A Tale of Two Quilts

I've had the pleasure of quilting some Judy Niemeyer quilts this year.  I showed an Feathered Star a couple months ago - a nice sized wall-hanging.  I have also quilted two of the Amazon star patterns too.  These are 104" square BEHEMOTH quilts.  They are paper-pieced.  The ladies that did the two in this post took workshops at the Threads Galore Quilt Shop in Rangely, ME.  I see the owner Carol each year at quilt shows, and she no longer quilt for clients, so these were referred my way.  

These two quilts are very different.  They are both made mostly from batik, but the color schemes are different.  The client's end-use and budgets were vastly different as well, so you can see how a quilt with much more quilting looks.  The actual color placement certainly affects the overall look of the quilt.

This first Amazon Star was made for the client's bed.  It's not a show quilt, and if I remember right, it is her first paper-piecing project.  She told me it was hard to select fabrics, and she'd intended it to be more blue.  In the end, it has a lot of purple, so I downplayed the purple by using blue thread.  The white triangles on this pattern are very large - somewhere around 16-18" long.  They require a good bit of quilting, and convey a lot of the design detailing because they are light in color (ie., the quilting really shows here!).  This quilt has one layer of Hobbs 80/20 batting.  It has two Glide threads - dark blue and ivory.

I subdivided the triangles to have a scallop with feathers, an area with a large-ish fill (like a large version of McTavishing...McTavishing would be too dense on this particular quilt, given the client's budget and the fact she only wants it for a bed).  There are 136 (I think) spikes around the outermost border.  On this quilt, I chose a wavy, ripple-like type quilting for the white and a straightline echo for the colored spike.  This is easily stitched in a continuous manner.

To repeat the border stitching, the ripples were placed around the center star also.  Though the quilting on this quilt will appear simpler than the next version, it has a considerable amount of ditch stitching to make all the points crisp, everywhere!  It is simpler in it's design and in the density of the quilting.  This quilt represents about 25 hours of quilting.  I should note right off that this client brought a nice cotton (non-batik) backing, and it worked perfectly with the part-batik top.

The next Amazon star was quilted for show.  It is denser in it's stitching, and more complicated in design.  It is double-batted, Hobbs 80/20 with wool on top.  Threads are Glide (gold and ivory) and Superior Omni (magenta).  It has an antique feeling to me, given the colors.  The center star has a nice shadow-effect that comes from her chosing 2 colors for the main star points.  Up close, there really is a massive amount of printing in the background fabrics, but from a distance they settle nicely.  This star has a good bit of intermediate designs quilted on the star, intended to appear as texture.  There is a curved star that is visible at the inner region.  It is lovely to place designs on the quilting that do not coincide with the piecing.  It adds a nice dimension to the quilt.  I think many quilters fear doing this, but it's really not hard...just requires a little pre-planning to know where that motif will place.  Once a quilt of this size is on the frame, it is hard to see where to mark.

 This star I quilted shows in this picture.  On this quilt, I did additional echo quilting (ie. double and triple lines to exaggerate/outline certain motifs).  Additionally, fills are denser, thereby showing off the linework.

There are still areas with an overall filler used, like these large triangles, but the fillers are more complicated than the first quilt I showed.  The curved cross-hatching on diagonal took a while, but looks great.  I love feathers, too, because they are rather quick to quilt, but they look wonderful.  Even with the feathering in the large triangles, I double-line outlined the points to make them show off.

I think the outer border is my favorite though.  These free-hand waving feathers look incredible.  They quilt fast, but each one is a start and stop.  The purple points have additional straight lines to tighten the quilting and exaggerate the point.  I spent about 8 hours on the tan background of this border and 3 hours alone on the purple points!

 Lastly, here is a look at the center.  The colors really sing here.  It is quite simple...all ditched, outlined and filled densely with a McTavish/pebble fill that I like to use.    One feature of these Neimeyer quilts that I have encountered after doing 4 of them this year is that this center star loves to dimple at the middle.  I suspect it stems from all the seam allowances, and the fact that it is tough to get this to lay very flat.  It's kind of annoying though.  This quilt topped in at a whopping ~50 hours.

These designs are mentally challenging to quilt.  The quilt is huge, and requires a LOT of thread changes.  Pieces are so large that it is difficult to get much of the design on the 24" bed of my machine.  Also, I  can't just ditch the entire quilt, and then go back and stitch out the patterns because of the size of the sections.  I quilt this as I go along, changing thread a TON of times.  That is true for both versions of the quilt.

Hope you enjoy seeing these.  Now that this one is done, my Summer will officially start.  I have a smocked dress to work on, and many smaller/simpler quilts.  With my kids home, a quilt like this would have taken me 2 months!

My new quilt and some progress

It's no secret.  I am always freakishly productive in the early stages of a new quilt.  I always seem to lose interest months into it, when things have gone wrong, and I have become disenchanted with the design.  I am working rapidly on this new one, trying to get it to a point where it might actually be finished later in the year. Much if the work is done by hand, so that aspect of "when the heck will I piece this" doesn't happen.  As you all know, I have been feverishly busy with client quilts, and getting time to piece my own quilts can be a challenge.  But I like to be able to settle in the evenings and just hand stitch.  It may be slow, but it does eventually get done.  

