Pockets on Quilts

 While I haven’t worked on the #AHIQPockets prompt this month, I have used them in several older quilts. They are especially useful on t-shirt quilts. Sometimes the pockets can be cut out and added as a decal or appliqué.

Even better is when I kept them open at the top. The band shorts pockets of two sisters were added to their quilts so their mother could slip loving notes in them when they went to college. 

Another young friend had a special doll she wanted to keep. I added a pocket and a short ribbon to the quilt so the doll could be snapped onto the ribbon and tucked in the pocket. She never worried about losing the doll and unsnapped it for washing.

Links to many of my old t-shirt quilts can be found here.

Ann

Improv Rail Fence Blocks with Borders Quilt Finish! with Cross Hatch Machine Quilting.

Machine Quilted with fine cross hatch, binding all pieced and ready to be machine stitched on.

Improv Rail Fence Blocks with Borders finished, 21"x 25".

 Hello AHIQ'ers!

I finished my Improv Rail Fence Blocks with Borders Quilt. I'm really happy with the fine cross hatch machine quilting and I will do more of that soon. My quilting lines are about 1/4"- 3/4" apart.

See my blog for more finishes and process details. 

Have a wonderful day! 

AHIQ Prompt July 2025

Dangerous Coats

by Sharon Owens

Someone clever once said

Women were not allowed pockets

In case they carried leaflets

To carry sedition

Which means unrest

To you and me

A grandiose word

For commonsense

Fairness

Kindness

Empathy

So ladies, start sewing

Dangerous coats

Make pockets & sedition

Since Audrey is offline for a while, we need a new prompt for the second half of the year. Nann had a great suggestion: Dangerous Coats using the poem above. 

Here's what else she had to say.

If you've been watching the delightful show Elsbeth -- her last name is Tascioni.  One article I read pointed out that that's a variant of the Italian word for pockets. (Tasca ; la taschino = breast pocket.)  

BTW, there is a really good book about pockets.  https://www.amazon.com/Pockets-Intimate-History-Things-Close/dp/1643751549

Coats or pockets Let’s use #AHIQPockets for this prompt. Fairness or understanding. How would you interpret this poem? 

Who else is in?

Ann

AD Hoc Improv Quilts Finished Improv Small Quilt Experiment

Here is my finished small Improv Quilt Experiment, 15" x 15".

 

 

This small Improv Quilt Experiment was started as a challenge to myself to use up scraps and leftover pieces from other projects. I started by cutting strips and piecing the strips together in units. Then I cut a few of the units once more and pieced them into more complex units and added a couple left over four patches here and there. Now it's machine quilted and the binding is an aqua batik. And it looks great on a table. 

Any improv experiments going on with you?

What New Improv Quilty Design do You Have to Share?

Scrappy left over pieces were sewn into units then into the whole.

 Calling for experiments in improv scrappy piecing!

Share with us and get into the 'spring' of things, right?

Thanks to Audrey @ Quiltyfolk.blogspot.com for hosting Brambleblooms 2 linky party now in progress! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

My Brambleblooms 2 inspired quilt top, Four Tiles with Borders.

 Thank You Audrey for all your inspiration and sharing!

I was inspired and enjoyed all your insight and projects. I look forward to more this coming year.

 Happy Holidays

I haven't been much of a blogger this year. Frankly I will be happy to see 2024 in the rear view mirror. A close friend had spinal surgery in May and is still in rehab. It has been a slow and arduous journey back to health or what will pass for it. He is in generally good health but now has significant physical limitations due to the underlying condition and surgery. I will help with his care going forward and he should have gone home this week. The universe threw another obstacle in our path when I tested positive for Covid four days ago. I hope I didn't infect anyone else as at first I thought it was a bad cold. When I lost my sense of smell and taste, I took a Covid test which was positive. I have had the vaccine and all boosters, so presumably my case was not so bad. Mainly I have extreme fatigue, breathlessness, and congestion. I have turned a corner and can tell I am getting better, but it has not been a speedy recovery. I am observing CDC guidelines and observing the required quarantine of five days. Longer if I don't test negative.

I haven't sat at my sewing machine in over a week - no energy or desire to do so. I will get back to it at some point, I am sure. I delved into a large basket that sits next to my recliner, curious as to what was in it. I found a long abandoned counted cross stitch project which I have been working on. It is quite fiddly and I wonder how I ever made much progress on it. It has been several years since I touched it. I still really like the project but my eyes and manual dexterity have really declined. I found a pair of lighted magnifying craft glasses and they really help. Here is the pattern, "Halloween Fairy" by Mirabilia. It is stitched on 28 count linen, hence the fiddly bit.

I have decided to stitch a Christmas stocking for our family's newest addition - a baby boy born in February, two months early. I was planning on a rather elaborate quilt for him, an Elizabeth Hartmann pattern but I am abandoning that idea and will make him a simpler quilt from the  tutorial "Dancing Plus" by Jan Ochterbeck.I have made this several times, most recently for a neighbor's baby. See the pattern here: https://thecolorfulfabriholic.blogspot.com/2015/08/dancing-plus-blocks-tutorial.html

Christmas Day will be low key here. My daughter and I don't exchange gifts these days. We have what we need. We will have dinner with our extended family on Christmas evening. My youngest brother is hosting this year. My contribution will be a vegetable side dish - cauliflower au gratin. Basically it is oven roasted cauliflower florets finished off with grated cheddar cheese and bread crumbs.

Wishing everyone happy and healthy holidays!