Fun in Every Stitch
Quilting is my way to unwind and connect with details, patterns, textures, and design. I rarely take commissions and do not make quilts for resale. Instead, I enjoy making quilts for myself and as gifts.
These quilts are all openly described for accessibility and to acknowledge (as much as possible) the creative pattern authors, teachers, fabric designers, and fellow quilters whose efforts have made my quilts possible!
Scroll down to see my most current quilts, or select one of the buttons below to visit a gallery of images from prior years. In any gallery, click on a quilt photo for an expanded image.
“The sum of a quilter’s creativity is greater than or equal to the mess left behind in the sewing room!” – unknown
Swinging Chandelier
Spring 2025: In the Summer of 2024, my mom and I attended the Mid Appalachian Quilters Symposium in Gettysburg, PA. We each won a set of blocks from the “lottery blocks” collected from quilters at the event. The blocks were all “chandelier blocks” featuring a large central colorful square framed by white with two smaller colorful squares in opposite corners of the frame. One way to arrange these blocks is vertically, on point, so that they look like the dripping crystals hanging from a chandelier. I chose to arrange my blocks (all with red focus fabrics and white-on-white background fabrics) with some vertical and some horizontal, creating rows and columns of diamonds. Where the small corner blocks meet, 4-patch diamonds appeared. I added a narrow white border, a scrappy red binding, and a bright red floral background fabric. This quilt has been donated to a women’s shelter.
Graduation Garden
Spring 2025: My niece, a recent high school graduate, likes the colors red, pink, and black. These colors, and the Secret Garden fabric collection by JK Stewart for Robert Kaufman Fabrics, inspired me to make this quilt, following Jessica Weirich’s Garden Pathways pattern. While making the quilt, I enjoyed checking out some of the other artworks from the imaginations of Duirwaigh Studios.
This 85″ x 94″ quilt alternates squares of white fabric with colorful prints featuring butterflies, flowers, frogs, peacocks, and other designs in red, pink, dark navy, and turquoise. The arrangement gives the impression of interwoven strips “winding” at angles across the quilt. I added red binding and a pieced backing with matching fabrics.
Cubicle Quilt
Spring 2025: Like many people in the DC/VA/MD area, my working-from-home status came to an end, and I returned to working in an office. To make my cubicle a little more like home, I decided to add a quilt. Since I work on issues related to blindness and visual impairment, I wanted to include braille. The design I arrived at has my name, Dr. Rebecca Sheffield, paper pieced in white on a blue background (paper-piecing letter patterns by Amarar Creacions). The fabrics are all from the Pen Pals fabric collection by Heather Givans for Windham Fabrics. Underneath the print words I added embroidered braille in turquoise thread (contracted braille for those in the know). The braille is oversized but tactually identifiable. I framed the small quilt with alternating turquoise and white diamonds on the blue background, surrounded by the turquoise quilt border with a narrow white flange. The quilting is simple diagonal lines.
Alfa-Bravo-Charlie
Spring 2025: A friend and neighbor of mine loves spending time on the water in his boat and with the Coast Guard Auxiliary. I made this quilt as a birthday gift and to say thanks for being such a great neighbor!
I followed the Maritime Alphabet pattern by Sewlovelee, which I picked up during the 2024 Mid-Atlantic Shop Hop. Each block is a 12″ square featuring one of the flags of the maritime alphabet; the red, white, blue, and yellow flag prints look like solids from a distance but actually feature subtle prints. The flags are arranged alphabetically in 6 rows of 5 blocks, with the four corners containing sail bloat quilt blocks in coordinating colors. Narrow navy blue sashing runs between the blocks, and a fun shark fabric was added for the quilt backing.
2024 Shop Hop Adventure
Winter 2025: In the Summer of 2024, I joined other quilters from all over in the All Mid Atlantic Shop Hop. I visited 27 shops and completed two of the regions. At each shop, I collected a fabric square, and in January 2025 I finally organized these squares (along with a lot of scraps from my stash) to create this 84″ square quilt. The quilt was made with seven rows of seven 12″ square blocks, and each block follows the “potato chip” pattern, in which 2 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ rectangles are added to the sides of the block, building the block from the center outwards, designed by Susan Dyer and Nancy Raschka-Reeves. Twenty-nine of the blocks have a fabric shop square or one of the two regional squares at the center. I selected and arranged the fabrics to create a gentle color wash so that the quilt fades through the colors of the rainbow from top to bottom. The backing fabric is from the Shop Hop collection by Beth Albert; it features a landscape of quaint quilt shops set amongst rural scenes. I completed the quilting myself with a mix of straight and wavy diagonal lines and added a scrappy binding.
Grrrrr….
Winter 2025: Over a long winter vacation, I tackled this challenging paper-piecing pattern, Tiger Abstractions, from Violet Craft. The quilt is 60″ x 75″, featuring the face of a tiger surrounded by jungle plants on a soft green background. All the fabrics (except the black and white) are batiks with jungle patterns. The binding and backing are a striped green batik with narrow light green and dark green strips. I used my embroidery machine to create a label which features the full body of a walking tiger in orange and grey outline, and the words “GRRR… Rebecca Sheffield Clifton, VA 2025.”
Reproduction Jewels
Fall 2024/Winter 2025: This quilt follows the Faceted Jewels pattern from Glad Creations Quilts. The original size was 80 x 104, but I extended the pattern at the edges to cover a queen-sized bed. The pattern is entirely squares and triangles (some flying geese, some half-square triangles, some isosceles triangles in squares), arranged to form chains surrounding diamonds. A mix of “reproduction” fabrics with designs from the late 1800s/early 1900s in dark red, navy, light blue, light green, dark green, pink, purple, and orange against an off-white background made from several different off-white fabrics with small prints. The borders are made from rows and rows of colorful squares. The backing is a floral print with matching colors. The Quilters Studio did the quilting in an edge-to-edge pattern of vines and flowers, and I added a scrappy binding.