August | 2016 | Lori Miller Designs

It has been a while since I posted the projects I have been working on, so it was time to do a little round up to at least catch us up to the beginning of the summer. My only son graduated from high school and the day after his graduation party, I decided to get appendicitis and it had to come out. Mix in some recovery time, summer vacation, weekends at our cottage up north, and well, you get the idea. The picture above is of my new grey couch(what a great setting for any color quilt, I can mix it up whenever I like.) I finished my pow wow quilt (Pattern by Cluck Cluck Sew) and two pillows from all of the scraps.

I did some wiggly quilting in the sashing and just wavy, organic lines over the arrow shapes. It was a quick way to quilt and it washed up great.

Next up, I had some lovely organic cotton prints with kitties on them. I used the Ballerina quilt pattern by Jaybird Quilts. It is a great way to use a special fat quarter bundle where you want to see the prints. My good friend, Laura, had celebrated a big birthday, so this throw quilt was her gift. I even did kitty themed allover quilting with curly que lines and yarn balls.

Here is a good view of the quilt and my yarn ball quilting.

I think the grey, aqua and yellow look so great together and she loved it.

I had picked up another cute bundle of fat quarters from Pink Castle fabrics in Ann Arbor, Mi. I thought they would make a great baby quilt. I thought this was a very cute pattern but I forgot about the one way prints, so that made piecing a little more challenging. I just straight line quilted around the larger squares. Then I hand drew a starburst design in the blocks.

I stitched the star burst with free motion quilting on my little bernina and on the outside big white corners, I did a some close lines for extra texture.

Here it is all finished. I had just enough yellow for the border to make it pop. Thanks to my son who is holding it up for me.

This little mini quilt was a kit that I bought in Grand Rapids at the AQS show. The pattern is Puddle Jumping Mini by Thimble Blossoms.

All those tiny pieces. I think it takes as long as a big quilt to piece these babies.

Even though it was only about 12 inches across, I still pinbasted it like crazy before quilting.

Here is my finished quilt. I just stitched some diagonal straight line quilting. It was some work, but it is so cute all finished up.

Finally, this red, white and blue beautry. I belong to the Stitching Sisters Quilt of Valor group and I finished up this large block quilt.

I was given the opportunity to award my quilt to Jerry. You can see Katy to the right, she did the longarm quilting on it. She simply does beautiful work and donates her time for many QOV quilts.

And of course, every service member gets a quilty hug to welcome them home. After serving 10 years in the National Guard myself, I have a special soft spot for all of the men and women who have served our country. It is a joy to honor them in this way.

I hope these projects inspire you to quilt up something special for yourself, a friend or even a service person. Happy Stitching!

I am pleased to share my latest published work, mini mitten coasters! They are super cute, easy to stitch up and you can use some cute coordinating holiday prints or make them super scrappy with some leftover holiday fabric.

They are featured on page 34 of Modern Patchwork Gifts 2016. This is the third year I have been published in the holiday issue and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Even though this was basically a one block design, I still used Electric Quilt 7 to design it. This tool is really versatile and it really helps you to visualize your project before you stitch it up.

I worked on this little pattern back in March. I had a really cute snowman print that I started with. But sometimes the white of the snowman blended with the white of the background and I was worried that they would not photograph well. I headed off to a local quilt shop, Cristina’s in Rochester, Mi to try to find holiday fabric in March.

And I wanted some fabric that looked modern but still holiday. She had these lovely prints tucked in a back corner. They are Winter Wonderland by Free Spirit Fabrics. And when I saw that candy cane print, all I could think of was the perfect ribbing for a mitten. These little guys are totally pieced and stitch up really fast. You could make them in an afternoon.

I decided to do some straight line quilting and make it easy. I think it adds some nice texture. Then I put on that tiny binding. It was not as hard as I thought. My usual method for joining worked just fine.

Isn’t this little mitten just adorable? You can make them with some fat eighths and a fat quarter for the backing and binding or use up your holiday scraps.