Runner Fun

My Quilt is off of the frame for the first of wht will likely be several quilting sessions. I've shown a few sneak peek, but you'll have to wait until another time for a grand reveal. In the meantime, it is back to quilting as usual...customers and catch up. Here's the first of 2 table runners that this customer brought to me. All she requested was it to be fancy. That means: quilt the tan pretty, as this is the area that will show most.
I bit the bullet and used a sandy Rainbows thread. Generally speaking, I love this thread and the shimmery effect it has. It is espeially gorgeous on batik fabrics, but it can be a little bit persnicketty for me to work with. Sometimes I have more trouble with tension and with it creting small pokies on the topside. I decided since this was small, I'd venture into the potential trouble zone. Much to my surprise, it tensioned up very well, so I decided to use it on the entire quilt and not just the tan regions. What you cannot see from the pictures is that this thread has soft and subtle variations in color from ivory to caramel, and it has a gorgeos sheen. It creates a very formal look.

I suspect she will be happy. Her 2nd runner will have to wait until the weekend, as I have another deadline that I currently on the frame. Feathers, yummy and luscious feathers....

Progress on Carpenter Star

I have been puttering away at this quilt for the last 7 days, 2-3 hours a day. More customer quilts have come in this week, making me stress over how slow the progress is. At this point, I have to just stop fixating on the minute details and small fillers, and get the silly thing stabilized enough that it can come off the frame in 1 week or less. That should be doable since I am nearly sitting on the middle right now.
I had fun with the tan filler (above), although this is the last quilt I will make where I mix a solid fabric with other prints. The weaves are different and I am not thrilled how the dense quilting looks on the tan. It will be just fine when done. This is just a case of "ole picky me". The butterflies, which were nearly an afterthought on the quilt, are quickly becoming my favorite part!

Each of the diamonds of the wheel are densely quilted with different patterns. My hope is that it will appear as bands of texture going around the carmenter star when it is done. I'm using a wool batt over 80/20 so this (with all the piecing seams) is a thick quilt. Will be super heavy if mailed anywhere! So far, threads are Bottomline in bobbin and Invisifil on the top. Because the fabrics have so much pattern, it is hard to see the stitching. I so hope that the texture and time-consuming patterning does in fact show in the end. This seems to be a constant worry. What else am I to do, though, unless I want a bold or thick contrasting color thread?? Still going on faith at this point that my plans will work out.

I haven't settled on what will go in the tan (above the yellow applique) below, but it's stable for the time being. I do like the filled radial stripes, and I know that they will have a great look.
Here's the long awaited center (...long awaited for me, anyways, because it marks where the first half ends and the next half starts!). With a light held at angle, the quilting is visible. I have feathered along the outline of a star, and then done 1/8" radial lines to help mash down the fabric to enhance the feathers. The thread is a sage green, and it unfortunately matches way too well, almost to the point of disappearing... It is nice to be freehand quilting, rather than using the templates (which can be rather slow).

But, again, I ask, what should I have done differently? I'm not about to quilt in pink just to see it!

The grand reveal on this quilt should be interesting. I'm going half-blind trying to see the stitching for the printed fabric :-)

Thursday Thoughts

Almost another week is gone, bringing a weekend of what may include yard work (seeding to be exact) - ew! I try to be productive, but gosh, I seem to putter best of all lately. I have a bunch of hand-dyes in a variety of colors that I have been most ficklely waffling on what to make with. There have to have been 10 different designs, and yet another one on the drawing board today. I did get to start stitching on my applique quilt. I actually started yesterday, but I think the hour or so I worked was more or less a stitch, curse, pick-out, curse some more, repeat session. I couldn't get the dang Monolon thread tensioned properly, and finally gave up and decided to outline the appliques with beige Invisifil. Nearly invisible, just not quite!
I am stitching the entire top with the Invisifil thread (Bottomline in the bobbin). So far, not so much as a problem. Just what I like. Much is obviously not yet stitched (aka, the leaves, flowers, background, etc), but it is begun, and I do have a plan for most of the top.

