A quick post, and a quick quilt

This is a quilt that just clicked into place. I just worked quickly on the quilting and it just flowed. It is nice to knock out a little custom quilt and know that the customer is going to be happy. I have been doing the Thimbleberries for a class here in town and the ladies really like this style.

Here are some quick photos I took of the quilt as I quilted it and after it was finished. I hope you enjoy the photos. I will warn you in advance, you better like feathers. Most of the people that have me quilt for them are wanting feathers in the big border, and piano keys to finish off the edge. I am blessed with a pretty good feather. I have bad days and times when my mind wanders, but generally I am pretty lucky with the feather, NOT perfect but I am happy and continue to improve.
I don't have a lot of time and I have to get back to the frame, but I thought I would share some of the photos with you.

PS. I know I owe you some of the images from the American Beauty, but they may be hard to come by. The lighting was horrible and most of the images are a little out of focus. I am looking into it and I will see what I can come up with.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog.
Star

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

New quilts, New Year! 2013

Keeping it simple.

My goal (not a resolution, I promise) is to get the quilts posted this year. I want to try to show at least one picture of each quilt. I have so little time, sometimes I just put off the post until it seems silly to post about a quilt I finished weeks ago. I have a few plans on how to accomplish this. We will see how fast I move....

This is a quilt that I made for the giving tree at work. It is made with the Riley Blake fabric line, "Flutter" by the Quilted Fish. I think the fabric line was great with the bright orange and the blue! What a great bunch of colors. Of course I would love the orange (my company and logo colors are orange and green).  I think the blue smaller border is great also. That is the Riley Blake "shades" fabric, and the color is Robin. What great color.

 I googled "fast layer cake quilt" and I got a great YouTube from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.
They were right, what a quick quilt this was. I had it cut, sewn, quilted and bound in 5 hours, Yes I did the binding on the Sewing machine with a blanket stitch... I wish I had the time to turn it by hand, but time was of the essence. I had to get it wrapped and under the giving tree.

My thoughts on the quilting... I did a pantograph on the center of the quilt, that took longer than sewing the whole quilt. I couldn't bring myself to the the pantograph on the whole quilt, so I did my signature butterflies around in the small blue border, and a big band of feathers on the orange border. I almost did piano keys, but I just didn't have the time. Next year, watch out!  I even remembered to photograph it. I almost forgot.... I put wonderful Minkey on the back. That was a soft and warm quilt.

Then feeling the inspiration of the Riley Blake quilt above. I forged on... I had been on the phone with my sister and we talked about the holidays and when she was heading up. I told her about the Riley Blake quilt, and she was saying she wanted to make a jelly roll race quilt, but she hadn't done one and she might bring a jelly roll with her and she could make one while she was up here visiting for the holidays.
So my mind was working... I still had my daughters boyfriend that needed a little something else? I had some U of W fabric, some tan and some purple fabric, that I had picked up with the plan to make a quilt some day? so... I thought what if I cut strips 6.5" wide the width of the fabric, that would give me quite a bit of fabric strips. I sewed them end to end repeating alternating colors. Kind of like the jelly roll race quilt (so far wider strips and only 3 colors) it was one very long sewn strip of fabric. Then I started sewing the strip together and making it wider and wider and wider. I had to get it smaller than 62", because that was the width of the University of Washington polarfleas fabric I had for the back. I managed to make the quilt top 59 x 75. It works out to be perfect for a 2 person stadium blanket, or a twin quilt?
I got that sewn in around an hour and a half. WOW, I was beginning to enjoy the fun of sewing again. I pinned the quilt on the frame and learning my lesson from earlier, I did not put a pantograph on this quilt, I just did my custom swirls and covered it quickly. It quilted up in about an hour and a half. NICE... so I got the binding made and sewn on by machine and finished it also with the button hole stitch. The best part is the quilt was in the box and wrapped. in about 5 hours. It took longer to make the binding than the rest of the quit.

