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.

 I did three quilts recently for a new client.  They are all really pretty, different quilts.  I'll show you two of them today.  They'll be on their way back to her early next week.

This first one is small, something like 30x40 or so.  The fabrics are SO gorgeous.  Almost every one of the fabrics has a sheen or metallic flecking.  It almost reminded me of an Asian look.  She asked for an E2E, and since the piecing (see next pic) is practically miniscule, it seemed like a good idea.  When the quilt arrived and I saw the fabrics, I knew it needed just a little bit more.  I used a gold glide thread, which is perfect for the fabrics.  It has a lovely sheen.  Then I chose to feather the ivory narrow border to give the quilt a little personality.  The rest of the quilt was filled with an E2E.

Not sure that the fabrics are visible even here, but maybe she'll tell me what they are and I can add that to this.

The second quilt is a variation on a Dresden plate.  She's turned them into sunflowers, and a fall wall-hanging.  The fabrics on this were all extremely busy.  I had a bit of difficulty selecting quilting motifs that worked with the prints.  As a result, I ended up picking out a couple of things that just weren't effective.

She told me that the pattern is from an Edyta Sitar (I know I probably butchered the spelling) book.  The inner part of the sunflowers are "flappy".  There must be a fabric folding technique used here.  Because I stitched petals on the gold part of the sunflower, the flappy part stands out nicely.  The backfill has a dense yet simple leaf filler.  She'd asked for leaves on the quilt, but with all the print, much of which was leafy, it was not really feasible to do, and have it show.

Again, I used a gold Glide thread.  It runs well, looks like fall, and shows up on the heavy print.  The quilting has a bit of straight cross-hatching, and then some feathered swags and bead-board on the outer border.  I was able to get the leaf motif in on the narrow border, which was mostly solid in appearance.

 Here's the popping sunflowers...

I have one more to show another day.  It's time now to reorder some thread and get ready for the kids.  I've just spent 3 days with my big green Dresden on the frame, trying to knock off the details that were bugging me when I stopped working on it 3 weeks ago.  It now has all borders done (except for one that still needs 1/4 of it ripped out).  I'm in the process of securing the pesky piping so it all lays smoothly.  I expect it will be off in 3-4 days, will undergo a little more pickout, and then go back on the frame (sigh...another hour wasted) to be wrapped up.  Now, how on earth do I block something this large???

Postage Stamps

I quilted this for a client a couple weeks ago.  It is a lap quilt made from 2" squares -- nearly 1000 of them.  Although they all look different, which was fun for me to spot many fabrics I have used as well  as many I'd love to have had, it did have some repeats.  I can't even imagine having enough fabrics to make them all different.

Because it is very busy, it's quilted with a simple Terry Twist.  It softens the strong geometric lines, yet is still reasonably quick (ie, not a custom) to quilt.

The quilt has lovely, yet simple texture to contrast with the very busy colors and patterns.  I love the idea of making a quilt like this to remember my kid's clothes, but still can't get past the fact that there are 1000 squares to have to cut!

With a mere 6 days until regular school days start again, we are off to Boston for a weekend.  Not really sure I'm ready or in the mood for 5 of us in a hotel room, and all that eating out (love for others to cook and clean for me, but taking the kids into restaurants really takes away the appeal of it!).  It's been a non-vacation summer...I'm totally hoping for next year and a trip to Florida again.  We'll be visiting the Museum of Science and Children's museum.  If I think I can drag them on the Freedom trail, I may try.

Baby Quilt: 1st of three

I have 3 small-ish baby quilts to quilt for a new client.  For the most part, they are only about 50" square.  They'll be relatively fast jobs, which is good.  The first one is so bold and lively.  The green is actually more green than the picture shows (more bright apple than mustardy).  I know the popcorn panto is used often by many quilters, but it is just perfect for these fabrics.

It's going to a baby boy as soon as the owner binds it.  I snapped a picture of the backing, only because it was SO cute!

Later today I hope to load another of these quilts.  This week, both of my boys are headed to day camp, and later in the week, my daughter is going to "Nana camp".  I should have sufficient time to get all 3 quilts finished.  Heck, I may even make it to the grocery store to get more than enough food for 2 days!

