Aunt Millie's Garden

I have seen several of these Aunt Millie's Garden quilts done up at the shows I attended last year.  Quite often they are appliqued on white or seemingly odd color backgrounds not becoming of all that effort.  This one is fantastic.  There are many different brown prints - maybe a dozen or so.  It is homogeneous in color, but still has that scrappy quilt look.  I'm quite pleased with  how this quilt turned out, and home that the owner will be too when it makes it's way home to her next week.

You see, Megan finished this quilt nearly 2 years ago.  It has been sent to two previous longarm quilters who simply put it into their ever-so-long que for quilting, and then all but forgot about it.  When I read about her problem, I was extremely disgusted. Soon after, she contacted me about quilting the quilt for her.  Despite receiving the quilt about a month later than I anticipated (she opted to reverse one of the applique borders), I am happy to be getting this back to her by the date I originally stated.  It is very important that a quilter is up front with the client about when quilts can be completed.  I, personally, would never send a quilt to one that told me it might be 6+ months.  I don't care how good he/she is.  I realize that there are quilters with unreasonably long backlogs that still get many quilts sent to them.  I just am not one of them.  I pride myself in being able to turn the quilts over within 3-5 weeks, typically.  Enough ranting...On to the quilt!

She's chosen to only do 9 of the 12 blocks.  I think it looks great.  What I wanted to do was break up the very boxy construction lines with quilting that is "outside the lines".  I really dislike the look of taking a quilt that is blocks and sashings and just quilting a filler into the blocks and then doing something different on the sashings.  It looks stiff and boring, and not something not really fitting a show quilt.  And Megan mentioned that she wants to enter this in a show or two.

Hopefully you can see how I placed a large square on point, and allowed it to protrude into the border.  It's filled with 1/2" straight line filler.  Inside that square, is another square filled with pebbling.

The center of the quilt has a medallion of sorts (below).  As you can see, it just centers on the applique without regard for the sashing.  I love the curved cross-hatching used as a frame for the applique.

Maybe the quilt scheme shows a little better here...I spent a whopping 8 hours ditch stitching all of the appliques with a clear monofilament thread.  All in all, this quilt took about 20 hours to complete - over 6 hours over what I had expected it might take (yes, I clearly lost my shirt on the project, but the end result is definitely worth seeing at a show!).  

 After the ditching was done and the 2 frames were finished, I went around and chose fillers for the spaces.  The dense fills help to make the appliques pop.  That and the fact that I used a Hobbs 80/20 batt and a Tuscany wool batting!  The corner blocks had echo quilting.  The inside of the borders was quilted with a ruffly kind of snailing stippling.  I'm sure it has a more technical term (or not), but I have no idea what it is.

The outside of the borders is done with a nice McTavishing and feathers along the vines on 2 sides, and a hip straight line pattern on the other two sides.  This quilt is textural very appealing.

 The only appliques that I chose to quilt on were the center circles of the 9 blocks.  They got a small feathered wreath.  Given more time and budget, I could have definitely done more quilting on the appliques themselves.  But the reality is that they look pretty good as they are, and since the batting has wool, they will probably hold their shape nicely.

 One last look...

This quilt was done with both Superior Magnifico and Glide, in two shades of brown.  I had never used the Magnifico, and it performed wonderfully -- just like the Glide in fact.  The Glide costs less and comes on a larger cone, so which do you think I will use more??

Hope you enjoyed this quilt.  And I hope Megan likes it too.  I will look forward to seeing it hanging in a show somewhere.

On to my next custom...

PS...If you are out there and want to have a quilt quilted in a simpler edge-to-edge, please contact me.  I am in desperate need of some less time consuming work to do now and then!!!

Winter Snow & Ice

I just quilted this 30"x36" wallhanging for a client.  It's one of my favorite quilts to do in a long time.  Small enough to hold my interest, and when they are smaller, it is easier to put detail in without feeling innundated.  I used 2 batts since it's a wallhanging.  There's a layer of poly on top of the normal Hobbs 80/20 to give the extra relief to the details.  This quilt is kind of in the style of Louisa Smith's strips and curves method, with the kaleidoscope circles/snowflakes.  It's incredible how a printed fabric can piece to make so many intricate shapes.

I stitched using a metallic silver thread from Wonderfil.  I am very pleased with how this thread stitched.  I had only one break, which is not my typical experience with metallic threads.  They sell several threads that I have enjoyed using.

The snowflake blocks are actually only made from 8-45degree wedges, despite appearing more complicated.  I simply outlined some of the key lines in the geometry and let the fabrics do the rest.

 Her backing fabric has the butterflies, so I chose to outline just this one butterfly for fun.

 Rather than doing a ton of SID on all the 1/2" strips, I stitched a squiggly line down the center of them.  If gives a very textural look to the quilt.  All circles and blocks are ditch stitched though.

