Category Archives: Ribbon Box quilt

Happy Anniversary, Dear Husband!

by Dawn Posted on April 11, 2026

On this day in 1981 — 45 years ago — the Dear Husband and I were married. During those 45 years I’ve made him numerous aprons and several bathrobes. I even made him a couple of short-sleeved shirts in our early years together. And I’ve made dozens of shirt pockets for this man. As it became harder and harder to find short-sleeved shirts with two pockets (his favored style) I would buy long-sleeved shirts, cut the sleeves off at the elbow, and make pockets out of the lower halves, which then got sewn onto the shirts. I wrote a post about it back in 2012 which you can read here.

In all our years together, though, I never made a quilt just for the DH. I guess it’s because I felt that all of the quilts that decorate our home are his as much as mine. But this year I decided to make one just for him and give it to him as an anniversary gift.

Can you guess which one it is? It’s the bed runner I’ve been posting about the last few months! You know, the one based on the free Ribbon Box pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics. In my last post you saw pictures of it after it had been quilted, and I even teased you by telling you to come back to find out what I’ve named it.

Are you ready? The quilt is called Dream Weaver — most appropriate for a bed runner, don’t you think? Back in 1975 Dream Weaver was a hit song written and performed by Gary Wright. It’s been described as a “cosmic lullaby.” If you’re interested in hearing the song, this link will take you to the You Tube video.

Are you ready to see the bed runner now? Take a look:

My twin Diane took the photo above shortly after I finished attaching the label on the back. Here’s an earlier shot of the label being stitched on:

The bed runner measures 29″ x 64″ after its maiden voyage through the washer and dryer. I do love the soft puckery look that laundering gives a quilt:


I didn’t wait till today to give Charlie his anniversary gift. He got it on Monday of this week because Diane, who returned home on Tuesday, wanted to be there when he opened it. It was a special moment. He had seen the bed runner in progress but had no idea it was meant for him. It was quite the surprise.

And I got quite the surprise myself today! Look what was delivered late this afternoon:

Friends, you’re looking at 45 enormous pale yellow roses — one for every year the DH and I have been married. Thank you, Dear Husband!

 

 

 

Posted in aprons, bathrobe, bed runners, family, Ribbon Box quilt, update | 7 Comments

Ribbon Box #4 Back from the Quilter

by Dawn Posted on March 26, 2026

My fourth version of the free pattern Ribbon Box by Cloud 9 Designs is back from the quilter, and I am so pleased. If you saw my previous post, you know that I converted the pattern from a lap size to a bed runner by tweaking the number of vertical ribbons. Not only is #4 quilted now, it’s also bound, and I am almost finished hand-stitching the binding to the back of the quilt. Here’s a peek at the bottom half of the quilt:

The quilt motif by Quilts Complete is “Embellish,” one of my favorites. It’s especially appropriate for Ribbon Box because the swirls in the quilting look like ribbons.

I decided on single-fold binding that finishes at ⅜”. If you look at the left side of the photo above, you can see the binding strip attached to the edge of the quilt has not been folded in half. The binding strips were cut 1¾” wide according to the measurements in my tutorial on single-fold binding. The mitered corners turn out so nice and crisp! Here’s a look at one of the corners from the front . . .

. . . and from the back:

Here’s my fourth and final corner pinned and ready to tack down:

The only thing left to do after the binding is finished is make the label, and I’ve gotten a head start on that. The perfect name for this quilt popped into my head the other day but I’m going to wait until I’m ready to show off the finished quilt to reveal the name. I hope you’ll come back for that.

 

 

 

Posted in bed runners, home dec, Ribbon Box quilt, update | 4 Comments

The Joy of Petting Fabric

by Dawn Posted on January 25, 2026

Petting fabric? If you’re not a quiltmaker, “petting fabric” may be a foreign concept but I can assure you it’s a real thing — for me, at least. Earliest this month while thinking ahead to the projects I want to undertake in 2026, I decided to pull some of my most beloved fabrics from my stash to see what I wanted to use and what I needed to add to the pull to get the right mix for the designs I have in mind.

