Donna's Quilts

Checkboard Sampler quilt--machine quilted.

Ohio Star Scrap Quilt - hand quilted. This was my first ever, quilt and was queen sized.



The quilt had just been pieced in this picture. Tracy wanted a 'family tree' quilt with embroidered names of all six children and mom and dad. They wanted Darcy Anne's block to stand out. See above.
Family Tree Baby Quilt for Darcy Anne, who lived almost two weeks


Art Class quilt for Shona. (Not quilted yet, in this picture.)

Completed Banners

Ministry banner for Tres Dias I was given a friend's husband's clothes and a small line drawing of Jesus praying for a man. I made a soft sculpture rather than a flat applique. Click to see the detail on the boots and belt.
Banner Logos Speech and Debate. I made this banner for my children's speech and debate club. The sword is hand appliqued from satin. Cody Stevens drew the sword (picture was about 5" long). The kids told me what they wanted and I did a computer mock up of their ideas. The fake suede was excellent for this project.


My sister wanted me to do this banner for carrying in a parade and displaying outside her booth at the Renaissance faires. She had already had a simple blue parachute banner with the lettering. She asked me to 'jazz it up' so you could see it from a distance.

After some questioning, I discovered she loved red and since she would use it at fairs I thought I would aim for a 'castle' look. I added tabs, red top and bottom borders and gold fringe, braid and rope. I was determined to enhance the lettering. At the bottom, you can see it was pale gold on blue. You certainly could not see it at a distance. I used shiny red fabric paint for that.

Also, she asked me to put her logo on it. The design was the size of a business card logo. I enlarged and used fabric paint to I was almost finished with the lettering in this picture. It is a bit wrinkled due to being made of parachute cloth. We ironed it out afterwards.


These are mini banners to give the clubs who visited our teenagers' square dance club.


The first practice piece for 12 Names of God banners I machine appliqued and sewed for our church. My friend, Shannon Mucha, drew the pictures I requested and then I blew them up large and appliqued them with gold lame on Satin. I will be uploading the complete set of finished banners in the next week or two.

Donna's Quilts

Checkboard Sampler quilt--machine quilted.

Ohio Star Scrap Quilt - hand quilted. This was my first ever, quilt and was queen sized.



The quilt had just been pieced in this picture. Tracy wanted a 'family tree' quilt with embroidered names of all six children and mom and dad. They wanted Darcy Anne's block to stand out. See above.
Family Tree Baby Quilt for Darcy Anne, who lived almost two weeks


Art Class quilt for Shona. (Not quilted yet, in this picture.)

New Projects I'm working on

Lena's quilt is almost done! Then I will be able to finish Brenan's quilt. I hope to enter this in our church art show this Oct. 31. You can see my earlier work on just the blocks on older posts.
This is my other entry for the art show. It is a 3 dimensional rendering of Andrew Rieth's water color painting. He painted the piece on an 8x11 piece of paper and I blew it up with a copier to 18 x 24". I'm using reverse applique and layering techniques of the Kuna indians to sew the designs. I'm using trapunto techniques and boutis to stuff each part of the picture though not all the pieces have been stuffed yet in this picture. In fact, this is only about a 1/3 of the whole piece.
This is a mock up (just folded cloth and cut outs of horses trees and fence posts) of a wall hanging that I'm going to do, on commission, for the Spendlove's new home. The mountains and hills certainly won't be so pointy and I'm buying special batiks with some artwork already printed on them for the mountains, sky, and pasture.

I always said that when the kids grew up, I was going to do custom wall hangings for people, as a home business. I discovered, a few years ago, that I was pretty good at designing cloth pictures when I was doing row quilts where each woman traded quilts for a year and worked on each other's quilts. Shannon Mucha said..why wait? I asked my dear hubby about it the next day and he said wondered how I would find a 'client'. I told him not to worry. I was sure the Lord would bring someone along who needed something new and original. How ironic it is that we were having this discussion on the way to help paint trim on our friends' new home. Gee...I wonder who needs a new piece of wall art? Hmm...Can you believe that it really didn't occur to me until I was on the floor painting trim to ask Kim if she needed anything? Voila..my new home business is born! Of course this is very much just a starting place.