Last Saturday, I dropped off the last of the show quilts that I have for a show that is this weekend.  Two are currently in Hershey, PA for the Quilt Odyssey show, and two others made their way to Milwaukee for the MQToday show (formerly the Milwaukee Quilt Show).  My experience this past weekend makes me less comfortable to send quilts anywhere.  I have always felt like the scariest part was putting them in the mail, but  now I think I may wonder more about the handling.  Right in front of me, I watched the quilt that was dropped off ahead of mine get refolded (the owner had already left).  In the process of refolding, it was dragged on the ground, and given little care for how it was folded.  It makes me sick to see this done.   This was a judged quilt too.  I always very carefully fold mine so that the corners are not crumpled.  I delint both sides very carefully before folding.  I fold them in a way that will minimize wrinkles when it is unfolded and hung.  I do not expect some shmuck to unfold it at drop-off to check the sleeve width.  I refused to show her - when is "Trust me, it is fine" not good enough?  Mine are routinely 4-1/2" wide.  The sleeve is always at the middle of the folded quilt.  I folded them so that the lower right corner was exposed so that they could add their tags without messing with a thing.  And what's with a handfull of shows wanting cloth bags??  I hate them.  HATE them!   They breed lint and little threads.  Where do you think those go???  And these quilt collectors thought I didn't need to repin the end of my bag (it will slow them down when they are emptying the bags (or pillow cases, as most were).  Seriously, are they total idiots?  What's going to happen when the pile of quilts slides off the table?  They obviously are not as concerned with the integrity of the quilts that they are collecting as they should be.  I think this may be the last year I submit anything to this show.  I've really seen enough.

A Slow Return

I returned from a short-ish 4 day vacation to Acadia & Bar Harbor yesterday.  The weather was fantastic.  Hot, Hot, Hot and sunny -- just the way this Southern gal likes it.  We did a little bike riding, little trail hiking, went to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which by all accounts is not really a mountain, but it affords lovely views of the islands in the bay none the less.  Our cottages had a pool, so this satisfied the kids' need to swim a LOT.  We got home to a hot house, loads of laundry, and tired everybody.  Now, I will officially hit the half-way to the summer this week...5 weeks until the kids return to school, and I can return to actually quilting during the day.  I am in serious withdrawal.  When I was at the Vermont Quilt Festival 2 weeks ago, I overheard someone say (while seeing my quilt Zen Garden hanging) that they'd just seen it in a magazine.  And, here it is!  This is in The Quilter Magazine, August/September 2012.  It's a lovely 4 page spread of quilts from MQX East, held in April.  It's some of the winning quilts, and several of the lesser known quilts as well.  This magazine always chooses a great selection of lovely quilts to showcase.  

Last month, I finished a couple of quilts for Sandy.  Here's the first...She often makes Schnibble quilts.  This is a baby quilt, that I quilted with swirls to break up the very-linear nature of all the straight lines.  Wonder if the baby's name starts with T?

It's all in doggy and dog bone fabrics, great for a little boy.

Here's another I did for Sandy.  The Feather Meander pattern is one my favorites, and looks great here.

I used a tan thread so that it shows up on both the colored fabrics and on the lighter tones.  Though my pictures do not show the details of the fabrics, these are wonderful.  Some of them have antique street maps of Paris - so cool.  Here's my favorite; may need to get some for "someday".

I am busy finishing the hand details on this quilt, started so very long ago.  You see, I designed and started this quilt more than a year ago - long before EVERYONE in blogland was making a modern Dresden plate quilt.  In fact, I am so pissed that my design is being done by so many people (not "my" design per se, just the concept!) that I stuck the unfinished 102" quilt on the shelf, said several profanities, and left it there since about last December.  Now I have decided that it is the closest of anything I have started to being ready to quilt, so I am finishing the hand stitching, and will either have it on the frame when kids go back to school, or sooner if the client workload allows.  I'm busy getting the backing made, which takes an absolute TON of fabric, and designing all the quilting motifs.  Maybe I'll show some of them next time.