I'm looking for suggestions from the readers as to what I ought to do with the creamy diamonds that are currently left unstitched. I'm at a loss. I designed them with curved stitching, but I have a hard time doing this on diamonds repeatably well. Ideas include do nothing, and outline with another row of straight stitching. Other thoughts??

Memorial Day work in Progress

Remember a week ago, when it was raining constantly and was only 50F?? Today it is seasonably normal and close to 90F. OK, it's rather shockingly hot to the system. We are installing the upstairs air conditioners, but the downstairs one has to wait until there is a door between the kitchen and garage (or else it will try to cool twice it's rating). Plus, the drywall is going up tomorrow and then will be sanded, etc this week, and the living room window the A/C goes in is right there in the way. We'll tough it out downstairs fro a few days.

I did get to put on a customer quilt this weekend. I think I am several days still from having any more disturbances in my basement. This will be finished and off by then. I hit it hard this weekend, and it is about half-done. Here's a few sneak peeks...

The outer border is rather thin for too much fancy-ness, only being about 5". I like the look of straight lines on the outer border to help ground the quilt. I think that it will work especially well on this quilt since it is a lovely quilt, but with busier fabrics. It is so deliciously romantic. Here is a look at the entire quilt.
I am quilting two faux borders or boxes that are being filled with pebbles. You don't get to see much of it here, but it looks really neat, and it will add a textural dimension to the quilt. I like to see pattern in the quilting that is different from the piecing. It gives quilts a nice depth. I'll show more of this this week as it progresses.

Catching Up

I have discovered a few E2E quilts I have not posted on the blog yet.

This is a nifty pattern, and the fabrics are delightful. It has an Eiffel Tower print too, but I don't think I got a picture of it. The owner wanted a fleur-des-lis pattern for the quilting. I was fortunate enough to locate the Heraldry pattern, which she loves. The piecing was textbook - nearly every row of the pantograph landed at the same location across the stripes - I never would have predicted that! I have no idea where this pattern comes from, but just yesterday, I came across this very pattern made by another quilter...look here...scroll down to the 2nd quilt.
Here's a sneak at one of the fabrics used on the back. Is that not just adorable??! Perfect for a toddler girl.

I finished this quilt just after I got back from MQX last month. It is for the owner's son, as he graduates from college. It is pieced from both cottons and Homespuns, and is quilted with a King Tut thread that she sent me. I have to caution you all about mixing these 2 types of fabrics. Though I managed to quilt it with good tension throughout, I can see that the cottons and the Homespuns are woven differently, and as a result, they tension differently. In my opinion, I would not mix them for a quilt being machine quilted. This pattern is the Popcorn pattern.

And lastly, another quilt for a man. These have to be the hardest for me to quilt. It's a fine line in quilting it pretty and not allowing it to be too feminine. Are feathers permissible? I used one of my newer pantographs called Plush. It's swirly and whimsical - to go with the dogs in the quilt.

This-n-That & a Christmas Finish

My week has been fairly uneventful, bordering on kind of boring. Just the way I like it - no huge surprises unless you count the 12" of snow that arrived Sunday & Monday. My kids have all been home, driving me nuts some of the time, but the boys are off to my mom's tomorrow for 2 nights so I have lofty hopes of actually making some headway on a client's quilt.

This client is from Sacramento, CA and located me from my quilting of the Folsom Quilt & Fiber guild's raffle quilt. Photos of this quilt were recently uploaded to their site here. I started on this quilt yesterday, but have been severely lacking the creative mojo so I have been poking around with other things so as to minimize how much pickout I will have to do!

My Italian floor quilt, as you know, is off the frame and is undergoing some pick out and marking for a final quilting that will happen in a week or 2. You might think I love the seam ripper considering I have spent 8-10 hours this week picking out sections!

I'll leave you with pictures of a quilt I did for my mom. The fabric is a Stephanie Brandenburg panel. I just had fun with it, using nearly a dozen colors, and a variety of fillers.

The view from the back is my favorite!

Have a Happy New Year!