And by “the right mix” I mean that magical combination of color and value and texture that printed designs on fabric bring to a finished quilt. The combination that makes this quilter’s heart sing. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as running your hands over crisp quilter’s cotton (otherwise known as petting fabric) and imagining what beautiful things you can create from it.

I may be waxing philosophically but this past November was a milestone for me. I turned 75 – three quarters of a century! — and I got to wondering how many quilts I have left in me. I have accumulated a virtual (I won’t say literal even though it’s true, ha ha) mountain of fabric, and there’s no way I can use all of it in my lifetime.

So I asked myself: what are some of the fabrics I love so much I want to make something with them before I die? I’m not being morbid here; I simply want to acknowledge the desire to prioritize my quilt projects according to the fabrics I adore the most while taking into account the fact that I am not immortal.

So here’s a short list of projects I want to embark on in 2026. (You just have to promise not to hold me to this list because who’s to say a fabric line won’t debut in the next few months that totally takes my fancy, turns my head, and causes some of the quilts I have in mind to drop down on the list? This is the eternal dilemma for quilters, no?)

At the very top of my list is a quilt showcasing a gorgeous floral print from the “Jolie Jardin” line by Lakehouse Dry Goods:

I’ve paired it with fabrics that I think will go well with the pattern shown, Dandelions at Dusk by Blue Bear Fabrics. That Lakehouse focus fabric has been in my stash for at least 16 years. I know this because I used some of it in a quilt I made in 2010 called Dianthus, which you can see right here:

The pattern is 4-Patch Stacked Posies by HD Designs. Back then I had recently discovered the four-patch kaleidoscope block and was having great fun investigating the possibilities with other fabrics and other settings. At this point I haven’t decided whether I will make four-patch kaleido blocks for this next quilt or cut squares directly from the fabric. My plan is to make a test block or two tomorrow.

I have two quilts in mind for this next group of fabrics:

The first is a true winter version (as opposed to a holiday version) of my pattern Season to Taste. Here you see my spring, summer, fall, and winter versions:

The winter version (far right) was given to my twin Diane as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago so I made a second holiday version for myself this past year:

I’ve been rotating my Season to Taste quilts on a wall in the master bath but I don’t necessarily want to keep the winter version you see above on display during January and February. That’s why I need a true winter version, and I am totally in love with the fabrics in the grouping I have put together that speak “winter” to me. I have already cut out more than enough 45˚ triangles for the three blocks needed for a wall hanging:

The background fabric is a light gray “Grunge” from BasicGray for Moda. Very appropriate for a typical rainy winter in Portland, Oregon but the prints are lively enough to dispel the winter blahs (or is that winter blues?).

And what about the second version with these fabrics? Well . . . regular readers will recall my obsession with the free Ribbon Box pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics. I made three versions in 2024. (You can see them here in my Quilt Gallery.)

In the photo below you can see the front page of the Cloud 9 pattern. My plan is to transform it into a bed runner. I tested my idea by simply folding the paper to create a quilt with two vertical ribbons and four horizontal ones. By reducing the width of the ribbons from 5″ to 4″, I’ll wind up with a bed runner that measures 28½” wide.

I have a length of very pale aqua fabric with just a hint of texture and sparkle for the background of this quilt. I think it will be lovely!

I hardly know where to start but as Scarlett O’Hara famously said, “Tomorrow is another day.” There is nothing on the agenda tomorrow so I hope to have a test block to show you very soon.

Thank you for stopping by. And by the way, Happy New Year!

 

 

 

Posted in 4-Patch Wonder, bed runners, faux-kaleido quilts, home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, picnic quilt, Ribbon Box quilt, table runner, update, wall hanging | 6 Comments

A Pillowcase for Jan

by Dawn Posted on July 24, 2025

Today I visited a dear family friend I have known since I was six years old and delivered this sweet pillowcase as a surprise for her:

It was made using my own free tutorial.

