Detailed Pictures, as Promised

As promised several days ago, I have additional pictures of the 2 quilts I quilted for clients that were shown at the Maine Quilt Show. This first one is by Kathleen Currier and was a display quilt. It's a wildly bold and modern design, and despite absolutely loving the color lime green, I found the design very difficult to do. We wanted to quilt more than a pantograph since it was going in the show, but when the top does not have a definite focal point, it makes stitching a custom more challenging. Additionally, the fabrics are all mostly quite busy, and seeing the thread was hard.
Lucky for me, she is a fantastic piecer. Even with all the curves, it layed perfectly flat. What I chose to do was a little unorthodox. I cut circles out of a poly batt to place under the appliqued circles to give them added poof. I then stitched a row of pebbles around the perimeter of the circle to hold them in place, and amplify the poofy-ness.

Along each waving strip, I stitched a variety of different fillers ranging from classic feathers to swirly feathers, pebbles, flames, waves, etc. I also used different color thread - green, black, white and charcoal. Originally, she had a patterned background, but I convinced her early on to go with a solid color to show off the quilting. Hanging at the show, you'd never know how much quilting there really was. The poor white glove gals practically stood by this one much of the day I was there, holding up one corner so people could see the back!

...which was really quite unexpected.

It's wild like the front, and shows off a real avant gard style of quilting.

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Here is Jaki's quilt, which won a red ribbon. It's a smallish wall hanging, with impeccable applique. The background is all filled in a McTavish-esque style. It was hard to do anything but an "all-over" filler because the applique designs are not separated much. The dense fill did enhance the puff of the appliques. Since it was a judged show quilt, I did use a polydown batt over a cotton batt also.

The backing was perfect to hide the stitching, but show the patterns.

All appliques are outlined with a mono-poly thread.

I wanted to show a nice variety of fillers - background fill, a few feathers, some striping of the outer border and a little ruler work. I knew her applique work was good enough to get her a ribbon...didn't want her to miss out because the quilting was not up to the same standard.

Have a great weekend! I've spent the entire day laying a patio, concrete paver by paver. My quilting wrist is out of commission for a day now. Luckily, I have 3 quilts I need to have done by this week all set to go. This coming weekend I am heading to the Lowell Quilt Show, and the following week I am off to World Quilt in Manchester. Lots of great inspiration to see!