Wonderful Wool Applique Quilt

This was sent to me by yet another of my many California clients.  She teaches the wool applique, and this will be used in her upcoming January classes.  I have seen and quilted this style of quilt before, but this one is amazing with all of its details.  Every block is loaded with little details to make it unique, from a crocheted edge, to beads (lots of beads!), to embroidery to things I don't even know what to call them!

Sorry for the quality of the full shot.  The border fabric is from one of my favorite Martha Negly (I think) collections.  It's bold and works so well with the flowers.  I had no idea that the background fabric was a black & white check until it arrived, as it appeared tan in the picture she sent me.  The check presented some issues with quilting, as it had next to no visibility whatsoever.  I quilted the filler around the applique with a dark purple Glide thread just so I could see what I was doing.  The dense fill coupled with her Hobbs wool batting make these appliques pop off the quilt half an inch!

 Having bunches of beads right at the edges of the appliques made ditching the appliques close to the edge challenging (OK...nearly impossible), but the unless you look between the lines (no pun intended) of the check you will never know.  My filler is a pseudo McTavish with a twist as I add pebbles here and there too.

These next flowers (or are they pods?) have embroidered "stuff" on them that look like they are made like I make bullion knots in smocking, only they are much larger and hang freely.  Some of this stuff kinda blows my mind!

With the heavy floral border, I chose simple 1/2" lines to quilt so it would not compete with the patterning.  It almost always works out well.  The floral fabric is stitched with a deep cranberry variegated Superior Rainbows thread.  In the past, I have had sporadic good luck with the Rainbows thread.   Something must have worked here because not a break or shred.

The center medallion is pretty with an assortment of flowers from all of the blocks.  I also stuck in some feathers here to help define the space.  Besides, I think it might get boring with just more dense filler.

 Here is one of these flowers that has a cool little crocheted edge.

Her backing is cranberry colored.  It shows off the texture of the quilting nicely (and picks up lint pretty well also).  Though you can't see it in the picture, the Bottomline bobbins in cranberry and purple are evident on the backing, giving it just a hint of color.  It's a really pretty quilt, and I hope it will be loved.

Although I have quilted one twin quilt and have another quilt being dropped off tonight this week, I am kind of slowing down.  Christmas is 5 days away.  My gift shopping is done.  Most of the wrapping is done.  Boy I wish I'd done that a day sooner, as my boys pulled a sneaky and got into everything 2 nights ago.  I had to go return a bunch of things yesterday and reshop!  Made me madder than you know!  Last thing I want is there to be NO secrets or surprises for Christmas.  This week's quilts are my very early January deadlines.  For all of you that have sent quilts to me, thanks for being patient.  I've been sick for nearly a week, and not keeping up well.  Plus this fall has been 2 to 3 times busier than I anticipated.  All backlogged quilts will be done in early January.  No more rush jobs once Christmas has passed - everyone can just wait their turn :-)  And as always, if you have easy, non-custom quilts you'd like quilted, I am always happy to do these in between my customs to give my mind a break.  See you in the new year-