That was so much fun sewing and finishing up projects. But after the holidays were over and I had quilted 2 of my sisters baby quilts she made (not getting to the jelly roll quilt made). But she did make these Tetris Quilts, nice little 1" finished squares. YIKES, she did not finish hers that quickly, but they did end up being a couple really cute quilts. She made a boy version and a girl version. She had 2 people at work that were having a babies and they knew one was having a boy... So the other better have a girl? ...at least she used soft green and pastel fabrics so... it could go to a boy if it had to?? only time will tell.

Then onto some customer quilts.

I have had this purple and green split nine patch, batik quilt for a while and Diane has been so patient with me. I just needed to get the darn thing quilted. I love the colors. That woman can do color. I just fell in love with this great quilt. It is so easy, a split nine patch.  She makes the quilting pop with the cream background. I didn't do too much, I just quilted some wonderful feathered wreaths tone on tone. I used my new Magnifico thread from Superior Threads. That thread has a nice sheen to it, and it is thicker than the Bottom Line thread (I usually use), and it melds with the batik fabric. Sometime I use Bottom Line thread and it is just too thin,it looks wrong...anemic? I don't know how to describe it, but the Magnifico and the Omni thread are great with batik fabrics  and I love it. That thread make my job pretty easy.

 Thimbleberries is on the frame!

And then... I needed to get a couple Thimble Berries quilts done.
I had saved a spot for one of my customers and she ended up not finishing her BOM quilt from the Parkland Parish, but she did have a small table topper she wanted quilted? if that would work for me? Of course.... I love doing the Thimble Berry quilts because they are so darn cute. I quilted up the fence with tree grain, Mc Tavishing and or swirls in the sky and background, feathers on the flowers, feather and piano keys for the borders and so. The quilt up quick and cute. 

 I am almost ashamed that it has taken me a month to get this cute little pillow on the frame? I needed to have backing and sometimes the silliest things are a little road blocks. But I did put a pretty wreath in the center a ring of feathers in the white background and the green has wonderful piano keys and a big 360° feather for the large outside border. I love it. :) so did my customer.

And as always the first of the month brings my BOM class at the Parish. Here is my block FINISHED before the night before class starts. Go figure.... I am sure this will not last long. But for now I will enjoy it.

 

Holly Taylor!

After that I got to working on this beautiful Holly Taylor quilt. My customer said she has had the quilt finished for years. Dang it...This is such a great quilt, I love the colors and the layout. This would be a great design to put some needle turn block in. She used a panel from the fabric line, but WOW. It looks great (my opinion of course) I love the way I did the frames with the quilting, and I repeated the motif throughout the quilt. Where the blocks didn't have the red triangles, I just put part of the motif in the brown border and tied all the quilting together with the motif of the quilt. That is the part that is hard to explain about my quilting. I do not just doodle on your quilts. I work them the same way you do with the fabric line and the design. I try to put continuity into the quilt and the quilting.  I love doing this, and I want to say thanks to all of you that are so gracious and willing to let me quilt for you. Thanks I really appreciate it.  I have also included a couple quilt in progress photos for this quilt, be sure to look at them all and see what you think.

In the sunshine

The borders

on the frame doing the background.

Hanging on the design wall.

The centerpiece of the quilt.

an angle that might help you see more of the detail

Borders....

Marsha's Pink and Black BOM Sampler Quilt

I think this is one of the quilts from the Quilt Barn in Puyallup. Marsh has a wonderful quilt, she choose to use Bamboo Batting, it just feels so soft. I enjoy quilting the BOM Sampler quilts. I just feather them up and do a little doodle here and there and the darn thing is so cute. I did the "lace border" in the gray. The gray fabric is a tone that the quilting just pops on it. I knew it would, and I was unsure what to quilt there. I didn't want to just feather it, because of how bold the sashing would be and I felt like it might overpower the blocks. So... I am not sure if this is better, but I do like it. 