Last weekend, I staged this much of the design so that I could get the medallion and 4 corners pinned/basted into place on the borders.  This was amazingly trying - the outer border is a print that must meet and match at the same point on all pieces.  Of course it needs to be square and centered, etc.  Eventually, I pinned the background to the wood floor and tweaked each appliqued piece until all were in the best places possible.  I know to most it would seem like stitching the corners on by machine would be simpler, but trust me, I don't think it would have been.  There were just too many things to align.  In the end, I starched the 1/4" seam allowance to the dark brown border, and just aligned everything with rulers for square and visual for matching the print.  This section is about 50" square.

A week or so ago, I started on the outer border design, which will have more applique.  I found the most perfect fabric for the outer border background while I was at Paducah.  If it hadn't been SO perfect, there's NO way I'd have paid what I did for it!  It will actually attach to the square above in a wave along where the vine stem is.  The idea with the applique is that I have mimicked the design of some of the semi-Jacobian styled flowers that are in the ivory print (center dahlia background), as well as bringing more of the floral to the border.  I have many pink and green prints that coordinate with the rose inspiration fabric (border of dahlia).  I hope to applique the intertwining ribbon from the Radiance - yup, I know I'm crazy for that one, but it will be beautiful it I can pull it off.

At this point, there is still a LOT of applique pieces to prep.  Three of the 20 dogwood blooms are done....no leaves or centers though.

 I have mad a TON of small dots in varying shades of cranberry and rose for these little berry clusters.  There are 16 clusters on the borders, requiring about another 100 dots I think!

 There are 5 or 6 varieties of flowers that hopefully appear to be in various stages of opening.  I have 4 (above) all prepared ...sigh!  Who would have though that the above flower came from this and this!!  I am making some flowers with Karen Kay Buckley's perfect ovals, and some I will prep with the Templar method.  I can prep applique until the cows come home when the kids are out of school next Monday.  It is easy to bring the iron up from the studio.  The sewing machine is another story.  Heck, I'll probably even bring a pile of applique to prep when we go on vacation next month!

 Each corner has these big open blooms, made from a kazillion and one circles.  I think I have enough circles prepped for 2 or 3 right now!  It is hard when your set of circles only has 4 of each size and you ultimately want 75 of them!  Next I need to pattern the ribbon to see if I have enough of the Radiance.  I know that hand appliqueing this fabric will be painfully slow :-)

Christmas in June

This is a crazy time here for me.  I have 7-1/2 days until summer officially starts.  We have been running silly for 4-5 weeks with both of my boys in baseball, so I haven't been quilting or even piecing whatsoever on the weekends.  When the depart each morning on the bus, I am trying to be all business.  Except when we had 3 days of 90's last week, I did pretty good.  I am a sucker for hot temperatures!  It's back into the stinking 60's and 70's, so my next quilt should get stitched without hesitation.

This is one of Erin's many quilts that have come my way this year.  I am not behind, really.  I was not supposed to have this done 6 months ago...it's early for this season.  It is one of the more challenging quilts I have done for a client.  It's 90" square, and has an absolute TON of blank space.  Had I gotten this 2 years ago, I know I would have headed for the hills.  Now, however, I have some better ideas and instincts for what to put on the empty space.

The 36" center is a wreath, pieced of 1" squares in a fractal technique.  It is blurry looking, and creates all kinds of questions for how on earth to piece :-)

These outer white HST's are 36" on the edge!  THAT really is a LOT of blank space to design for. Additionally, the quilting always shows that much more on the white, so I knew it needed to be effective quilting too.  I think I rose to the challenge.  This quilt has my usual Hobbs 80/20 batting, with a layer of polydown over that.  This is a more cost effective means of getting the added loft which is often achieved with wool.  It makes the poinsettias appear more like trapunto, and gives great relief to the designs.  I also stitched the flowers and the feather swags in a gold shiny Glide thread, so in real life they show a little more as well.

The red triangles are about 20", and were fun to design as well.  Erin wanted holly, poinsettias, feathers and cross-hatching in her design.  Here's a small bit of holly, stitched in the gold, with a ribbon as an accent.  The red stitching is all with the Omni thread.  I love these feathers!

 The center wreath was the largest challenge.  Nothing stitched on it shows well, and I knew that would be the case.

 Here's a peek at the outer borders...Believe it or not, that crazy cross-hatch border took me the longest of anything on the quilt.  It was a meticulous treatment, with a lot of marking to keep the hatchings even.  The narrow holly border is all freehand, as is all my quilting, and is stitched with a red Glide thread.

