TO MOM AND COCO, WITH LOVE - A healing/memorial watercolor heart quilt in memory of my Mom and dog Coco. Most of the 2" squares were fussy cut so I could get the best angle placement in the heart. I wanted it to look like a 3-D floral heart bouquet. It still needs to be quilted. Rhonda Beyer's work is greatly influencing my quilting ideas. I plan to use a lot of crystals for a dew-drop effect when the quilting is finished.

The Freedom Quilt Experience - The Freedom Quilt Experience quilt ensemble, in loving memory of 911 - displayed in the Colorado State Capital. A 45 quilter collaboration, overall concept designed by Cynthia Martin.

My Brother's Garden - Mourning quilt, made in memory of my nature-loving brother David.

CraneBow of Flight - Origami paper cranes flying in a rainbow. Each bird has three to four colors The quilt is hand quilted with more origami cranes in black on black background

Rainbows - Added piano key borders and matching bargello shams. Every seam on the quilt is quilted with tiny free-motion designs - leaves, stars, hearts, flowers, suns, stars, waves.

Rainbow Star - I wanted the challenge of a Judy Niemeyer pattern but preferred clear, crisp, bright rainbow colors to the ones used in most examples of this quilt. I love the outcome!

Heavenly Farmer - I made this for my cousin who is getting married this summer, as a memory quilt for his dad, who passed away in August 2013 after a battle with brain cancer. The squares inside the blocks on this quilt are made from fabric from his dad’s (my uncle’s) shirts. The sashing also includes some of the shirt fabric, but also supplemented with blue and green fabrics. My uncle was an Iowa farmer throughout his whole life, and if you know anything about Iowa roads and agriculture, most of the roads and fields are laid out in one mile square grids, subsectioned off from there. I wanted to design and make a quilt from his work shirts to look like Iowa farm fields if you were looking down from heaven.

Theotokos - I've always wanted to make a quilt of this traditional Eastern Orthodox icon called Theotokos, or God Bearer. When I watched Episode 211 of TQS, I knew that Beth Wheeler's technique would be the perfect solution. It's printed on four sheets of printable fabric (I made my own using Kona cotton soaked in Bubble Jet 2000 and ironed onto freezer paper), which I seamed together to make the larger picture. This will have a place of honor in my prayer corner.

Stars Over Agrabah - This traditional quilt received its middle eastern flair from the original applique border. All hand pieced and hand quilted, embellished with many crystals, this quilt is a joy to own.

Purple Passion - I wanted to make a kaleidescope block quilt and used some Australian fabrics I'd purchased at a quilt show. It became a purple quilt and I don't care much for purple. Oh, well, I really like it.

Mood Swings - Quilting in the hoop. By Hoopsisters. Quilt is in Purple Orange and Aqua.

Purple Haze - The only change I made to the pattern is making the 4 pointed stars more obvious, and there are more purple fabrics. There are no circles in this! I seem to be naming quilts after songs these days.

Playing with Fishes - This top side of this quilt is used as a cover for the game table on our lanai - the reverse side is a tie-dyed pastel browns and greens, the perfect background for game tiles. This quilt started as a small batik panel of fishes, with borders added from my stash. Quilting is just "utility" to make it easy to mix tiles on game night. I made four similar table covers for my weekly Mah Jongg group as well.

Jeannine's Quilt - Last summer I was asked to make a quilt for a friend by her husband. He sent some ideas my way - she is an organist and has played around the world so he sent a photo of the earth from space, the flags of the countries where she has played and of the organ. She is from Kansas so he had included a windmill. I thought of using the Kansas Troubles block which looks sort of like a windmill, and has an obvious Kansas reference. Finally, she loves the ocean so he sent a photo of a painting they own called "The Wave." That gave me the idea for coloring the Kansas Troubles blocks. Anyway, this is what I came up with and she LOVES it!

Bear Paw - This quilt was a block of the month from Quilting by the Hearth of Lonsdale, MN.

Tranquility - I wanted to give the idea of lily pads on water. The water is black satin and the 'bubbles' are silver tissue taffeta cut into small circles and stitched with black thread. The flower was built using several shades of pink cotton.

Lily - I took some black and white photos of my flower bed several years ago. When looking around for something different to try I found this photo of a lily. I enlarged the photo, broke it down and then machine applique'd the fabrics. I finished off with some thread sketching and then the quilting.

No But It's My Dog