CW Quilt and Rosette Progress

The large 85"x103" CW repros quilt is off the frame. This particular one, I gotta say, gave me a run for my money. These blocks were done by many people in a local guild and were swapped. A couple individuals pooled their piles of blocks to make this quilt as a raffle for a guild show in 2 weeks. Yet another person did the sashing & borders as I understand it. You'd never know from the finished quilt what it started out like...
Despite measuring the top and backing when it was dropped off, I (naturally!) discovered after I loaded the back and top that the backing was too narrow. I refuse to quilt anything with 1-2" side clearances. That's not even enough room for the clamps, and initially I was contemplating a custom quilting. Last Friday, someone came and got the back, and a few hours later it was redelivered to me with 3" muslin strips added to the sides. This worked just fine, except for the time to reload 110" of back! Then I got this brilliant idea that I'd use this thread (ok, so the link is not so descriptive...but I got a nice gold-toned trilobal poly thread as a part of a thread prize from MQX). Generally, I prefer the Superior threads hands down. They are reliable, predictable, and look good. But, I loved how this thread looked...

So I loaded it up and gave it a go. It's a variagated thread, so an 18 needle was used. Long story short, I am very close to tossing that thread in the trash. I quilted about 15" of my panto pattern and it thread-balled on the underside three times. I then picked it out, checked the bobbin and the top threadding and tried it again. It did the same thing. This is where it's nice to be in the basement studio because there was a significant amount of cursing to follow!

After I ripped that out, I immediately went and grabbed my best coordinating So Fine #406 and started sewing. Not a thread ball or thread break or even a mis-tensioned stitch. Thank you Superior. Where this is going in the guild's show, I really wanted to do a more custom quilting, but it's a rush job, and there just was not time. I hope it still looks good enough that I acquire a few clients! If they could have seen it before quilting, they'd be running with their quilts to see me...The borders and sashings had to have been stretched when they were sewn on. The seams puckered something awful, making some of the blocks pouf up like bra cups. I even had to hand sew one of the sashings down into a better position to avoid getting puckers. Live & learn. All's well that ends well. Nobody seeing or using the quilt really cares about it's path to completion, just that it looks good in the end! Right??!

And as promised, in between all the other things going on, I have pushed forward on these 15degree segments. Only 6 more to cut and sew. And then I'll need to start praying that they actually go together and lay flat!!

Happy sewing-

A week of puttering

I have been mostly either doing things this week that I am not prepared to show yet, or treading water (politically correct way to say "unproductive"!!). This morning, after I was just sick and tired of working on a very large and very not flat quilt, doing a fairly boring pantograph for 102", I decided I'd better get these blocks out and bordered. They were cut a couple months ago with the intention of making a quilt for a Project Linus book-blanket challenge which is barely over a month away. Do I hear, "E-Gads"??? A month away and it is only 8 blocks?? Yup. That's right. I have a ton of work to do so I am doing my darndest to simplify this so a completed top can be done in a relatively short amount of time.

As I am sure you figured, the book I have for the challenge is an Olivia book. It is not the Olivia's Christmas book, but I stumbled upon a piece of Olivia stocking panel fabric for a couple dollars and couldn't refuse. The quilts will be distributed closer to the holiday season so I think it is ok. Below is a close up of this. It's pretty cute, in a novelty-ish sort of way.
This week, my brother's family has been here. They just moved back to the states after 2-1/2 years of living in Italy. As a result, I had 3 days with next to no sewing. It is hard to knock down the backlog of quilts at that pace :-) Back in the spring, I made my SIL a quilted bag with indigo batiks she had. I failed to photograph it back then, so here is a heavily loaded picture. She loves it. It has a couple pockets inside, and a drawstring top that is tucked inside.

I have knocked out 2 of my Bee blocks. These are heading to Emily (of the Fresh Comfort Bee). I'm not exactly sure that they qualify as "Drunken Love", as she requested. Perhaps I should have had a glass of vino before starting them. I do like how the larger owl is eyeing the one in the corner though!

And one sneakie peek of a very cute sampler quilt that is nearly finished up. It's off frame now, and being bound. I am doing the entire quilt & finish job on this one. It is the Tisket a Tasket pattern and is so darn adorable!

