. It has many 3-Dimensional parts and taught me many different blocks and techniques. The fabrics are Benartex, and I used a purple one from the collection for the backing. It is a king size. The quilting is free hand by Sharon Brooks and she is truly an artist. She made it even more special by her talent.

Folk Song

Prairie Song - This was a challenge quilt for Prairie Quilter's guild, "Little Quilt on the Prairie." The buffalo, meadow lark, ear of corn, and the large sunflower petals were painted. The center of the sunflower was pieced using the 9 degree circle ruler. There is one 5" square buffalo that was paper pieced from a Home and Garden pattern.

Dino Baseball - Duvet cover for my oldest grandson's birthday. His room theme is dinos playing sports. I adapted one block wonders and appliqued interior design.

Sam's Baseball Quilt - Center adapted from the the pattern "Baseball Fans" published in the winter 2004 issue of Quiltmaker's All Time Favorites. Changed baseball glove from a paper pieced fan design to an applique using the glove he used as a base for the pattern. Baseball is also applique. Added name block - used Carol Doak paper piece pattern for the letters.

The Ball Park - This quilt was designed as a baseball diamond. quilted with baseballs, bats and the Olde English "D" for the Detroit Tigers. Center baseball is embroidered with the owners name.

Goliath - Made for my sister-in-law to commemorate her dog Goliath.

Cats and Dogs and One Rabbit - I made this quilt "Cats and Dogs and One Rabbit" for KyAnn, the daughter of a friend I work with. Her kids had outgrown their baby/toddler clothes and she could not bring herself to get rid of them. I offered to make a quilt for her son and daughter perserving some of the clothes and lots of memories. I made a dinosaur quilt for her son and this quilt for her daughter. When I suggested making it, I never expected the bag of knit outfits that she brought me. KyAnn loves animals and we chose the pattern for Gingham Dog & Calico Cat from the Encyclopedia of Classic Quilt Patterns book. Using an applique pattern allowed me to stabilize the knits onto the background fabric and I incorporated as many of the cute little designs from the outfits as I could. Collars and bows are made from my fabric stash. Everyone loved the way it turned out. Why the rabbit? While I was working on the quilt, KyAnn adopted a rabbit so of course a rabbit had to be added and he looks right at home.

American Scotties Through the Year - The border design I created myself, but the Scotty Dog applique pattern I found in the Aunt Grace book on page 48. I enlarged the pattern and made the bow and collar one piece instead of two.

Spirit of the Northwoods - A woodsy, outdoors quilt with twelve different, unique, Northwoods and wildlife appliqued blocks.

Spirit Star - I added digitized machine embroidery and applique to the setting blocks of this broken star pattern. The embroidery is from OESD's Spirit Song set, hence the name of the quilt. I entered this quilt in the "Ugly Fabric Contest" at Quiltique, my LQS. The "ugly fabric" was a Shibori-style commercial cotton fabric that I fussy cut for the center and point portions of the pineapple diamonds.

Pieceful Angels - I made this for the Moda Challenge. I entered it in the Christmas section. It is hand appliqued and embellished.

An Angel for Angela - I made this art quilt for my son's girlfriend, Angela. The picture is based on a drawing by 19th century artist Aubrey Beardsley. I thread painted the angel and embellished the quilt with flat-back jewels.

Celtic Angel - machine pieced, hand and machine applique

Rose Window - This quilt was of the pattern for the rose window within the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. This quilt was partially finished when we had a house fire, but I was able to get it cleaned and finished in 2002. Two lessons learned: 1). If using black fabric, DO NOT use white poly batting. 2). Hand quilting with black thread on black fabric is not only impossible to see while doing it, it's impossible to see within the finished product. But the effect of the bright colors on the black fabric still made the quilt worth doing. In 2008, this quilt was bartered to a local artist in exchange for one of her beautiful prints. She now has it hanging in her house as an inspiration to her, and her work hangs in my living room as an inspiration to me!

Flamingo at Dusk - I visited my partner in California while we were dating long-distance and he picked out these fabrics while I dragged him to all the quilt shops in the area. After I went home, I designed the pattern, made the quilt, and shipped it to him. Now that we live together, we can both enjoy the quilt (at least, when his cat puts her claws away...).

Fannie's Flamingo, III

flamingo thought - This piece was done for a Heather Thomas color theory class and was based on thoughts about my family who lives in Florida and in the Bahamas. This piece was a joy to put together as each feather was fused to another fabric and then cut out and piled on in layers. Fake feathers were added in during the layering.