Jan is now in her late 80s and living in a residential memory care facility. Fortunately, it’s less than two miles from my home so I’m able to stop by and visit her a couple times a week. When Jan was moved there last December, I gave her a quilt I had recently completed so her new home would have a splash of color:

Perhaps you recognize the Picnic Quilt, the first of three quilts I made last year from a free pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics called Ribbon Box. I chose the fabrics for Jan’s pillowcase with the Picnic Quilt in mind.

Here’s a close-up of the pillowcase fabrics because the photo at the top of this post doesn’t do them justice:

The main body of the pillowcase is a leaf print from the “Garden Dreams” line by Amber Elliot for Riley Blake Designs. The narrow uneven stripe used for the bottom band is from the Tilda Classic Basics Collection. (The selvage information calls it “Pen Stripe Light Blue” but it definitely reads as aqua to me.) I bought those two fabrics specifically for Jan’s pillowcase — and I liked the fabrics so much I bought enough to make a pair for the Portland White House. The sage green fabric used for the folded flange is an older piece from my stash, designed by Barbara Brackman for one of the “Morris Tapestry” lines for Moda.

I’m delighted to report that 1) the pillowcase looks great with the quilt, and 2) Jan loves them both!

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, picnic quilt, pillowcases, Ribbon Box quilt, tutorial, update | 3 Comments

“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”

by Dawn Posted on December 31, 2024

Do you know that lovely song written in 1947 by Frank Loesser? If not, you owe it to yourself to listen to the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald’s lush rendition. You can do that right here. This New Year’s Eve I’ll be putting the finishing touches on my final quilt finish of the year, Wonderful World. It will be the subject of my first post of 2025.

In the meantime, here are a few images of our decorating at the Portland White House to keep the holiday vibe going. I love seeing the elaborate decorations some of my fellow quilters have posted on their blogs and Instagram pages, especially because my decorating seems to get more minimal every year. We do keep our decorations up until Twelfth Night (January 6) so we have a few more days to enjoy them.

I bought this lovely wreath at Trader Joe’s in early December and added the clusters of red bells:

We had the exterior of our house painted this year. The door and mailbox were painted a lovely shade of green. The lights you see reflected in the door and windows are icicle lights on the curved arch on the front porch. From the sidewalk you can see our tiny tree and my little round quilt, Holliberry Circle:

Here’s a closer look:

From her perch a very relaxed Coco has a view out the front door:

My other Christmas quilt, ‘Tis the Season, is currently on rotation on the sofa:

The Dear Husband and I wish you all a safe and Happy New Year. I’ll be back in 2025!

 

 

 

 

Posted in cats, family, home dec, Quatrefoil, Ribbon Box quilt, update, wall hanging, wonky Dresden neighborhood | 5 Comments

Wonderful World, Quilted

by Dawn Posted on December 24, 2024

It’s always a pleasure to show you one of my quilts after it comes back from the longarm quilter. Once again Karlee at SewInspired2Day has worked her magic. Here’s a look at my latest quilt, Wonderful World, trimmed and ready to bind:

You probably already know that this quilt is based on the free pattern Ribbon Box by Cloud 9 Fabrics. It’s my third version of the pattern.

How about a close-up of the quilting? Happy to oblige:

I was searching for a quilt design that was lighthearted and loopy, capturing the feeling of clouds since the text print features images of nature — including “clouds of white” — in the lyrics to the song “What A Wonderful World.” I came across a quilt motif by Anne Bright Designs and knew it would be perfect for this quilt. Ironically the name of her design is “Storm Cloud” but in my view there’s nothing stormy about it.

I always ask Karlee to extend the quilting a bit beyond the edges of my quilt top:

Why? For one thing it makes it easier to apply the binding because the outer edges are anchored by the stitching. It also gives me the option of making a wider binding if I choose. For example, I could trim the quilt 1/4″ beyond the edge of the back to make a 1/2″ wide binding.

A couple more close-ups, first of the front . . .

. . . and then of the back:

You can’t see much of the quilting in this full photo of the back but trust me when I say that it looks terrific:

Likewise, you can’t see much of the quilting in the next photo but it does show you the resident feline staking her claim:

With my binding strips already cut and sewn together, my plan is to get the binding and label done in the next few days so I can claim a final finish for 2024.

