ACET, Inc. Blog

As many of you know, I consider myself to be rather crafty. I learned how to knit, crochet, and sew at the age of 5 and have picked up many other crafts along the way. While some folks (like my sister) find crafting to be anxiety-provoking, I find it to be a great way to relax. I also love that I can share my creation with friends and family – which I do often!

So here are some of my projects, old and new.

1 & 2. Pinwheel Quilts

A lot of quilting consists of “variations on a theme,” and these first two quilts exemplify that. Both are called Pinwheel Quilts, but they were constructed slightly differently thus creating slightly different overall patterns. Both were baby quilts for friends I met during my post-doc in Tennessee.

3 & 4. Lone Star Wall Quilt and Bowtie Lap Quilt

Another theme in quilting is “use everything up!” I fell for the Lone Star design and wanted to try it out for myself, so I bought fabrics in teal and pink and made a wall quilt for my office. I also had a LOT of fabric left over – enough for the Bowtie lap quilt I made for my aunt.

5 & 6. Nine Patch Baby Quilts

The “Nine Patch” is one of the fundamental building blocks of quilt-dom because, when you change up the nine squares in the block, you get nearly infinite combinations. So when my cousin and his wife had twins I relied on the nine patch block so I could create quilts unique for each child but that also reflected their twin-ness. The first one is for the older twin Emily and the second is for her younger brother John.

7. Bear’s Paw Wall Quilt

This is a Bear’s Paw wall quilt I made for a raffle for the Winona Area Quilter’s Guild. Imagine my surprise when my Mom bought it!

 
8. Double Irish Chain Queen-Sized Quilt

This quilt is called a Double Irish Chain and was made as a wedding gift for some friends in Tennessee. I was living in Pennsylvania at the time and the only space big enough to hang up the quilt so I could take a picture of it was the classroom in the psych department where I taught – which is why you see a student’s desk in the picture!

 
And now a couple non-quilting projects.

9. This is a crocheted tablecloth I made as a wedding gift for some friends here in Minnesota. Although the gift was late, I did make the whole thing while studying for my qualifying exams in grad school. [Honest – the crocheting helped me relax and re-gain my focus!] The finished tablecloth is about 8 feet across.

10 & 11. Illuminated Manuscripts

I found the pattern for this wall hanging and new instantly I had to do the project. It’s a counted cross-stitch homage to illuminated manuscripts. The sparkle in the picture is due to the metallic gold thread worked throughout the piece. This one took me about five years (on and off, with lots of other projects) while the companion piece took about four years (also with lots of other projects).

 Kirsten