 The back shows the variety of fillers - feathers, swirls, curls, pebbles, squiggles.

Now, I'm off to run a few quick errands, and then onto her 2nd quilt...a lovely NYB.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Today's post is for the fall Blogger's Quilt Festival.  This an awesome online display of quilts brought to us by Amy (since if we are here browsing these, we aren't in Houston with all of quilting's lucky elite!).  We get to stay home and await Hurricane Sandy in the coming days.

My quilt is entitled Zen Garden.  This was finished this past winter.  I'll confess right off the bat to being a longarm quilter, and one the loves to make quilts for shows.  This was my 4th such quilt.  It had the pleasure of hanging in 4 or 5 shows this past season, bringing home a few ribbons.  Similarly, it's even made it into Quilter's Newsletter magazine.  But, enough with the boring stuff, you came here to see pictures.  Am I right?...

 

This quilt finishes at 65" square.  It's a traditional pattern called a broken star or Carpenter's star.  The applique all around the border almost disguises this.  It's deceptively easy to construct because the diamonds constructed of 25 pieces are actually made from strip sets.  The trick is just getting all the fabrics of the strips in the right order!  

One of the things I limited myself to when I made this quilt was to ONLY use fabrics from my stash.  So, there goes the possibility of this looking too traditional.  I have quite a bit of bolder color, larger print fabrics, and despite the size of these pieces being fairly small, they all seemed to work nicely at creating a visual colorburst effect.  

 

The majority of the quilt is the fabric used on the outer border and inner setting squares.  I knew since this was a Kona fabric (solids, though nice, are kind of dull and boring and they don't bring a lot of life to the party), I would need to make it interesting somehow.  As you can see, the setting squares were jazzed up by appliqueing a purple and pink flower to the inner corner, and then more applique.  The tan is just dull by itself.  The border around the star received a lot of Asian-inspired floral applique.  I love working with the bias strips, and the curvy-ness of this distracts the eye from the bland tan.  I was able to use flowers that are basically constructed from the same shape as the star is, and then brought many of the same green prints back in for leaves -- all 85 of so of them.   And I can't forget the butterflies.  They are my personal favorite.  A small feature that helps to define this as a garden.  I fussy cut them from a piece of fabric I had, then colored them with sharpie pens to make them the colors I wanted.

The part that I really love in the process, though, is when the quilting starts and the quilt is brought to life.  Design details can be added to the boring tan areas to make them visually stimulating, like the checkerboards shown above.  Rays were quilted into the inner star to bring it outwards.  I enjoy all the fun fillers that make the finished quilt an I-Spy of sorts.  Approximately 75 hours was spent on the quilting (did I mention that I am insane too??!)

 Here's a closeup of the edge...a small (yes, micro) micropiping gives the quilt interest, but also provides a little added stiffness to help it to hang straightly.

 Here's just a few more photos...

Thanks to Bonnie Hunter.  I posted 4 of the ones that she sent me after MQX.  And what fun would it be without one of the back?...  The backing fabric is a Laura Ashley print.  It shows the texture, but not all the stitching lines.  And that's my artistic muse, Picasso, eyeing the binding clips as potential toys!.

I love all your comments, and I hope that you have a great week looking at the Bloggers Quilt Festival quilts.

Stats...
size 65"x65"
techniques: machine pieced, hand appliqued
quilted by me on a longarm
Categories: wall quilt, professionally quilted, applique quilt

Wedding Quilt Finished and Delivered

This quilt was finished a couple weeks ago, but it was delivered to the wedding couple yesterday, so I can safely post pictures of it here.  My mom is attending a wedding tomorrow of a former student of her's.  She asked me to help her make a quilt.  Now, she does know how to sew and quilt, so I'm not really sure why I was called in to do as much as I did, but I think it was so that I could have input on what I'd be quilting.  Probably a good thing or I may have had a paisley-heavily printed background to make pretty!

I designed the quilt to be as simple as possible for her to construct.  She had that stipulation - she did have to do something on this project besides the binding.  These are simple stars, made to 12".  The center star was a little more fussy, but not much so.  The Star of David was chosen because the groom's family is Jewish.  I left the background in soft tan fabrics so that the quilting would show a lot.  The other materials are Anna Griffin fabrics we found at a local rummage-style store at $4-5 per yard.  I'd buy more if only I knew what I'd possibly make with them!

She had the border print too in this collection, and I coached her on how to utilize it symmetrically to get the most from it.  I used the scrolls of the border to quilt to.  There is straight lines spaced at an inch outside of the scroll, and feathering inside of it.  There is no shortage of feathers and pebbling for variety and texture.  I also used 1/2" frames to set off the blocks.

 The blocks were fun.I chose a few fillers to use and reuse on the 62" quilt

I also created the frame that runs through the stars, then densely filled every other section to enhance the stripes.

