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....

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!

Merry Christmas to Me

My house is not in the least decorated yet for Christmas. No tree yet. No outside lights. No stockings. My husband's too quick to remind me that the wreath that hangs outside the front door, which had Easter eggs on it (gasp!) was only taken down 3 weeks ago. I am vowing to make after Christmas easier by not over-decorating this year. But I have pulled out a mini quilt I made 1-2 years ago which I really like -- my Kaffe version of a partridge & a pear tree. And I have done the almost unthinkable at this time of year. I have decided to keep a table runner that I actually made for someone as a gift! Oh, Eeee Gads - this is awful, isn't it??! I just got it almost finished, and decided it was time for the quiltmaker to actually have a nice quilt too.
All the fabrics were bought (well, selected - Handi Quilter actually did the buying!) in Utah on my Handi Quilter retreat. They are all Asian prints with a gilding. Generally this type fabric does not appeal to me a whole lot, but when I finished the runner, I decided it looked holiday-formal, and that it should stay right here in my home. Afterall, next year we will have that nice, new dining room table to put it on. Plus it reminds me of that fantastic & magical trip. This year it is on my smaller buffet because the dang table is covered with Thermodynamics crap (and the usual fabrics!).

The quilting is simple, so as to let the fabrics be the focal. I copied part of the design I used for the mini wall quilt to use on this runner. I love the minimalist look which does not just scream Christmas. That's handy since I'm not diligent about removing those pesky holiday decorations right after the holiday!

I still have a pear stem, a bird's beek & eye to applique on, but it is mostly finished.

Here's a peek at the back. I couldn't bring myself to using the gorgeous Asian print for the backing, where the quilting wouldn't really show. It's just a brown Bella solid I had.

Now, this is causing quite a stir because I now have another person that I will have to shop for, and we all know how much I HATE to shop, especially now that winter is really here.

Another of Santa's offerings have come a little early this year too. OK, "he knows when you've been bad or good"...so no lies. I went shopping and opted to stock my stocking early myself (a wise woman never leaves this job to her husband or she'll get only kitchen gadgets and underwear!). There. I have purchased a few new templates. There are 2 rulers for making the cathedral windows for my Italian floor quilt (and just because I have really wanted some of these !!), and the other one is also for the same quilt, and to make insanely little circles...or curved cross-hatching that actually results in perfect little circles!

After not receiving any comments a few posts ago when I said I was adding yellow and orange flowers to this quilt, I assumed that the rest of the quilty world thought I was just nuts, and that you were too polite to say so. As you can see, I have mostly finished the addition of these flowers, and have done some pencil coloring on them to add lighter areas to the petals to give the flowers some dimension. I will shade the darker areas, and make petal definition with stitching.
I plan to add a few tendrils in a brighter green for the flowers, and perhaps add a flower bud or two on each corner. But you get the general idea...

My initial thoughts are mixed. I definitely love the added flowers, but know that this will be a total pain in the ass to quilt! The best things in life are always a double-edged sword.

Now I need to investigate whether I can still scallop the edge of this quilt, or if I have appliqued too close to make this feasible.

Friday Alas

Clearly this week has gotten the best of me. I have missed my weekly Tuesday post by 3 days, but that was partly because there was nothing but frustration to blog about. I have had fussing Thermo students and too much homework to grade! I had kid's afterschool events 2 days this week, and met with a builder for nearly 2 hours yesterday (we are remodeling the downstairs). I went to add the swag border on my grape applique quilt, to find that the corner blocks did not align very well. I then went to my EQ7 file to check if I used the right pattern, and the damn thing was an empty file! I just about croaked. OK, not really. I sputtered a TON of foul mouthed words, and threw the quilt into a heap on the table. And there it sat for several days. I since located a paper version of the swag pattern and am currently reworking the pattern so that I hand applique all the swags after the background is readded. Oh, and of course I discovered that I used the wrong fabrics on the inner border and it had to be redone, and naturally I did not have any left of one color, so more was ordered. Blah, blah, blah!... So today before I got a long-winded call from my son's school, I made one of the 16 backgrounds for the swags. Maybe I can get a few more done later-



I spent most of this week knocking off customer quilts. I am trying to clear a good chunk of my backlog before I take off for the HQ retreat in a week. Upon my return, I have a large custom quilt that must be quilted for the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild. It will be their raffle quilt.



