Recently in Photo quilt blocks Category

Custom Double Wedding Ring Photo Quilt Nice Combination

By Charlotte on August 5, 2011 12:08 AM | No Comments

I have to admit, when I'm designing a new quilt, I can get both excited and a tad frazzled.

I'm excited about pulling a custom quilt vision together, reflecting in fabric what a customer is thinking.

It's also a bit challenging that I'll forget something, especially when customers start changing details after the original design is completed.

When all was said and done, I was very pleased with how this custom quilt turned out, and more importantly, so was the customer!

This brand new, custom quilt design incorporates printed photos on fabric with a traditional patchwork design and a lot of custom embroidery.

The custom quilt features a favorite wedding gift pattern, the traditional double wedding rings in custom brown and gold colors around the sides, matching the bride's bedroom decor colors.

The customer snuck a photo of the bedroom for us so we could make sure to match the bedroom color tones correctly!

The center of the custom quilt includes favorite photos, including an embroidered block with the couple's wedding date and embroidered wedding rings.

Photo blocks are outline quilted; then a meandering, stippling quilting design adds texture to beige fabric in between photos.

Embroidered flowers that match wedding invitations are in each quilt corner, giving added texture.

This custom quilt also features blocks with the meaning of the bride and groom's name included among photos.

We also added a floral quilt design inside each double wedding ring, which I thought nicely finished off this custom quilt.

And because with the changes we were cutting it close to the date of the wedding shower, we sent our customer a custom quilt design card with fabric samples, just in case we didn't make the date.

By the way, the custom quilt. arrived just in time, and we were told it was the hit of the party.

Charlotte

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White Custom Anniversary Photo Memory Quilt

By Charlotte on January 5, 2011 10:17 PM | No Comments

Now that the family has presented this white custom anniversary photo memory quilt to the happy couple, I can show you how well it turned out.

What I love about this white custom photo memory quilt is how much time family members put into making each of their custom photo quilt blocks.

Some of the quilt blocks are collages of photos, which are typical custom photo memory quilt blocks.

The ones that caught my attention were the custom photo quilt blocks family members made in a scrapbook style, including photos, original artwork and the name of the child featured in the block.

Several custom quilt blocks featured baby photos next to a footprint or hand print.

The custom photo quilt blocks with a baby picture, then a high school picture were also fun to see. You get a sense of the child's personality and interests looking at those custom photo blocks, making this custom photo memory quilt even more special.

I often tell customers they have the hardest job designing a custom photo quilt. They are the ones who have to go through all those family photos and decide which ones to include, and not include, in a custom photo memory quilt.

Charlotte

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How to make an easy photo quilt

By Charlotte on April 7, 2010 2:41 PM | No Comments

"I hate to bother you all but I have never made a quilt. I work
for **** and one of our colleagues is terminally
ill with *** cancer... We are having a
benefit for him and his family. I don't have the money to pay
to have a quilt made but I wanted to surprise him and his family with one
at the benefit. I would love to do it myself but I'm not able to find any
quilting books for beginners to help me. PLEASE help if you can. Any
guides or help would be greatly appreciated. I have taken tons of
pictures off their facebook page to use but not I need to know what to do
next. Thank you so much in advance for any help you may offer!!"

Hi Stacy,

Sorry to hear about your colleague's illness.

Very nice of you to try to make him and his family a quilt, I'll be glad
to try to help you.

If you have a lot of photos, the easiest thing to do is to make collages
of the photos so you can get a lot of photos on the quilt.

You can put one photo in a block to make it stand out, like one of your
sick colleague with his family, in the center or in a corner.

Hobby shops like Michael's and Hobby Lobby usually carry photo fabric
blocks you can use with a printer to transfer photos. I can't recommend
one since we exclusively use Color Plus Fabrics but I'll be glad to print
photos on fabric for you:

http://www.bluebirdgardens.com/index.cgi?realm=Home&page=Store+Item&product_id=1148

Now there are a couple of things you can do with these photo blocks:

1. You can make a quilt out of the same size squares - the bigger the
squares, the less sewing you'll have to do, something like this:

http://www.bluebirdgardens.com/?realm=Home&page=Store+Item&product_id=1286

If you use our fabric blocks, I would recommend making your quilt blocks
8.5x8.5 square. Your photo collages should be 8x8 so you can leave a seam
to sew them together with other fabric cut into 8.5x8.5 inch squares. That
way you can easily sew them all together to make the quilt top.

2. You can also sew the photo fabric blocks to the quilt blocks, or even
more simply, sew them onto solid fabric made into the quilt size you want:

http://www.bluebirdgardens.com/?realm=Home&page=Store+Item&product_id=1268

(If you put the photo blocks in a more random pattern sewn all over the
fabric, it will be easier to do)

3. You can also sew together same size quilt blocks and then sew pictures
on top of those blocks.

Once you have the quilt top pieced, you'll then need to get quilt batting
and fabric for the back.

The easiest way to finish this is to have volunteers who can hand stitch
the quilt top by tying yarn or embroidery floss to finish the quilt.
You'll then need to sew narrow fabric on the edge to "bind" the fabrics
together.

You may also find someone who knows the family who knows someone who can
actually quilt the top for you, either on a sewing machine or a real
quilting machine.

Don't forget to "sign" it - the easiest way to do that is to sew a piece
of fabric on the back with your signature and date in indelible ink pen
written on the fabric. If other people helped you, have them sign it as
well, it will mean a lot to the family.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions please let me know.