Christmas preps

I officially have finished all of the quilts needed to be done before the holidays.  I had a call about one last one about 10 days ago, but she never called to schedule a drop off.  That window of opportunity has sailed, as I loaded a big quilt a few days ago that is not destined to be done for another week.

Here's two from a long-time friend of my mom's, and a prolific quilter.  The first one is a panto I have had for years but never quilted.  It's sort of dense, but quilted up reasonably fast.  Sure wish more edge-to-edge quilts came in because the break to not have to design custom quilting is nice.  It's like the Italian Fresco painter who gets to paint walls with a roller now and then :-)

Joan also came with a second quilt.  She never comes with an agenda.  She's happy to have me do what I think best.  Most often, her quilts get edge to edge quilting because they are busy with prints, but this one was different.  The piecing was simpler and the fabrics could handle showier quilting.  A month ago she showed up with a pile of red and green small cuts to ask me what I would do.  This is kind of what I drafted, and go figure, she had it done within a few weeks!  When she dropped it off, I knew it had to get into the "finish before xmas" pile.

 She fussy-cut the bird fabric to frame 6" blocks with birds.  The frames of red and green are 1-1/2" wide.  I treated the two borders together when I did the quilting.  This keeps the quilting simpler, faster, more economical, while not losing any of the softness for the lap quilt.  I really just didnt want to do excess ditch quilting.

Three quilting designs were used - parallel line frames, swirls & holly leaves, and a ribbon meander.

 The Gold glide thread was perfect for a holiday quilt.  Most of the fabrics had a gold gilding on them too.

 The beast I have loaded is another Ladies of the Sea.  This is 88" square and has the very detailed appliqued borders.  I cannot fathom making one of these quilts.  This is absolutely the best applique I have ever seen.  Curves and points are perfect, and there is not a stitch to be seen.  Quilting it makes me nervous!

 So far, I have done over 13 hours of ditching every applique, and some of the other areas.  I am awaiting a thread order that BETTER arrive today (it has my background thread in it!).  I am a sitting duck until it is here.

Off to get busy...