I am tasking myself to do several quilts this week. My boys are off at camp 2 full days and I plan to take advantage of it. I have a CW repros quilt on frame now that is for a local guild. It's given me fits from the start. I've had thread battles, backing size inadequacies, and the general gamut of unflatness issues. I'm most ready to get this large beast off!

Stop Self-Doubt

I had this quilt on my machine all week. I spent nearly 18 hours on it. It's rather enormous at 88"x100", but pales in comparison to one quilt coming my way that is something like 117"x117"! This quilt posed all kinds of challenges. It's rather out of square. The appliques are kind of sewn on, if you know what I mean. The fabrics are fairly dated, which is not an issue, but...they are ALL muted and printed, which is hard to sew on. I'm not a fan of having the stitching show all that much so I try to match threads to fabrics within reason. The mottling of these fabrics made it like quilting in the dark! I was at times stooping to within a few inches of the quilt just to see it. The client wanted feathering, but holy crap, I could hardly see where I was going and I refuse to feather in a boldly different color. Besides, I don't think it would have looked that good.
I kept on stitching, and cursing, and sincerely hoping that once it came off the frame the texture would be visible and the blunders would not. I should know to believe. If nothing else, believe. The quilt came off, and the blunders are concealed nicely, and the texture is delicious.

The feathering is far from textbook, but given what I could see, I think they are not that bad. The quilt has a decent variety of fillers to force the eye to wander around.

I seriously need to get some larger circle templates, like 12" or so. Using a 9" circle to do those arcs was tenuous, and tricky!

I probably should have SID the geese, but I would have spent 2 more hours doing it, on an already expired budget. They pop nicely, so I decided all was well.

And the back, it's nicely textured. The feathers around the scalloped border are a wee-bit wonky now and then, but hey! They'll manage. I think the client will be pleased.

Have a good August weekend!

Saturday Slacker

Or so I wish. I wish I had the mindset sometimes to just veg on the couch. Maybe have a bowl of ice cream and a beer and then take a nice 2 hour afternoon nap. No such luck here. Noisy kids and plenty of quilting in need of doing.

Here's 2 pictures of quilts for Lisa that I did the day I got back from vacation, last Sunday. It's a great and simple pattern. It is not hard for a beginner, but it has a nice effect. I have it on my long list of patterns to make something with. Someday. The first one is quilted with a Jodi Beamish pantograph which I cannot remember the name of (and I am too lazy to go downstairs and look!) and the tan & blue sister quilt is a freehanded swirling pattern I call "feathers & swirls". Not so original there, but it usually quilts up looking nicely.

I have done a couple other customer quilts this week too, ones that are on a very short list to be done for an August quilt show, and a baby shower next weekend. I'll show those next week. The baby quilt came to me Thursday and it's a customer that tipped me nicely recently when she had yet another rush job. On account of that, I had a hard time telling her I didn't reall have the time! I would have liked to have done more custom work on this quilt, but time really did not allow. Plus, I spent 2 hours friggin' frogging her quilt because I had of all things a nasty pleat about 12" long. I have never done this before on the backing so I was pretty steamed - my sewing space is warm enough right now. Last thing I needed was to be PO'd on top of that! Anywho, that quilt was finished up early this morning and looks fantastic. Somehow it is these ugly adventures in quilting that make me fully appreciate when a sewing spree does go really well.

Like it did this afternoon. For the last couple weeks, I have been plugging through a bac of assorted scraps, cutting them into 2" strips and squares. Here's a few of the items I have pulled together. One is a 16"x40" table runner and the other two are between 18" and 20" square table toppers. These are some of my favorite fabric scraps - all brights and from a total hodge podge of designers.

This afternoon, I loaded all three onto one backing fabric and quilted away. They are all done differently. My favorite is the one on the lower left. I suspect I will make a few more of these.

Here's a runner I pieced and quilted earlier. It is the same fabrics, just larger pieces. This was a DP9, made from leftover 5" squares I had.

These next two table runners were finished a week ago. I struggle to get a good photo of them. They are really pretty in actuality, but come across kind of dingy. The "Americana" fabrics are not really my taste, but it is one less charm pack sitting around my studio. Maybe someone will want to buy them. Fingers crossed (or else someone will undoubtedly get them for Christmas!).