 

 

 

Posted in cats, Ribbon Box quilt, update | 4 Comments

Wonderful World

by Dawn Posted on December 5, 2024

Aren’t these blocks cute? They’re 8″ Sawtooth Star blocks framed with long skinny navy triangles that make the blocks twist and turn. The star blocks date back to 2021 when I bought prints from the “Gingham Foundry” line by Riley Blake — the very prints you have seen most recently in my third version of the Ribbon Box quilt pattern:

I never got beyond the first few star blocks in 2021, probably because I didn’t have a project in mind and wasn’t sufficiently thrilled with the Sawtooth Star blocks to continue making them. But there they were in my project box nestled in with the Gingham Foundry fabrics.

Then it occurred to me that I could put those orphan blocks on the back of my quilt. The idea to make them twist and turn came about through a bit of serendipity. One of my quilt students is making a t-shirt quilt and had seen a photo of one made with blocks that twisted right and left. I knew about the technique because I had taken a class almost 20 years ago — and still had the book:

Published in 1996 by Chitra Publications, Twist ‘n Turn is now out of print but I have seen a few copies for sale on the Internet (eBay, Etsy, Amazon). I finished a quilt in 2006 using this technique but now I was having trouble wrapping my head around the directions. How could I help my student if I couldn’t figure this out? The solution was to make some test blocks at home. I’m so glad I did. Not only is the process clear to me now, I wound up with blocks that I could use on the back of my quilt. Win-win!

Here’s my completed quilt backing:

It seems to me those stars are dancing their way across the quilt back.

By the way, are you wondering about the title of this post? One of the fabrics in the Gingham Foundry line — and in my quilt top — is a text print featuring the lyrics to the song “Wonderful World:”

Isn’t that the perfect name for my quilt?

 

 

 

Posted in Ribbon Box quilt, update | 4 Comments

Could This Be Love?

by Dawn Posted on November 27, 2024

Speaking of the Ribbon Box quilt (which I was in my most recent post), remember when I reported developing a fondness last month for “Flower Garden,” one of the lines on the Cloud 9 Fabrics website featuring the Ribbon Box quilt pattern? As a reminder, these are the eight prints in the Flower Garden line:

You can guess what happened: I succumbed to temptation, went online, and ordered a yard each of six prints. I chose not to order two of them, knowing I had options in my stash to replace them with.

The fabrics arrived in due course and . . . well, maybe I’m not as much in love with them as I thought I would be. See, this is one of the dangers of buying fabric on the Internet. I generally buy fabric that I can see and touch. I want to know exactly what the colors look like in real life as opposed to what I see on my computer screen. But every now and then a line of fabric that has captivated me online is not to be found in a local quilt shop. Then I might take a leap of faith and order fabric sight unseen. Such is the case with Flower Garden.

Take a look at five of the six fabrics I ordered:

These fabrics turned out to be much darker than pictured on the website. See the two fabrics in the second row? What I thought was a coral background on the one on the left is actually a dark orange and what I thought was a gold leaf print on the one on the right is actually a darker mustard-y color.

Here’s a shot of the main focus fabric featuring birds and cranes on an indigo background:

The colors in this piece are also deeper but wow, the design is really spectacular. And I have to say the companion prints look great with it. Just imagine the possibilities for fussycutting birds and cranes.

Wouldn’t these images make lovely inset circles? Playing around with some circles I had previously cut in freezer paper, I auditioned a bird and a crane . . .

. . . and then two birds and a crane . . .

. . . and then three birds and no crane:

The companion prints to the main focus fabric could easily be combined to make a striking quilt or table runner or wall hanging. I’m going to ponder about what to make with these fabrics. If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

In the meantime, I’ll see if I can learn to love these fabrics just a bit more. Do you ever buy fabrics online and then find they don’t live up to your expectations?

 

 

 

Posted in Ribbon Box quilt, update | 3 Comments

What Have We Here?

by Dawn Posted on November 23, 2024

Can it possibly be?  A third version of the Ribbon Box quilt??