The only thing I can really say I did is put the binding on this quilt. I chose a fun stripe, with hints of metallic. Now I need more TV stitching...

Here's one of the lap quilts finished for a client. It's already off enroute to Texas, probably due to arrive by Monday. It's a fun pattern I have not seen done before. The fabrics are lots of lovely shades of tan & taupe. I used the Plumage pattern.

...and a closeup,

This runner is from a local client. Actually, she has been a friend of my mom's since grade school, so basically family. She drops off runners every month or two for quilting.

Have a good weekend, and try to be more prolific than I have been this week!

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!!

T Minus 1

I have been puttering the last couple days before I leave for vacation. My kids are more than psyched about going here and here, and about having a house with a pool 3 houses away from the beach. Gotta say, I am pretty excited too. I just hope that the weather and the potential hurricane out there stay away. We made a very last minute change last week and decided to stay at the Disney resort rather than a few miles further away at a cheaper hotel. The convenience and allure of the resort was overpowering. It's also pretty neat that we have a riverboat as our main means of transportation to the village!

The last few days I have been playing in a pack of charm squares (right) that were given to me last year in a swap. They are kind of too "Americana" for my taste, too much muddy colors and browns. So, I made up a couple of runners that I hope to sell this fall. Same thing for the other two brighter runners. I had many left over 5" squares from another project I did last fall. The DP9 is a fun pattern to mix many fabrics together with. They will be quick quilt projects when I return, especially if I think ahead and connect all of the backings (one backing load for all 4 runners). I have another smaller table topper in progress, but it will have to wait.

I also got these squares put together earlier last week. This fabric is SO soft and pretty (I'll have to check the selvage for who made it again). The colors are a departure from my usual brightness, but it is very delicate all stitched.
So I am off for 12 days. Don't miss me. I'll be off getting rested and tanned, and rejuvinated to quilt a marathon (I have a TON of pieces to complete when I return!).

Think Spring

It was a frigid 1F this morning. Today seems a bit late, but then rather appropriately cold day to show the table runner (17"x44") I made for my mother-in-law for Christmas. It was from a Moda pack of charm squares Lisa gave me last summer. I had originally wanted to do something for myself with them. I really love the butterflies and tulips, but it was crunch time in December and I really needed a Christmas present too.
The quilting is overly simple, almost insultingly so. I should have done it on the longarm, but wanted to use the varaigated King Tut thread I had, and had never tried this on the longarm. Blah, blah, blah, long story, I opted to simply stipple it on the domestic machine. Only a good quilter would know what it could have been.

Not sure if my feeble embroidery shows, but under the birdies (which my MIL loves to watch), it reads "Think Spring".

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I have had a steady stream of quilts to finish up in late December and this month. I did this one, despite not having a good picture of it. The T-shirt quilts are challenging, kind of like quilting a slinky. Once you get it pinned to the leader, it just pulls back in. I wanted to scream ! Takes a bit of TLC to get to lay flat and square. On the plus side, I did not have to do anything complicated for the quilting so it did quilt reasonably fast.

The rest of these are quilts I have done for other people. The brown one was tedius, and made per the customer's request. I tried my darndest to talk her out of parallel stripes, but she didn't want to budge. They weren't easy. I'm not sure what is up with the raw edge "bits" down that stripe, but I think they are supposed to get scruffy when it is washed. It does have an interesting texture :-)

Here's a fun child's kaleidoscope quilt all in jungle animals. It quilted up cute with the gold thread and the swirls. The backing is purple so the quilting shows nicely.

And another quilt belonging to the lady who owns the brown stripes quilt...She requested this swirling cloud all-over pattern that I freehand. It is in a variagated rainbow thread.

My week has been crazy. My class started Monday. It always takes a couple weeks to get the students engaged and really working, but my schedule has resumed. No more lazy holiday mornings. I started an online class running for the next 3 weeks "Quilt Wisperer" taught by Carla Barrett aka Feathered Fibers. It'll be humbling I am certain, but I hope to look at quilts and how I may quilt them differently. If you look at some of her quilts, you'll drool for sure though!

