• Decorating With Quilts and a Designer Show-and-Tell

Decorating With Quilts and a Designer Show-and-Tell

Quilters love to show off their work -- whether it's quilted items on display in our homes, as gifts to friends and family, or at show-and-tell at guild meetings. On the flip side, quilters also like to see the work of other quilters and how they use their quilts.

Hi, it's Carolyn Beam here again; I'm the editor of Quilter's World magazine and the person who writes this update. Thanks for joining me as I share my thoughts about quilting with you. As always, I'd love to hear ideas and suggestions from you as well.

With each update, I will select a book or pattern to accompany it that I think will be of interest to you. With this update, I'm suggesting the Showering Stars Table Runner & Pillow Covers pattern. I can see so many ways this pattern can be used for different times throughout the year: red and white for Valentine's Day, patriotic colors for summer, even Halloween or Christmas colors. What a great gift this would make as well!

For this update, I reached out to many of our Quilter's World designers and asked them to share some of their quilts and how they use them to decorate in their homes. I wanted to share some of mine as well. Since we've been asked to "shelter at home," I thought it would be fun to bring a quilt show to you. Sit back and enjoy this show-and-tell. I hope these pictures and ideas from our designers not only entertain you, but also give you some inspiration for ways to use your own quilts in your decorating schemes.

I like to have quilts on my beds. I designed this red-and-white Feathered Star quilt and use it on my bed from Christmas through Valentine's Day and also around the Fourth of July.

Feathered Star quilt.

In one of my guest bedrooms, I use this pink-and-brown two-block quilt that I designed. I draped a smaller quilt on one corner of the bed. There's a rag rug on the floor made from leftover strips from this quilt. I also made a coordinating mini quilt that I framed for the wall. I like to frame small quilts. Instead of adding a binding, I sewed fabric strips around all four edges and wrapped them around the cardboard in the frame.

Pink-and-brown quilt in guest room.	Framed mini quilt.

I always like to have seasonal quilted table runners on my kitchen and dining room tables. Pumpkin Patch, from the Quilter's World autumn 2020 issue, is on my dining table.

The Pumpkin Patch runner on my dining room table.

I have an old church pew in my entryway where I love to display seasonal quilts and pillows. Here I have it decorated for Halloween.

Church pew decorated for Halloween.

A couple of other ways I display quilts include rolling them up in baskets and placing them over my stair rail.

Quilts rolled up and placed in a basket.	Quilts on the stair rail.

I've also got quilt ladders and quilt racks that I use throughout the house. Smaller quilts are draped over tables, chairs, sofas and chests. Every room in our house has a quilt somewhere. One thing to be careful about when using quilts around the house is to be mindful of areas that get a lot of sun. In these places, it's important to change quilts often to prevent sun damage.

Pillows, table runners and small wall quilts are accessories that sew up quickly and can be changed throughout your house to decorate for the different seasons. When making pillows, some quilters like to quilt the pillow top before assembling it into a pillow; others choose to leave it unquilted. Both ways are just as nice in my opinion -- it's a personal preference.

Deanne Eisenman of Snuggles Quilts likes to use antiques when displaying her quilts in order to make the displays unique. She has used old clipboards, drawers and ladders to give her displays a very creative look.

A mini quilt on a clipboard.	Quilt suspended in an old drawer.

Quilts hung on an old ladder.	Quilt on wooden rod.

Designer Chris Malone thinks decorating with quilts adds color, texture and a sense of home. She likes to fold and stack her quilts in a cabinet with glass doors or on an extra wooden chair. Quilts work wonderfully as wall art also. Larger quilts can be layered on a bed with a third quilt folded at the end. She had a few quilts she no longer cared for and cut them up and sewed them into large floor pillows and loved them again!

Quilts on wall and stacked on a shelf.	Bench pillow from Bench Pillows for All Seasons pattern book.

Nancy McNally's quilts are hung on walls, draped over a banister and stacked throughout her house. She likes to change furniture around her house and switch out quilts that are hung on the walls. Since she films videos, she likes to have a bright quilt hanging behind her while on the set.

Nancy's dining room.

Jewel Box quilt hanging over Nancy's banister.

Quilt in Nancy's video sewing-room set.

Nancy's living room.

(Note the stacks of folded quilts behind the sofa.)

Wendy Sheppard's fastest and easiest way to display a quilt is to drape one over her recovered antique sofa.

Quilt on Wendy's antique sofa.	Quilt on antique sofa.

She also places pillows on chairs, tacks a small wall hanging over her English-country pine hutch for a seasonal display and has one on the bed in her guest room.

Quilted pillow on a chair.	Quilt tacked to Wendy's pine hutch.

Wendy's guest bedroom.

Our designers were very generous in giving us a glimpse into their homes. I hope you've enjoyed their quilts. Several of our other designers also sent me photos. I'll be sharing them in future updates, so be on the lookout!

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