I have a pink and black quilt I pieced, and I need to get quilted.... Maybe I should send out my quilts? ? it is just a thought.

WIP...

Now for the oldest quilt I have.... This is Margaret's Sun Bonnet Sue quilt, and she has been waiting for me to quit it far too long. I had been afraid of her usual request...don't over quilt it, just do a little quilting, and she is not a fan of crosshatching. So...That put me in a new arena. I love to crosshatch or echo these kind of quilts???? so...I had to brace myself. You would be amazed how easy it is when you just put your mind to it. I worried about this quilt for month. I had it out and hanging in planning mode for a long time.  I googled and looked on Pintrist and looked some more. I looked at some quilt shows, antique shops and kept looking for something kind of in the same period that would be lightly quilted. This is a pretty old quilt top, these are very old fabrics, and it needed respected. I am not a fan of seeing these quilts with an all over pattern (no pantographs or meander). I have to think out of the box and into the old and antique box? In my opinion if you all over this quilt it should be a baptist fan or crosshatching. So... below you can see how I get some of the planning going. The feather plumes are a bit fancier than they would have been back then, but that's okay in my opinion. I am not hand quilting this. 

This is just a plain block I used for planning and doodling on to see what I liked.

This is the quilting in motion. I love it. 

Thanks for looking and seeing what I have going on.

As for the Breezy update. I have found another lump on her, this one is on her belly. I will have to have it removed next week. We will go in for surgery on Wednesday, and find out more then. Wish us luck and remember us in your prayers. We can sure use it.

I just want to say thanks for looking in on us and if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and I will get back to you quickly. 

it is time to go and finish the Sun Bonnet Sue quilt.

got to go - star

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Feeling very blessed this holiday season?

(I will explain…)

I do not have any good excuses for not getting this post done sooner.  I have been so busy, it is hard to sit down long enough to put my thoughts down, arrange photos and just think clearly.  I have had so much on my plate that has to get done. I have managed to finish a couple great quilts for my customers this month and I am anxious to share them with you. I hope you like embroidery, because here I go again…

Winter Wonderland

I love this quilt, and I really like it in Blue! I am going to have to finish mine some day. Hopefully sooner than later?  This quilt turned out so wonderful I can’t wait to share it with you.

So… here is how I started this quilt… The hard part is the planning. I had to come up with a snowflake that was not the average snowflake.

 

This looks much worse than it is…normally I would just make a dog blanket out of my practice quilt. But, I was lucky enough to have a customer that needed some snowflake quilted fabric to make stockings and I needed to practice some new snowflake ideas. Here is her doodle fabric. Some flakes better than others, and some were much easier than others, I filled the background with feather doodle and swirls. The best part, I learned something new, and I didn’t end up making a dog blanket, although my dogs would have loved the blanket.

I like to be a little different, and I am always seeing this quilt with standard snowflakes. Since the fabric used on the back of the quilt already had regular snowflakes... I dressed it up a bit, and ended up loving it! I think my customer liked them as much as I do. Here are a couple photos I took while I was working on the quilt.

 

The way my long arm is situated in my studio, when the sun is nice enough to shine here in Western Washington, it reflects so nice on the quilts and makes the them look so pretty.

This is my favorite block. I just love the snowball fight!

The part about this quilt nobody would ever realize by looking at is…This quilt is 100% cotton thread. WOW, talk about work. I had no idea going into this quilt how hard cotton would be to work with. I thought I would have problems getting my heavy quilting to work, but the I had no idea what problems would came from putting that much thread in one place. I usually do this detail with silk or bottom line thread. I used Presentia and Aurifill. I even used cotton in the bobbin. OUCH that is just way to hard, I love the way this quilt looks, but when I do mine I will be using silk thread and I will love it.

I love this shade of blue on this pinwheel. This block has to be one of my favorite.