 Here's a closeup of the blocks...

 And the center star...It is feathered, and has an "F" monogram for their last name.

The quilt was delivered to the groom yesterday, and the report to me was that he and his mother (where he was staying) were very pleased.  It turned out lovely, and took me 12-13 hours to do start to finish (not counting the design time and shopping for fabric with my mom).  Mom was skeptical when the top was finished because there was so much tan (and I think she really wanted more blue).  I told her to trust me, and that the tan would be lovely quilted up.  Was I right??@!

Quilting a Custom Lap Quilt

I designed this simple quilt for someone else to make, and I will be quilting.

I came up with this very simple layout of 9 stars -- 4 of them of an Ohio star pattern, 4 in a 4-patch star, and a star of David.  It is a lap size, and has plenty of space to quilt it pretty.  The colors in the EQ7 design are only for design purposes.  There's no bright neon green in the quilt!

She brought me the top and backing on Wednesday, and I started it yesterday.  I'm close to or just past the half point with 6 hours quilted.  I'm trying to fill the large-ish tan areas with lots of feathers, and design.  My machine is being a pain in the ass with me, or I'd probably be further along.  Remember the mini-quilts I did in Feb?...After doing them, I was pretty sure that the timing of my machine was off.  I couldn't sew with So Fine without skipped stitches.  I managed to get around this just fine by using a 40wt or 30wt thread - either Glide or Omni.  This quilt is being stitched with Omni, and unfortunately, it's occasionally skipping stitches when I sew with a ruler going up or left.  Picky!  After this quilt, I will definitely get it to the shop to be retimed.  I have a few things coming down the road, and I want to be able to sew with the fine threads.

So, my star quilting is a little simpler because the background is what is really seen.  And it is feathered to heck and back.

We found wonderful Anna Griffin fabrics at Marden's, for a whopping $4.50 per yard.  This large-print is cut so that the 4 borders each have this design symmetrically.  I think the finished border will be lovely.  I have more SID and still need to outline the other side of the ivory scroll, but you get the idea.

OK, off to make dinner before there is no power!

Whooo's the New Baby?

This is a fiercely cute baby quilt one of my clients made.  She always does impeccable applique, all by hand.

I had fun with the white background, since this is the only place the quilting really shows up.  I originally thought about doing something more constructed in the white areas, like wreaths, but quickly realized how boring that would be.  I think the straight line frames and different designs create a nice framework for the owl, and create way more interest.  Perhaps if you double click, you can see the ferns, and leaves and large bubbles/pebbles (nickel sized).

 Here's a close-up of whoooty...He's so cute.  I left him largely unquilted so that there is some loft (and I did not want the piecing from below that she didn't cut away to be so obvious.

 The border is bead-boarded with simple sweet scallops.  It's fitting of a baby boy.

This quilt actually has a poly batt, since it will be washed many times.  Plus, I want the features to maintain their loft and texture.  I used a Wonderfil Master Quilter thread.  This is a relatively new thread for me; I got 15 cones a couple months ago.  It's a 40wt thread, and stitched like a dream with Bottomline in the bobbin.

Here's a peek at the back.  Is that not fun??

Regular Programming Resumes

It's back to client quilts for me.  I am out of MQX posts, unless you want to hear about my awesome classes.  I may hold onto that post for when I have nothing whatsoever interesting to say.

I will be getting back to quilting my client's quilts starting tomorrow.  Or maybe I will take one day to clean my studio first, as it is about to implode from threads.  I took my quilt off the frame, thinking it was mostly finished.  Of course, I have noticed one 1" line of stitching not done.  It always works that way.  Maybe I will just try to fix it on the domestic.  Anywho...here are a few pictures of the back of the quilt I just nearly finished.  The pictures don't do it justice.  The backing is a soft butter-yellow, and shows off the quilting really well.

 This is the center.  I was not really satisfied with what I did on the center star.  I quilted something densely, then picked it out, then hated what it did to the fabric (lotsa little prick holes).  I suspect they'll go away when it gets wet, but I just couldn't come up with something to stitch that I liked.

The wildness of the outer border is very evident with the quilting finished.  It was a complete pain in the backside because of all the stop and starts.  I guess I knew that going into it, so I shouldn't be whining.  I have a few things to do still...fix the missing stitches, block the beast, bind it, do a little hand painting in gold, and add a couple thousand crystals.  It's all doable before mid-July.  I think.  This is closer than I generally cut it in terms of time, because I am notoriously slow, especially when those kiddies are out of school in (as my daughter tells me daily) about 35 days.

If you want to see the finished pictures of this quilt, you'll have to come back in late July or visit the Maine Quilt Show.  I am hoping to also enter this at the Lowell Quilt Festival.  I had to get it off the longarm in order to take a picture to send them though!