Mom, Can You Make a Quilt for This Space?

My oldest daughter Audrey and husband bought their first house in Baltimore. It's a row house with a lot of character (and two sets of 18 stairs!). At the top of the first flight is a space that begs for a skinny quilt - at least that's what Audrey thought. And, you know she thought of me.

She loves all my Gee's Bend quilts and took 2 of them to live with her about 10 years ago. She liked the center of the Lazy Gal quilt and asked if I could make that fit to a 16" x 42". Are you kidding? I can do just about anything quilt-y!

Do you remember Lazy Gal? It's one of my favorites. Here is the original one by Quinnie Pettway.

Lazy Gal by Loretta Pettway, Gee's Bend, Alabama

Here is how I patterned it for Windham Fabrics in 2009. Pretty close, huh?

Lazy Gal interpreted by me. 52" x 62"

And here is the quilt I made for Audrey using just the center of the Lazy Gal quilt. It's only 15-1/2" wide. I had to use the colors I had on hand, though a few of them are remaining scraps from the original Gee's Bend collection Windham pulled together. I took liberties with the strip widths and changed things around a little, but the feeling is the same. This was one of the easiest of the 8 patterns I designed and made for Windham.

Audrey's Lazy Gal wall banner

I wanted to use all straight line quilting. A friend showed me how she uses blue masking tape as a guide. It's brilliant. I first did some easy grid work in the center. Then I had to make sure my 42" vertical lines were going to be straight. You can see my blue tape guides here.

Blue tape is my sewing guide

And I took a picture of how easy it was for my walking foot to stay in line:

Stitching in the blue tape channels

The blue tape can be reused a few times. It doesn't leave a residue and, for me, it was revolutionary. Give it a try sometime if you need to make your lines straight.

You can see 7 of the 8 Gee's Bend patterns in my Etsy shop. Lazy Gal is here.

And, yes. Audrey loves her new banner!