I've done lots of custom projects over the years: baby quilts where they just told me, "we like these colors, and want this theme etc."banners for various ministries, and themed quilts to give as gifts to friends and family. I not only get good ideas for designing these, but also, have learned so many techniques for quilting, applique, embroidery, and beading, that I can do just about anything I can imagine. So the Spendloves agreed to commission my first one. Hurrah!


Kim wanted three main colors--the ones they painted most of their main living areas with: Deep purple, tan, and a darkish spring green. They had no art work to go with the new colors they painted with--she just loves those colors. The theme will be the Colorado Rockies.

We will add a pieced border (herringbone pattern) and possibly a scripture border on the bottom. I don't think she wants any rows of quilt blocks added, just the picture and border. I'm pretty good at lettering too which is fun. I have tons of experience with banners and even do soft sculpture. I may try to work that into her wall hanging as well as embellishments for the pasture. It may end up being about 4 x6' since they have a very large living room wall opposite the fire place, because they have a vaulted ceiling. It will be fun to see where we end up!

Completed Miscellaneous Projects

Wedding pillows designed by me for my second oldest son and his wife using French 'boutis' quilting method.

My daughter in a civil war era ball dress I made for her. A lot of hand work was involved in this dress. It had boning and 40 hand sewn eyelet holes, and six rows of hand sewn bias tape, plus eight rose corsages.

A secret Easter gift--a decorated gross grain ribbon flower on a purchased blouse.
This is a skirt that I made using a ruffler foot--no pattern needed!

Mom and daughter decorated aprons using yo-yo flowers. I purchased the denim aprons as I was in a hurry. Baby Lena was born two days after I finished these!

Summertime and the living is........ FUN... with grandkids!!

You're right...it's fall not summer...but see if this post won't remind you of what it was like just a few short weeks ago..when it was really really hot! 

Tim, the kids, and I had two great visits this summer with Amanda and the grandkids.  Matthew was able to come down for Rebekah's graduation but most of the time, he was in Russian language school in Texas, so Amanda was on her own for a few months before they packed up and moved to North Carolina.  She visited her parents in Sugar Land and her grandmother in Huntsville too.

Amanda and I got to celebrate Mother's Day together this year.  It seems like only a few years ago, that I was struck with amazement at having all these little babies around and now I'm amazed that we have all these grandbabies!  One minute you are a mom and the next...a mom-in-law...times 2!

In May, right after graduation, we realized that it was Colin's birthday and since I had been rather busy with the graduation, I forgot all about getting stuff to celebrate his birthday. I was busily sewing  his gift but had not thought about having cake and candles ready. (I learned how to make an allergen free birthday cake this May!)

Necessity is the mother of invention though and here you can see that Colin, now three is quite happy with our 'impromptu' patriotic birthday. (We borrowed Rebekah's graduation party decorations which were 'Texan' in theme.)  Since Colin is the proud son of a Marine, this seemed an appropriate theme for his little party!  I sewed him the cutest cowboy costume and got him a hat, but I can't find the pix to post at the moment.

Summertime is a great time for birthdays..but also for swimming and for watermelon.  The boys, it turned out, love watermelon and here...you can see why! Ride 'em cowboy!  Silly me..and I thought you were supposed to eat them!

Brennan, I'm afraid this is one toy you won't be taking home with you!

 One nice thing about being at Grandma's is that their Aunt Rebekah and Uncles' Jacob and Christian  are here to play with them when everyone else is tired out!

Jacob took good care of Brennan while Amanda and Christian entertained Colin when we went to Candy Cane Park one afternoon.

Amanda stayed with us a couple of weeks over the summer all told.  We went to the park, 'swam' in our jacuzzi, and Tim gave the boys rides on the riding lawnmower.

 However, sometimes the most entertaining part of the visit was just eating lunch!

Colin thought lunchtime was a lot of fun too...especially if Grandma had the camera..which of course I did!!

 And after lunch, we all watched Winnie the Pooh until Brenan fell asleep. And sometimes Grandpa would read Colin a story from the same book that Grandpa, Daddy, and Uncle Jacob all loved...Richard Scary's Best Storybook ever!

 There's nothing quite like a summer with grandbabies!