Miranda Galadriel Capra

Miranda's Quilts

So far I've made five quilts, all very different. It started when I took a quilting class to make a quilt for my nephew Benjamin. I also made a case for my Sony Clié from leftovers in my fabric stash.

Benjamin's Quilt

This quilt is 3 blocks (squares) wide and 5 tall, and ended up being pretty large - roughly 3 feet wide and 5 feet tall. Most of the blocks are traditional patterns, a few are blocks I designed myself, and one was designed by Rob. Actually, Rob not only designed the block, but he also pieced it himself! It's the one along the right edge, 2nd from the bottom (above the signature block). The two I designed are the top-right block (which I think I later found in a book - it's similar to Gentleman's Fancy and Card Trick) and the middle block in the second row, which I call "Mirandy Rose" (see my Miranda Fest - Miscellaneous Mirandas page for more info about the real Mirandy Rose). The middle block in the quilt is usually called "Jacob's Ladder", but I chose it because the book I was looking in called it "The Tail of Benjman's Kite" (although I think I reversed some of the squares).

Benjamins Room and his quilt Benjamin's Room and his quilt
Benjamin's quilt on its chair (shows the quilting on the blocks a little)
The quilt top, before it was quilted
Miranda and Prissy putting the finishing touches on the quilt If you look all the way on the right edge of the quilt you can see a little of the quilting around the border.

Miranda's Quilt

I really enjoyed making the quilt for Benjamin, but it was a long project, and I was sad to not be able to see the finished results very often. So my next project was smaller and for myself - a pillow cover for the couch. I also used this project to practice hand-quilting, which was nice to do on flights to and from San Francisco. The quilt is about 24" square.

A photograph of the quilt. You can see the overall pattern very nicely, but the colors came out rather dark, and you can't see the quilting at all.
A scanned section of the quilt. You can see the hand-quilting, the patterns of the matierals, and the colors are better (but still a little dark).
Another scanned section of the quilt.

Scott's Quilt

My third quilt was for my friends Chuck and Gretchen, and their baby Scott. The animal patterns were all taken from A Quilter's Ark, but the coloring and selection of materials is my own. The cat block is meant to look like their cat Kibbles, and the dog block like their dog Fred. Rob helped out once again by piecing the Fred block, and he also embroidered Fred's nose and eye. This quilt ended up being about 28" square.

Small scanned image of the quilt (18k) Once again, the colors are a little dark, but not too bad.
A larger version of the same scanned image of the quilt (151k)

Nicholas's Quilt

When I was making a quilt for my nephew Nicholas I had a lot of brightly colored prints around, so I decided to make a quilt with a simple pattern, but lots of bright colors (especially to contrast Benjamin's quilt, which has somewhat sombre colors). All of the blocks are Ohio Star, and I think the finished size ended up being about 30" square. I forgot to take good pictures before I sent it to Denver, but I have enough candid pictures taken that week to give an idea of what the quilt looks like.

Miranda sewing the binding
Quilt on Miranda's lap
Quilt on Miranda's lap 2
Prissy under the quilt

Ben and Nick's Bears

I made teddy bears for Ben and Nick from a pattern in a book Gillian gave me. The pattern was terrible, but the bears are still pretty cute.

The two bears
Ben and Nick with their new bears

Joshua's Quilt

My sister Gillian wanted animals for Josh's quilt, so she got animals. I didn't have a badger for the Wisconsin fans in the household, but I picked a bear, an elephant, a panda, a beaver, and a koala from A Quilter's Ark. I tried several other background fabrics from my stash, and even bought a green for the project, but they were all too drab or just wrong. So I took the finished blocks to the store, and several people in the store thought this blue would be bright and cheery.

Quilt hung on the wall
Quilt image squared (perspective removed)
Unfinished quilt squares on the rejected blue background fabric
Unfinished quilt squares on the rejected purple background fabric
Unfinished quilt squares on the rejected green background fabric

Julia's Quilt

For my friend Amanda I used animals again to make a small wall hanging.

Julia's Quilt

Maya's Quilt

Gillian wanted animals again for Maya, but she requested that I match the animals to the announcements she had picked out. So for this quilt I made applique versions of the cartoon animals on the announcement, which was my first experience with machine applique. I also embroidered a rose (for Maya Rose) being held in the elephant's trunk. I'll get some good photos of the finished quilt to post here.

The announcement card
The quilt top, before it was quilted.

Here's a comparison of each drawn animal to its final appliqued form.

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