A Framed Life

April 16, 2008October 26, 2008Leave a comment

I’ve been promising you a look at the quilt my daughter has been making, a photo quilt using pictures of important moments in her life. Some of you have been asking about this quilt in the Q&A section because you have heard me mention it at seminars recently – now, at last here it is, I hope you enjoy!

My daughter wanted to capture people and moments in her life that reflected her journey from birth to her senior graduation. This is the 5th quilt she has made like this, the other 4 were made as gifts for special friends and given to them as graduation presents. What a great way to capture those moments and what a special gift! When she decided that she wanted one of these quilts as well, she wanted to make it herself.

We came up with this pattern when she made her first photo quilt, because the blocks are fast to make and no seams have to match in the block – making it pretty ‘goof-proof’ to make the block.

Every photo album has a tub picture – and this quilt is no exception

First new car – independence day for a 16 year old.

Capture those moments from the getting off the bus on the first day of school to their graduation picture. Where did all those years go?
Thank you to photographer Carl Anderson of Images by Carl for the permission to be able to copy the senior picture in the quilt. If you ever need a professional photographer – check out his website ImagesbyCarl

What a great way to capture those special moments with family and friends – and preserve the memory for years to come.

And here is a picture of the full, completed quilt – not very clear, but you get the idea.

If you would like a free copy of this pattern, designed by me, check out the next post!
Sheila Reinke, Heart of Sewing
Sheila

Photo Fabric – not just for pictures!

April 14, 2008October 26, 2008Leave a comment

As I promised in Friday’s Post “Tips on Using Photo Print Fabrics“, today I want to share with you a quilt that my daughter is making as a gift for a friend of hers.

She choose to make this quilt a little differently, rather than using photos, she choose Bible verses that were meaningful to the person she is giving the quilt to. So yes, as I said in the title, photo fabric is NOT just for pictures – we should probably call it ‘printer’ fabric, because that’s more appropriate.

This is just one of the blocks in the quilt. The only thing in this project that differed from the instructions I gave you on Friday’s post (see link above) is that the ‘image’ in this case is wording. So rather than locating a picture on her computer, she created the image using software on the computer. A text image like this could be created using a word processor or a graphic editor, whatever works best for you and you are most comfortable with.

This quilt was made using one of the Turning Twenty patterns, so here you can see a full ‘block’ from the quilt. One of the things that makes turning twenty quilts so much fun visually is that the individual blocks don’t jump right out at you.

On Friday’s post, I included pictures of the label that was being made to go with this quilt. Here is the label, first framed in a brown fabric to make it look like a photo frame, and then added to the quilt back.

space

The use of a photo as a quilt label was really a great idea – and I’m glad that she thought of it. I’ll have to try that with at least ONE of my gift projects in the future. Imagine giving a quilt as a gift and knowing that years later someone will have a picture of you that was current from the period when the quilt was made – what a wonderful gift to include!

And here is the completed quilt – you may notice that instead of 20 blocks (as their should be in a Turning Twenty quilt), this quilt was completed with 15 blocks. That is because my daughter didn’t want the quilt to be quite as wide, so she left off a row of blocks. So rather than having 5 rows of 4 blocks each, she has 5 rows of 3 blocks each.

Sorry I couldn’t get a good image of the lettering in each of the boxes, but as you can see from the closeup of the block at the top of this post, the color is a subtle one that was chosen to coordinate with the fabrics used. But each of those 15 light colored blocks does have a separate scripture verse in the block.

Sheila Reinke, Heart of Sewing
Sheila

Tips on Using Photo Print Fabrics

April 11, 2008October 26, 200810 Comments

Today, I’d like to expand a bit on one of the products used in yesterday’s DYK post on June Tailor printer fabrics.

I have been making photo fabric quilts, pillows, purses, etc. for about 6 years now, and I have always been impressed with the Colorfast product from June Tailor. I can’t tell you how many times I have worked with this product.

I have told so many people that if you want to encourage a young person to start sewing, just use a printer fabric to include a picture in the project and they will love sewing. It is so easy to put a picture of their dog, favorite friend, first car, etc. Personalize their project and you won’t be able to stop them from making more projects.

Since I started my daughter with the pictures she has made 5 queen size photo quilts with 48 pictures each as well as lots of other smaller quilts. She makes almost all her gifts, and several projects are sewn. Next week you will see a quilt she is making to give to a friend.

I was on the road traveling so I asked her to take some pictures of the process of putting a photo onto the colorfast product. Her response was why not create a label she will add to the back of the quilt she is currently making? Great idea!!

Stayed tuned for next week to see her complete finished project, but here are the images she sent me in making her lable.

Decide on pictures or writing you want.
Use email, file transfer, scanner, (you get the idea) or create the image you want on your computer. (Just because I am calling it photo fabric, don’t forget that anything you can print on your printer at home can be printed onto this fabric.)

Resize the image to the size you want the finished product to be.
Put sheet of fabric photo sheet with paper on the back into your printer. IMPORTANT: Needs to be an inkjet printer – most current home printers are inkjet, but double check if you aren’t sure what you have. Optional – you may want to do a test print of your finished image before printing onto the colorfast sheet.
Print the image.