Yes, friends. This is what I have been up to lately. Last month, after completing Beribboned, my second version of the free Ribbon Box pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics, I was working on a blog post describing how I eliminated several seamlines by sewing the quilt top together in three sections rather than nine rows and how I changed the original pattern’s dimensions (45″ x 59″) to come up with a larger quilt top (51″ x 65″). But I ran into difficulty with my post-in-progress because I hadn’t taken enough notes during the construction of Beribboned to complete the post to my satisfaction.

What to do? Why, make another version, of course. And I had just the fabrics in mind. In 2021 Riley Blake Fabrics came out with a lovely line called “Gingham Foundry” designed by My Mind’s Eye. Montavilla Sewing Center in Lake Oswego, where I teach, carried several fabrics from the line and I quickly scooped them up.

The Gingham Foundry line was anchored by the large-scale floral on a dark blue background (first vertical ribbon in the photo above) but the design that made my heart sing — quite literally! — was this text print featuring the lyrics to “What a Wonderful World:”

The song, with words and music by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele, was made famous by the one and only Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, who recorded it in 1967. Others have recorded it but Satchmo’s version is by far the most well known.

I loved the idea of incorporating the text print in a Ribbon Box quilt. This was my initial fabric pull:

I added another print from the Gingham Foundry collection that I found online last year and pulled two other fabrics from my stash, a dusty blue polka dot and a gold tone-on-tone blender. Here are my fabric choices already cut into strips or rolled up to measure roughly 5″ wide, laid out in my planned setting:

After looking at that photo, I could see that the gold blender (fourth vertical strip) was much too strong so I rummaged around in my drawer of large scraps and found a softer shade of gold that seemed just right. Lo and behold, there was just enough of it to make a ribbon.

Here are the eight ribbon prints cut into 5½”-wide strips and laid out on my ironing board. The replacement gold fabric is on the upper right. I labeled the stacks 1V, 2V, 3V, 4V for vertical and 1H, 2H, 3H, 4H for horizontal (though somehow I got horizontal rows 2 and 3 reversed in this photo):

I also cut my background fabrics and labeled them by size:

This really helped in the assembly of the sections. Now take a look at the three sections, ready to be sewn together:

Notice anything unusual?

In vertical rows 1, 3, and 4, I have inserted what I call “placeholders,” scraps of fabric sewn with the back side showing. Once the three sections are sewn together, I’m going to replace those seamed pieces with single strips of the appropriate ribbon fabric to keep the flow of the fabric designs uninterrupted. In my next post I’ll show you how I did that. Do come back to see!

Posted in Ribbon Box quilt, update | 1 Comment

It’s a Wrap: Beribboned

by Dawn Posted on October 27, 2024

Beribboned is complete — and I am so happy with it!

I finished tacking down the binding yesterday and added a label to the simply pieced back:

A close-up of the label:

(I took a lot of photos while making the label so I can show you in a future post how I made my trademark round label and added a ring around it.)

When I make a label with an outer ring, I sometimes stitch in the ditch around the seam if the quilting motif suggests it might not be too obvious on the front. In the next photo you can see the circle on the front . . .

. . . but I know it will totally blend into the overall quilting when the quilt is laundered.

You can probably tell all of the above shots were taken indoors. It’s rainy in Portland today but there was a break in the clouds and even a spot of sun so my visiting twin sister Diane and I quickly headed to the back yard for a photo op in good light:

If you look in the lower left corner of the quilt you can probably see the circle where I stitched the label on the back — but I’m guessing you wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t pointed it out.

Beribboned is based on a free pattern called Ribbon Box from Cloud 9 Fabrics. I knew it was the perfect pattern to display three fabrics from Mo Bedell’s “Party Dress” line for Blue Hill, fabrics that have been in my stash for close to 15 years. The other five fabrics in the ribbons were also from my stash, as was the background and binding fabric.

Right now Beribboned measures 51″ x 65″ but it will shrink a bit after going through the washer and dryer, which is where it’s headed shortly.

Did I mention that Beribboned was inspected by Coco, who also likes it very much?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in cats, family, Ribbon Box quilt, update | 6 Comments