Row x Row, kid's quilt

After receiving a box of scrap novelty fabrics, (yes, another!) I made this little Row x Row kids quilt.  The rows were just plain fun to make up, but organizing them in a visually pleasing order was a whole 'nuther thing!  And they didn't end up the way I had planned, nor in the "right" way,  but ... some child will love it.  Those are cats in the dark row, and birds in the 2 wide light rows.    In the center are little 2 inch, fussy cut cat squares.  (BTW, 2 in. is toooo small - don't go there.)

After eternally messing about with an almost-cohesively laid out order, I will give a LOT more credit to those designers who make BEAUTIFUL, balanced,  Row x Row quilts. 

Here is the back, also gifted fabric, all printed with holiday and season-type motifs, even a quilt block - CUTE!  This will be donated to Hugs and Stitches Quilts, sponsored by my LQS. 

Row x Row - Quilted and Bound

Quilters! I hope you can see all these 4 photos. This is a Row x Row that a group of us made for Auction for Golden Halo Foundation. I showed you bits of it along the way, and Row x Rows never look great until they are finished, and let me tell you -- this one is absolutely gorgeous, thanks to the fantastic machine quilting by our friend Anita Allen, of Prairie Creations. These photos do not show the quilting well enough, so I will post another photo when lighting is better.

We all just added bits of our own fabric along the way - even the borders were in somebody's stash.

Our original plan was to add sashing between each row, but we received more rows than expected, and it started to get too long, so some of the rows had to be combined. The finished project took our breath away -- it is so beautiful!

Another Row by Row Quilt

Several of you asked about Row x Row Quilts so I thought I would show you one that guild members made for me. This is my most special quilt.

If you've never made one, this is how we did it. The coordinator grouped 5-7 of us in a group. Each person participating (the owner), starts with a box with 1 yard of focus fabric and 1 yard of background, and then leaves a note in the box expressing preferences, or theme, or a poem, a song, whatever, for inspiration to each person along the way. The owner makes one row to equal 42 1/2 inches wide, and at the next guild meeting, passes it to the next person on the list; at the same time, she receives a box from the previous person on the list. You make a row, hopefully related to the theme, adding fabric from your stash as needed. Timeliness is important, and each person is encouraged NOT TO BE LATE although life has a way of getting in the way!

At the end of the time period, the owner gets her box back with 5, 6, or 7 rows completed. No one tells during this time - all is secret. What excitement to open that box! Now, it's a bit of a challenge for the owner to put it together, in a cohesive manner. Usually, you add the sashing, or maybe another dark row, or light row, whatever the owner feels is needed, as necessary. Some of the rows will end up longer or shorter than 42 1/2 inches, even though we all try to be accurate. It's surprising that an odd conglomeration of rows and colors will end up so beautiful.

My theme on this quilt was "Farm Memories." (I was very lucky to have grown up on a farm, yet have a large city nearby!) I remember what each person said about the row they made and the quilt became very personal. I added a wide border on mine. Because I LOVED it, I decided it just HAD to be hand quilted (not yet quilted in this photo). What pleasure to handle it for 3-4 months for the finished product to appear, loving every step along the way! I may bore you with the story behind each row, but maybe you will read between the lines and hear how dear this quilt is to me.

Top row, by Alice. "Since you lived on a farm, you HAD to have a tractor." Alice put a John Deere tractor in her row -- I never told her my Dad rolled steel for International Harvester tractors!

Tree Row - I actually HAD these in my stash, and needed a place to put them. This represents the orchard and many trees I climbed as a girl.

Hen and Chickens - This was my starting row. Note the extra HST on each end to bring it up to size. My focus fabric was a sweet blue floral.

Paper pieced row, by Sydney. My barn, my house (with the lights on), trees, my walk to school (7 miles, through 9 feet of snow, of course!), and the church next to the school where I was supposed to be changing the hymn numbers, but occasionally played the organ. One time I played boogie-woogie on that humongous old fashioned pipe organ - holy smoke it was LOUD -- neighbors made sure I didn't do that again! I got in Trouble!

Windmill - with ME feeding the chickens, in the center, made by Sydney. And YES, I DID feed chickens. Sydney was a new quilter at that time, but she progressed rapidly.

Hole in the Barn Door - by Vickie - not sure if you can see the details, but in the center of each block is a fussy cut motif or picture, "Some of the things you probably saw looking out that barn door." My gosh, I practically grew up in that barn! How sweet is that!

Garden Walk, by Bonnie - for all my Mother's efforts at gardening on the farm.

An extra checkerboard row by me, just for fun.

Block is called, "Going to Chicago" - by Laura. But I came FROM Chicago, so she changed the direction of the block. Clever?

That's me on the left. 8-) Happy day thinking of those times.

Building a Row by Row Quilt

I cannot claim to all these rows as mine - I just happen to be the caretaker for a short time until the rest of our group gets together.

Such fun! If you are a quilter who gets bored easily with making the same block for one entire quilt, this is a great project for you. We each had a scrap of the same fabric which was our focus fabric. I made the house roofs out of that focus fabric. Every window and door on the houses has a different print in it -- toooo tedious, but that makes it interesting. The houses had no pattern and I didn't take the time to make one up -- a big mistake -- as my accuracy was greatly reduced. The checkerboard row will replace the purple/green flying geese row -- we had too many flying geese. I especially like the clever off-kilter flying geese below the houses.

We are trying to balance the light and dark rows, and there is still one more dark row to be turned in. The tan color is my carpet - most of the rows will be separated with 1 1/2 inch or 2 inch creamy/pale stripe strips. Then we will border it with a lavendar strip of 1-2 inches, and a wider border (5-6 inches?) of a cream print with small lavendar flowers in it. The rows should equal 48 1/2 inches. A few need to be lengthened, either with more blocks, or a plain background.

This will be donated to a worthy cause for a raffle.

Row by Row Quilt, in progress

Our local quilt group meets once a month and we work on various projects. This time we decided to make a Row by Row, and donate it to a local charity. We liked this project on the front cover of this book, although we didn't use the colors.

We actually have MORE rows laid out on my cutting table but I will save that for another post, when it's closer to done. Row by Row quilts appear so disorganized until they are all adjusted to one size, and then when the sashing and borders are applied, they take on a wonderful life! My friend Jody made this amazing row of appliqued flowers, leaves, vines, yo-yos and buttons, and look at the string she left on the buttons - doesn't that add even more fun! She sent it to me early when I was in a funk, hoping that it would perk me up (it did!)

I opted to make traditional houses, but was somewhat dismayed that the house pattern was not included in the book. How strange? It wasn't hard to make a pattern, but still ... The plaid roof fabric was our color pallette. The little house pieces were tedious, not very precise, and filling the doors and windows took a lot of time! Too much playing, and searching for just one bit of cutesy something or other!

I DID try the Wonky Houses, ala Tonya, but decided I needed more practice. Also, mine turned out too large in scale for this project. But they WERE entertaining to put together.