Receiving Blankets, Baby Crib Quilts, Handmade Baby Quilts

Are Handmade Baby Quilts Little Quilts?
I always smile when I think of the little girl at a craft fair who asked me about "baby quilts" being "teeny tiny." Baby quilts certainly can be smaller versions of bigger quilts; they more often are little works of art made just for babies!

Receiving Blankets Baby's First Baby Quilt
Receiving blankets are usually square, either 30x30 or 36x36 inches. If baby is lucky, grandma will crochet a baby quilt that keeps baby warm on baby's way home from the hospital. Our receiving blankets are very soft; made out of fleece, cotton flannel or brushed cotton, all which are soft on a new baby's skin.  More

Clothes Quilts

Re-Purpose Clothes Into Custom Quilts
Recycling clothing into quilts is a good way to preserve special memories and reuse clothing. Over the years, we've made a number of quilts out of clothes including wedding dresses, favorite khakis, shirts and blouses, baby and children's clothes, handkerchiefs, table cloths - if it's made out of fabric, it can be made into a custom quilt. Because these quilts are custom, no two are exactly alike. We offer these custom clothes quilts as ideas to get you started thinking about what kind of custom quilt you would like us to make for you. One of Bluebird Gardens customer favorite combinations is to take a few favorite clothing pieces and add photos printed onto fabric. Custom Clothing Quilts have also been made into quilted wall hangings when we've added a sleeve on the back so the finished quilt can easily be hung on a wall for a room focal point.  More

Collecting Quilts, Quilts as Collectibles

Like anything else, handmade quilts are collectible but how collectible, or valuable, depends on several factors. Handmade quilts are collected for a variety of reasons including pattern, color, history, quilt maker, memories. Most private collectors save handmade quilts because of memories. They were made by a grandmother, mother, other special family member. Favorite handmade quilts include fabrics remnants from favorite clothes. Or each quilt block was made by a different friend. Maybe the handmade quilt marked a special event, such as a wedding, anniversary, graduation. Bottom line is, looking at a handmade quilt brings back wonderful memories.  More

Charm Quilts, Friendship Quilts, Charm Quilt Patterns

Charm and Friendship Quilts have been popular gifts for some time. To make them, a group of people get together and each provide either a couple of squares of fabrics for a charm quilt, or a completed pieced quilt block for what we've heard called friendship quilts. Although the terms can be used interchangeable, we will call charm quilts bed quilts with individual fabric blocks and friendship quilts bed quilts with individual patchwork pieced blocks.  

Crazy Quilts Early Memory Quilts

According to quilting historians, crazy quilts were a money-saving habit in Colonial times that became family tree memory quilts at their height of popularity in the 1800s.

When Colonists blankets and coverlets started to wear, they were "cut down" and used in other handmade quilts and children's clothing. These early crazy quilts with random-fabric pieces were serviceable but not necessarily pretty.  More

Cutter Quilts

If you collect old handmade quilts then you've come across cutter quilts. Cutter quilts are well-loved handmade quilts that have stained and torn areas along with areas that are relatively untouched. Cutter quilts may also be missing pieces of filling or fabric in spots or on the back. These handmade quilts are no longer usable as bedding. Often fabrics have deteriorated enough that a couple more washings may cause further damage to the damaged quilt. Cutter quilts are usually sold at auctions at discount.  

Photo Quilts, Picture Quilts, Photo Memory Quilts

Custom Picture Quilts Wrap You in Memories!
Photo memory quilts are a popular gift for a variety of occasions. We make a variety of custom photo memory quilts from custom quilts with just photos to custom quilts with photos, mementos and original clothing.

Bluebird Gardens Quilt Design Service can help you easily design and make heirloom quality custom photo memory quilts with photos, original art, mementos as well as other memory items such as t-shirts and other clothing.  

Custom T-Shirt Quilt, Custom T-Shirt Quilts

Custom T-Shirt Quilts Recycle Good Memories
T-shirts have been favorite personalized gifts for years and become one of our country's favorite all-time clothing. Even I, who didn't grow up with t-shirts, have a collection of all-time special ones: favorite t-shirts from special events, or t-shirts that made an event special. After they've been used in the garden, or workshop, they still have those memories you can't bear to loose. Then what?

Preserve and recapture those memories in Bluebird Gardens Custom T-Shirt Quilts, Custom T-Shirt Throws and Custom T-Shirt Pillows as well as Custom Sweatshirt Quilts.  More

Vintage Quilts

If you've found a box of quilts at an auction, chances are you have found a stash of vintage quilts.

Vintage quilts are from at least 20 years old to less than 100 years old.
Quilts older than 100 years old are considered antique. Quilts may last for several centuries depending on how they were made and how they have been preserved. Most vintage utilitarian quilts either fall apart from use or are re-purposed into quilt filling, pillows or other household items.  

Custom Personalized Wedding Quilts

Do You Take This Quilt.....
Over the years, handmade quilts have been a favorite personalized gift idea for weddings, wedding showers and anniversaries as well as gifts for parents. From smaller throw-size lap quilts to over-sized king size quilts, handmade quilts are practical and thoughtful wedding gifts.

Double Wedding Ring Quilts
The most popular wedding quilt gift is Double Wedding Ring Quilts. Green Williamsburg Double Wedding Ring Queen ($239) not including custom embroidery. These traditional patchwork quilts from the 1930s feature circles of smaller pieced-fabrics interlocking fabric rings. Considered one of the more difficult patchwork quilt patterns to make, Bluebird Gardens carries a range of double wedding ring quilts, from made in US to imported quilts, that can easily be personalized with embroidery for wedding gifts.  

Patchwork Quilts

They are named for the way quilts are "patched" and pieced together into geometric designs. Changing a fabric color can complete change the design, which is part of the fascination of patchwork quilts. The first official unique North American patchwork quilt pattern was Log Cabin in 1872.

Great American Quilt Revival
Patchwork quilts once again become popular in 1970s during the Great American Quilt Revival. The basis of this movement centered on people beginning to take an interest and looking into their ancestors and family histories. The concept of a patchwork quilt design has recently morphed into other art forms.  More

Handmade Quilts

When I first moved back to the US, everything was a "quilt" because it was the one word my siblings and I learned to use for bedding. Some of our customers use other words to refer to quilts so here's the definition of some of the most-used words. According to Webster's Dictionary, a handmade quilt is a "bed cover made of two layers of cloth filled with down, wool and stitched together in lines or patterns."

Comforters are a "quilted bed covering," although some have told me it's a medium to heavy quilt that has been hand-tied instead of finished with machine or hand quilting.

Bedspreads are "a cover spread over the blanket on a bed mainly for ornament," which can also be a quilt.

Whatever you call them, handmade quilts are usually first thought of something that covers a bed, and can be much more! 

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