 It is relatively Christmassy, without being full of Ho, Ho, Ho's and Santa Clauses.  It's classy and classic.  Hopefully she will love it!  I do :-)

Tentmakers of Cairo Quilts

If you were not able to get to the AQS Lancaster or Paducah shows, then you missed a fantastic exhibit. AQS has brought back two men from Eqypt to the US - men who still create this wonderful artform.  These are some of the quilts that they make.  When I call them quilts, I use that loosely.  The "tents" are made originally for celebrations.  The outside of the tent is a canvas, and the inside is this wonderful and colorful applique.  At Paducah, both men were sitting at the exhibit appliqueing.  It was really neat to see and watch.

 As a quilter that loves to applique, I find this very exacting.  I use tiny, thin needles with very thin thread. My seams are very carefully turned, and many small stitches are taken.  They are much different.  They cut crude shapes with large shears, then turn the edge under with a honker of a needle, and what is probably only a 40wt thread!  Their stitches show, and are not super close together.  Their process is built for speed, and production.  But look what they make...Isn't it wonderful?!

There were many quilts at the show for sale, ranging from about $500 to 1500.  Boy I would have loved to have had one.  I'd love to make one, but I am not that crazy.  I'll leave that for my facebook buddy Megan Farkas - her's will be amazing someday when she is done.  The Tentmaker's quilts are all so colorful, and geometric.  I am amazed at how they get such good symmetry when they mark off the applique shapes with a block of chalk (no, not a visible pattern to be seen).

 The shapes leave me with great ideas for quilting motifs...

 I mean, seriously, is this not gorgeous and amazing?

 ...this one too.  And they are designed & made by men.  They really are fantastic.

 I love the dahlia shape, so this one is so intriguing.  I cannot imagine how long it would take to make.  Forever probably!

Hope you enjoyed :-)

A Friday Catch-up (but yea, I know it's only Thursday!)

I have had it in my head all day that it is Friday, but it is one of the good things I am wrong about!  Though most people long for and look forward to Friday, I am much the opposite.  Monday is much more appealing.  The busyness of the weekend is over, and the kids are back to school.

It's been a busy week.   Tomorrow will be no different.  Frantic at times trying to finish (OK, that is a huge stretch, but I do need to get the quilting to a suitable stopping point either tomorrow or Monday so that the quilt can come off the frame).  This means that there are no large unquilted areas, and any area I have marked is stitched, as I will be removing all of the blue pen.  I don't want to leave it on the quilt for the next 3 months.  I anticipate getting back to finishing the quilt in September.  Today marks day 9 of quilting on the silk quilt.  My mind really needs to work on something different. Fifty hours of staring at the same quilt is enough.  Today I started on the teeny-tiny fillers.  Three of the four corners are just about done (if you don't count the part I have to rip out!...Frog, as the quilters say.  I am not in the least bit thrilled that I have to rip out fourteen stitches to the inch silk thread, on silk fabric.  Seems a tad risky.  Foolish might be a better word.  I will look carefully from further than 6" when I get it off the frame and see if it is really necessary, though I suspect I already know that answer.

These are both variations on fills I have done before, only they have been micro-filled.  The top picture has the 1/2" interlocking circles (CC), but I filled in the space.  I'm not sure why I did this, because I used it on Big Bertha and kind of didn't love it.  Did I not learn my lesson??!  Below, I have a variation on clam shells.  They too are filled to give a dense background.  It was all going pretty well first thing this morning until I realized I'd densely filled a section that I had not added a band of pearls (circles) to.  Frig!...Talk about ticked...Thank goodness the back of the quilt is not silk - otherwise I wouldn't stand a chance of getting the stitches out!  The silk radiance is truly gorgeous, but on the flipside, it is a solid fabric so there is nothing whatsoever to hide blemishes in the quilting.  Kinda glad my next quilts are fun with some print!

I have this tree in my yard.  It's a crab-apple.  It's the sweetest smelling, most Fragrant and gorgeous tree for about 1 week each year.  I'll leave you with this picture.  It just makes me happy.

More Tooting...

Just a selfless toot of my own horn here today...Last week Sherry Reynolds emailed to tell me she saw me on the side of truck.  I hadn't heard yet that HandiQuilter had put me on one, but pretty well assumed that was it.  Sure enough...there I am.  On my backside is the delightful Kimmy Brunner.  You may have seen her HandiQuilter ads in magazines (she does one with a military service person).  Well, mine are coming out soon, if they aren't already out now.

I will leave you (because my 6-yr old is chomping at the bit to go for a walk) with another sneak peek of the silk quilt I am working on.  I have one more week allotted for this quilting before I will move onto more important projects (Your's!).  I'll get back to finishing the loose ends in the fall.  I am pretty pleased with how it is coming along.  I made it to the center today - after 5 days of quilting.  The texture is delicious!

Please do not post to Pinterest

Have a great weekend~

Silk Quilt sneak peek

No time for much of a post today, but here is a sneak peek of the silk quilt I am quilting.  I am about 13-14 hours into it.  The center is within sight, but I won't probably do it tomorrow.  I haven't encountered any big problems, so it is moving right along.  My hardest issue is that it is set on point, so its hard to stitch long sections before I have to change thread and do another.  There are some fills not done as well, but it is stabilized adequately to move on and come back to the fillers.

Please do NOT post this to Pinterest.