I have also made up a sample of some things I can quilt for a local quilt shop. They won't refer me to clients until they see this. Nothing like buying and "wasting" 8 yards of fabric just to impress/show one person! OK, sarcasm aside, it was a pain to squeeze this into the current schedule, but it will come in handy to show clients what the many patterns can look like on ugly tan fabric. To better show what I am up to as a longarmer, I have also pieced some swap blocks into a top and have quilted away at this for the last 2 days. It has different quilting for each block, and pretty sashings and a feathery border. I will show this to the shop too (when it is off the frame!!). That is tomorrow's task: finish it. Then I have 2 Crayola Challenge quilts to quilt, one which I have, and one which is due to arrive Friday. Can you say "They both must be done by next week"??? Yikes!

Time to run and do kid pick up, dinner, and all that other yucky stuff which fills my days.

Pretty in Blue & Yellow And Red & Green

Despite most of my household being really sick, including me, I have been quilting a bit as I have the energy. Lisa sent me a couple table runners to do and another quilt. This is the most interesting of these (to me). I hope she likes it too.
The thread is a chocolate brown, but it does appear to blend away on the marroon fabric, and have the appearance of a deep cranberry in other areas. I love how threads can have the illusion of another color.

And another finish. This is a great lap quilt. It has nice piecing and I always love scrappy quilts. The owner's only request was no stars. I did a couple rows of leaves and tendrils around the outer borders. The periwinkle blue sashings are done in vining leaves too. I used a soft butter yellow thread.

Each of the Lemoyne stars are done like swirling pinwheels. It is an interesting effect and copies the tendril motif.

Again, I like this and hope the owner does too. It will be mailed home to her this week.

Have a restful and well weekend. Here at my house, three of us are recovering from what seems to be Swine Flu. Or if not, then we have fevers, chills, horrific coughs and other assorted ailments. My mostly unsympathetic husband better hope he avoids this one. Paybacks are no fun!

Arrival of Autumn

With Fall officially here, I am actually on season for completing this runner. The background is from charm squares of Moda's Miss Jump's Scrapbag, which I was given during the 4SQS summer block swap. Normally I am not much of a brown person. In fact, I initially thought that these squares were just the thing that my mother-in-law would like, and was anticipating making a Christmas present from them. But the once I added the leaves in batiks, I really liked the runner. Thanks, Virginia - I even have enough of the squares left to make a smaller runner for my buffet (I just love to have 2 pieces that match or coordinate!!).

I almost did a fused applique, but in the end decided to needle turn the leaves. The oak and maples were a touch challenging with all of their points, but I think it produces a more finished look.

This was my first attempt at a pseudo-peacock quilting. The first attemp got ripped out because I did not like the thread color (about 4 hours of picking!). This color is good on the front, but not my favorite on the back. I'll get over that because the back won't show!

The 1" border is another fabric that I was given in the summer swap - I really don't like CW's at all, but again, this I do really like. And, it brings out the red in the runner too...almost appearing like little red berries.

And in case you had not noticed yet, Amy at http://www.parkcitygirl.blogspot.com/ is once again hosting the bloggers quilt festival. Go check out her site. Last Spring there were lots of wonderful sponsors, prizes and quilts to peruse. I am also planning a giveaway for this event, so stay tuned!

The Time has come to do something...

...and by "do something", I mean more quilty related than just talking about the ultimate purchase of my quilty life.

So here are a few peeks a two holiday table runners I have made recently. I am making several large quilt tops as well, but I wanted to get a few smaller items made up that I could actually quilt right now. I made one like this for myself last year. The quilting is a bit different, but basically the same concept. It is fairly retro red & green prints in a bold block-log cabin pattern.
The quilting is stippled, except inside of the center squares, where I did a modern-ish looking Christmas tree. This runner is 14"x38".

The second table runner is more complicated, in that it has more detailed (though not really very hard) piecing, some hand, needle-turned applique and more custom quilting. It is about 16"x38" or so.

There are three little presents on the runner, hand appliqued. The fabric I selected is absolutely perfect for simulating a foil present wrap in that is shimmers. It is a 100% cotton though. The quilting on this runner is similar to one I made earlier in the spring for my son's teacher. I did feathered hearts and a feathered inner border in a beige thread so it subtly showed against the white Kona cotton. Really lovely, I think.

The back has a beige print, so the thread blends in. When held in the light, here's a peek at the quilting. I am slowly getting organized, getting an Etsy shop establishd, and preparing for when that LA arrives in October. Look for these two table runners there, and more!

addendum...Someone please tell me how to get the ETSY badge onto my blog!!> thanks