This morning, I brought my two quilts going to the Maine Quilt Show for dropoff. It always makes me nervous to leave my work or to mail it off somewhere. They were received exceptionally well by the quilt shop owner and the quilters that saw them. That is a good sign. Now it is in the hands of the judges. I have taken a number of pictures of the new quilt Primavera, and will show it after the show next week. As another surprise, this 2nd magazine (The Quilter) featured several winning quilts from MQX, and on the last page was mine. That quilt is also on it's way to next week's Maine Quilt Show. I also signed up for an all-day class at the show. It's kind of late notice, but hey, what the heck. It is an applique class taught by Karen Kay Buckley. I do know how to applique, but I figured since I have to be there all day because of needing to pick up my quilts afterwards at 6-7pm, I might as well do a class!

Have a fun week. Next week, my boys are again off at camp and I have a very custom quilt to tackle, and hopefully some desired piecing. I won't hold my breath there though!!

Fraternal Twins

I finished these two quilts recently. I finally dug into some of the green and browns that I bought in May as well as some fabrics bought last fall. Don't ask why they need to sit on a shelf for 6 months before I dare cut into them. I had quite a few Tina Givens prints that I really loved, and got for a mere $3 a yard in October that I had not touched until these quilts were done. The initial concept from the quilts came from Oh Franson's Mod Sampler, but I added a couple blocks of my own and yanked a couple of her's that just didn't play well, and viola! The designs are simple, but it takes a simpler design to showcase the larger modern fabrics well. I am also a bit of a rebel when it comes to sashings. I know that white is all the rage amongst so-called modern quilt makers. But I hate it. No, I HATE IT (did you hear me that time??!). It's stark. Cold. And just plain impractical for anything which will be used. Furthermore, if the fabrics contain off-white and ivory, why sash in white?? So, in keeping with my rebel ways, I sashed the green quilt in ivory Kona and the brown sister-quilt in a soft butter yellow. Yellow is unorthodox, but it coordinated better with the prints than the ivory did. Just call me Jesse James.

Initially, when I was making the blocks, I was very uncertain about the green quilt. I didn't like the blocks together much. But then I added about 6-8 new fabrics, pulled out 4 blocks, and it was love at first sight. The 5 Moda Bella solids I used with all of the bright, happy modern green prints are simply devine. I'm not really sure I can sell this one, but time will tell! And for those of you who do not or hae not used these solids, they are heavenly. I just love the Bellas - loads of colors, great weight, and a good price.

On the green quilt, I tried out a newly acquired panto called "Windblown" by Jodi Beamish, which again, I was not sure of initially. It is densely quilted, and took longer than I really wanted, but in the end, I like the texture. And you all know how I hate stippling, so I needed an alternative. And the brown twin quilt, has another new panto pattern called "Whirlygig", by the same designer. It quilted up quickly and looks nice too. This pattern will get used frequently.

Some detail looks... I did throw in a few aqua and brown blocks just for visual interest. They weren't quite right on the green quilt, but seemed OK for the brown.

See that delicious texture!

And the backs. Who could forget the back of the quilt?! Brown quilt... a Michael Miller brown and lime green check with a stripe of my favorite large flower by Tina Givens. I managed to get the brown check at a Linus quilt event in March, four yards for $4. What a steal! I almost never buy enough backing fabric to do an entire quilt back of the same material.

And the green sister quilt... It has the same Free Spirit Annabella flower and brown check, and I threw in some of another material from the Annabella line (green with yellow globs). I also bound this quilt with this fabric, perhaps a little risky move, but it turned out wonderfully.
So now, with little more than a week before I switch into beach vacation mode, I am busy wrapping up a couple more of my own selfish little projects. I am furociously designing several projects to stitch with newly purchased material, and scheming as to how I will utilize some older (AKA 2008-2009) fabrics. I have a few finishing touches to make on my Maine Quilt Show piece, which must be delivered the weekend after we return from vacation (so it has to be essentially complete when I leave). I have a great tutorial I will share next week. And I will put one more quilt to the LA before I take some much needed R&R.

Take some time on your porch swing this weekend and enjoy summer~ I know I will be.