Have a good week-

King Quilt

This is for the most part, a glorious Mom's week.  Despite what is turning out to be relatively crappy weather (2 days of rain so far, and probably another coming), all three of my kids are off at camp from 9-4 this week.  I feel kind of bad - my daughter was supposed to go canoeing today, but wasn't able to.  Hopefully my boys will make it to a rope climbing event tomorrow before it rains.  I have a multitude of this and that that I am treating myself to, mostly including tasks involving my own projects.  But here's one chore I made myself complete this morning.  It's a 115" client quilt.  Or it could be 117", depending on where you measure.  It was off-square a little bit, but generally in that excessively huge range.  I quilted it last week, but finally got around to putting on the binding for her today.  Just putting on the binding (and she sent it to me all prepared!) took more than an hour!  Not my favorite part of the process, to say the least!...

It has enormous borders.  I think the 3 borders are like17 or 18" per side.  Her budget preferred an edge-to-edge quilting, but she decided to let me quilt something different on the borders.  I chose to continue the E2E onto the first border, and customize only the outer two.  This helps to show the E2E quilting, because it does get lost on the prints in the center of the quilt.

My border designs are on the simple (aka, not to time or budget unfriendly) side, but they are pretty for this non-frilly quilt.  She has made it for her daughter's wedding gift.

The E2E I did she chose from my book of ideas.  It's a freehand swirly thing that I do.  It quilts up relatively quick, and allows a number of small motifs to be worked it.  Not sure if you can make them out, but I have put in some hearts here and there.

Tomorrow's fun will involve trying to assemble the pieces of my silk quilt.  That should be frustrating!

Client's Child Quilt

I finished this quilt about a week ago.  It's a large twin for the 6 yr old daughter of a client.  She made it from a (or several?) Moda jelly roll.  My appologies, I am just not up on the Moda prints to tell you what it is.  It's busy and lively, and has no shortage of cherries!  All she told me was "Make it pretty".  Hopefully I have accomplished that without going completely overboard.

This is the kind of quilt that is hard to quilt more than an hour or two at a time, since the background has so much of the same thing.  The pebbles are rather on the large side, some larger than a quarter, and I interspersed some spirals (reminiscent to me of lollipops) in amongst the spirals.  Though there seems like a lot of white background, it is rather narrow, maybe 2", to do anything more with.

 The tulip-ish piecings were quilted out to look kind of like whimsical flowers.

 The back is pretty.  It's a mostly solid green and shows the texture nicely.

She's coming to get this quilt on Monday.  It's sad to see such a good client for the last time.  Her husband is Coast Guard, and they are moving to Alaska in a few weeks.

I have been a very distracted quilter lately.  I've been up to too much designing, for me and others.  Been up to starting too many projects.  I think this is happening because my kids are out of school in a week and a half, and I am scurrying to get a good start on anything I might hope to accomplish this summer.  It may be a summer of predominantly hand applique work that I do in the evenings.  I have the kids lined up for a few weeks of day camp so I can keep the business moving along, and I do still quilt early in the morning before they awaken.  So despite my distractedness and lack of meaty blogposts, I do have some things to share...soon...when I have the time.

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??

Client Quilt

This is the quilt of a new client.  She's done a fabulous job piecing these stars.  It was the flattest and most square quilt I think I have ever seen...more so than my own work!  And considering that I am an obsessive-compulsive quilter, that is really saying something.  It is batiks, and was made to give to a man.   

Yikes, if that doesn't put a screeching halt to the creative quilting juices, I don't know what does.  No swirly, girly, pretty feathers or flowers.  She wanted an E2E, and fortunately, she and I were in instant agreement on the design to use.  I pulled the Razorgrass panto.  I have used it once before.  It's not appropriate for many quilts, but it seemed just right here.  The tan batik fabric has a pattern to it, which may not be visible, but it mimics the Razorgrass pattern.

 This pattern is a real thread Hog.  It is 76" square, and I think I used a mile of Superior's Omni thread!

This was the first time that I had minor issues tensioning with the batik backing which was sent.  Normally batiks run just fine, but I had a harder time maintaining the tension at the spikey points.  My suspicion is that once it is washed, it will be a mute point, but the perfectionist in me just wants it to look perfect.