The texture of the Quilters Dream Wool batting is so nice. This so soft and so nice, it is not a piece of cardboard that I quilted the crap out of. I know some people will think this is over quilted, I think it is beautiful, and I am proud to be the quilter of this quilt. I just wish it were mine. My version is done in red, and is still in the box with the 2 biggest blocks to get done. I better get busy.

This is the perfect snow family. Just look at them so happy in the snow.

This is my absolute favorite snowflake. I had such a wonderful time watching as the quilting came together and started to look complete. If my customer uses some beads on snowflakes to add a little bling to it to makes snow twinkle, it would be too cute.

I just can’t stop myself from grabbing all the photos and showing them to you.  

And here is the whole quilt. This photo is a little blurry, but when I do not have enough sunlight I can’t get the detail I like.

Meander anyone

A couple simple quilts to keep me sane. :)

Here is a little easier quilt.  I like an easy quilt after some of the more elaborate quilts. This customer had two of the cutest quilts. The more modern quilt above for her, and she did the cute little bright quilt below for her granddaughter.

Here are couple shots to show some of the simple quilting. She didn't want a lot of quilting. I panic when someone tells me not too quilted. Some times I wonder how to keep the quilting simple. I always like them in the end, but it might take me a while to come up with a quick plan that will satisfy my taste. Most people that come to me for quilting have seen my feathers or know how I like to quilt. She is a regular customer, and just thought that the light quilting was perfect.

Thimbleberries table topper!

Thimbleberries quilts always make a nice place to quilt a lot of feathers. I can't stop myself they just look so darn good with feathers.

Here is a closeup of some of the details.

Another one that shows some of the border.

Some of the echoing I did around the holly blocks.

Just look at the wonderful detail on this little topper.

The whole quilt all done and looking good. In this lighting it is really hard to 

see all the detail. But... you can see the whole quilt.

4 Star Quilt

This quilt was made with a bit of Breakfast at Tiffany's fabric by Fig Tree Quilts and the plaid 

to add a great accent and the big sold cream around the stars, with a big beautiful Border.

Just look at the feathers in this border. I love them. I hope you can see them, it can be a little hard to photograph this time of year. (No sunlight)

What a great open area to quilt in, I really like the feathers in these kind of spaces.

This is the detail while I had it on the frame.  A little bit of quilt in progress.

I did some continuous curves in her patchwork borders.

...and this is the hole quilt.

Mother Goose embroidery quilt!

All I can say about this quilt is WOW. This is a quilt from a co-worker at the office. I kept thinking it was going to be difficult to quilt and with the back ground fill... It was kind of easy.

 

This quit is so nicely embroidered. She should be proud of the final product. She did an excellent job, and this will make a very nice family heirloom even a son would be proud of. It started out as a gift for a family friend, and after a whole year of stitching she decided to keep it for her family. And I do not blame her. It took her so much time to stitch, and she has the ring of satin stitches that could be a little fragile and so beautiful. Great job Judy, I think you did a great job....and you finished it.

Mother Goose has such a beautiful feather in her hat. The darn thing looks like a real feather in person.

All the different colors in the cat's coat are not variegated stitches. She acutally used a couple colors for that affect. Talk about having the patients to crate the whole quilt and then still follow through with all the details.

This is one of those quilts that you are always happy to be a part of. I just can't believe she let me quilt it.

Always a pleasure!

...to quilt for Julie. She is the customer I would love to be. This lady finishes so many table toppers and little wall hangings, place mats and you name it. She puts together the cutest color combinations and the nicest kits. I just love all of them. They are so darn cute.

Here is a close up of the little clock wall hanging.

Here is the matching table runner. It is hard to see all the details, but it is really cute.

This was a beautiful table runner that had this curve to both ends, and she made matching placemats. The Stonehenge Christmas Traditions Cotton Fabric with the deep color is just beautiful, and it was so perfect with some of the floragraphics fabric. What a classy Christmas set for the table.