Tomorrow's Friday.  I have some designs to go contemplate.  My newest show quilt went onto the frame for the day for a few final tweaks.  It should be ready to block come Monday.  Yea!!!   Have yourself a fantastic and quilty weekend.

Big Star Quilt

This big star quilt belongs to Michelle. It's enroute back to her in California as I type this. This large 96" or so quilt is made from mostly Michael Miller prints. They are very soft and modern, and thinner than many quiltshop grade fabrics available right now. Living in the So Cal climate, she likes the lightness of the quilt. I, personally, found them quite a bit harder to tension. They were more succeptible to causing small tension adjustments. But, that's my problem.
The green and pink print below is my favorite. It reminds me of a dress my daughter had. It's a bit more nostalgic than the other modern florals. Michelle basically said "do whatever" (E2E on the body) and quilt something different on the blue borders. Leave it to me to select a pattern that wasn't really all that quick to stitch!

The free-handed meandering feathers-nfronds look great, but they took a surprisingly long amount of time - about 2 hours more than I anticipated. They are essentially a scaled down version of the Plumage pantograph. Since I feathered the body of the quilt, I chose something non-feathery for the borders...something to tie in with all the swirly fronds and the flowers on the fabrics.

Here is a look at the back...It is a fabric I used on a quilt a few years ago for my MIL. It is actually a soft aqua, with words on it like "family", "peace", etc. The one thing I found challenging with this quilt was thread color selection. I wanted it to look good on the top and backside, since the back is mostly neutral. The back is aqua, while the top is an odd olive shade. When I auditioned aqua thread on the top, it seemed out of place. The top is seen the most, so I want the top to be better. In the end, I chose an muted olive (some may call this baby-poop, but it actually works very well with a multitude of colors!). It blends with the background around the star. To me, this is the intuitive place that the thread ought to "disappear". The downside is that the olive thread is quite evident on the soft aqua backing. Oh well! It does look good, and what's a gal to do when aqua and olive are the colors ?!? The top thread is Superior Omni, bobbin is Bottomline, and batting is Hobbs 80/20.

I believe that this quilt will be given to the client's MIL.

Happy weekend :-)

Cool Fabrics

I finished this lap quilt last week. It is a bit unusual in that the fabrics for the top are sort of canvas-y. They're very bold and graphic. Sorry, I'm not sure who makes these. My first thought was that they'd make some really fun summer placemats. Some prints have animals, and bicycles, and bright cheery themes.
The gem of the quilt, however, is on the back. If it were me, I'd have pieced the back and found a single piece of some small print for the top, because the back is awesome. The quilting is in a bright purple 40wt poly thread. It is barely evident from the front. But the purple bobbin is great on the colorblock (made from Moda Crossweaves, which I'm informed may be discontinued???). I chose a simple, hand guided edge to edge with plenty of swirly movement.

I should also mention that the thread is new. It's one of the Wonderfil Machine Quilter threads I got recently. It sewed beautifully. It has a slight sheen, not as much as the Glide though. I wish this thread was available for order in the fall, as I may have bought more of it with my gift certificate. As it is, I have 15 cones, and if this first encounter is indicative of other quilts, I will like using it.

The colors of the back remind me of these sets of silks I have been eyeing (from Brewer), and contemplating splurging on. The fabrics come in great shades of green, blue and purple. There is also a kit with all the red and pinks. Yum!

Last fall, I bought some of these (below)...they are September Light from In the Beginning. They are hard to find. I'm not sure if they have not really come out, or just were not mass produced. There are also prints in this collection, but the ombres are gorgeous. I am just now getting around to designing a graphic applique around these. All I need to get started is the background material. I thought I got it Saturday. My 7 year old helped me (probably too much) or I should say, urged me that the dark blue would be a good background. I was leaning towards black or soft tan. I erroneously got 3 yards of dark blue, thankfully at Marden's price of only $4/yard (it's a Henry Glass too). Now I need to go back and actually get a lighter shade of tan instead. But not today...he is home with an upset stomach. Figures!