This is one of her cute little table toppers, made with some Strawberry field and some complimentary fabric. I just love the cute little thing. I bet she has the cutest house all done up in wonderful quilts. I know that I have quilted quite a few.

It is nice when I get some photos that show the detail.

This is the whole little topper. I made the green corners into the cutest little baskets, and the feathers all around.

A wonderful flannel Garden Bliss.

 

 Can you believe that I didn't get a photo of the front. I thought I had a couple, but I can't find them. This is a great shot of the back, that was a solid brown flannel. The front was so pretty in the Shaded Oaks flannel fabrics. I am going to have to look a little deeper to see if I can see find the front photos. This was quilted with the wreaths in the hexagons and the background fill was swirled with instead of the feathered doodle meander I have quilted on some of the others.

And now for the Blessing part...

This is a picture of my dog Breezy. She is a longhair dachshund. And she has become quite fuzzy. Her fur used to be long and silky. She is about 8 years old and the apple of my eye. I noticed about 6 months ago she put on about a pound or two and she was getting to be so needy, wanting to be held and it was slowly getting to be a little burden. I love being with her, but the dog has to still be a dog, and in my house that is still a good life? She had gotten to the point of wanting to leave with me and kind of bolting into the garage if I was not careful, so I decided it was time to go to the vet and see if their was anything wrong with her. I couldn't imagine what? but telling the vet she was fuzzy, gained some weight and recently had lost interest in her food,was all I had to go on.  In the back of my mind, I think I thought it was nothing.

This is my Breezy with her son Sam. She is recovering after her surgery. I will explain.
While we were at the vet. I had them so a senior work up. They drew blood, urine and what ever else they needed. Told me she looked really good, and this may be the new normal. WOW! I thought well while we are here, this little bump showed up, and it was on her shoulder (if dogs have shoulders).  I noticed it a few weeks or maybe a month ago. It looked like a bug bite that didn't heal or was maybe infected.  He stuck a small needle into it, put what ever he took out of the bump onto a slide and thought it might not be enough to see anything, and they may have to send it out or let it heal, but he would give it a try under the microscope and see if he could see anything. He came back and told me that my dog has a Mast Cell Tumor, it was an aggressive cancer and needed to have it removed. He would want to get the other tests back before to be sure she was well enough but the tumor would have to go.
I came so close to leaving with out even mentioning the silly little bump! OMG!! we call that a blessing. Now, you can see by the bite the vet took out of her, she is going to give cancer a run for the money. I need all the blessing we can get. In this house we are kicking cancers ASS! Breezy had a grade 2 tumor removed from her. And I will pray for no new tumors and keep trying to be proactive.

We ended up putting her jacket on her, and she left the incision alone. Stitches have been removed and we are still kicking Cancers ASS! Meet the new Breezy. :) we are taking it one day at a time.

When the holidays are here... So are T-Shirt quilts

This is how it starts...

One big bag of shirts, and then the stabilizing and triming and the planning to get the quilt done. This quilt in particular is for a performing arts child, and we wanted the perfect fabric for the borders and back I chose Windham Fabrics, Good Vibrations, I think it will be prefect. If it ever gets here. Still waiting on Christmas Eve? Wouldn't you know, I have the quilt finished and I have been waiting for the fabric for about 20 days.

A Tumbler Quilt

And the quilt that took Janet 30+ years to finish.

Here is a close up and the complete quilt. There are some fabrics in this quilt that have been used in reproduction 30's quilts. This was just a quilt top and now it is a finished quilt for her nephew. I just put a all over swirl on it, and got it to her in time for the holiday trip, she had time to bind and deliver it for the holidays.

Merry Christmas and Happy a Happy New Year. 

I would have shown some of the projects I have been working on, but I will have to show them later, I keep trying to get this posting written and it has taken me weeks. I didn't even bother with watermarking the photos because I just want to get the posting up.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Take time to enjoy your family and friends for the holidays.
Thanks - star