December's Quilts

Yay!  I'm finally announcing my latest quilt pattern.  It is entitled "Ligthning Bolt" and can be purchased through my etsy store.  It's a fast and easy quilt featuring the Marmalade Layer Cake by Bonnie & Camille for Moda Fabrics.  The pattern also includes a scrap fabric and yardage layout.  http://www.etsy.com/listing/118907832/lightning-bolt-pdf-quilt-patterns

Here are some photos of my daughter's Smocked Christmas dress.  I chose not to do a tutorial on this one because I was both pressed for time and it was a very difficult project due to the types of fabrics involved.

The dress was made from polyester crepe with a polyester organza overlay.  FYI, polyester fabrics don't hold pleats very well which made this dress particularly difficult to smock.  For this reason, I chose to leave in the pleating threads.  The beads on the organza caused the pleater needles to break so I had to hand gather about half of the bodice.  At least it turned out and my little one was thrilled with her Christmas dress!

It has also been a busy quilting month as well.  Here are some picts of my favorite customer's quilts.

This was an antique top from the 1960's or 70's they found stashed away in an attic in excellent condition.  For Christmas, the customer simply wanted Grandma's top quilted.  We agreed on continuous curve to mimic the traditional 1/4 inch hand quilting and a feathered longarm border as it was a motif the customer recognized from Grandma's tops.  It was special--and challenging since the fabrics--true to the time era--were from clothing and not quilting cotton fabrics.  The corderoy left a lot of extra  bulk at the seam intersections which required extra care.

This is a stunning lonestar quilt top--I love them.  The free-motion windblown motifs in the black background added a lot of movement to this beautifully pieced top.

As always, I love heirloom samplers.  This top was pieced from Maywood fabrics and was a block of the month quilt from Mormon Handicraft.

This is my favorite quilted block from the quilt top.  It was fun to create a minature feather wreath in the center square with swirls accentuating the outer square.  The leaf-vine sashing sets all of hte blocks beautifully.

My Newest Quilt

Here are photos of my newest quilt.  It is "America the Beautiful" from McCall's Quilting magazine, serialized 2011 pattern.  It was actually pieced by Linda at SugarQuilts (Etsy) and quilted by me.  After much debate, I decided that I would sell it on my Etsy store: ModernTraditionQuilt.

Here's the link: http://www.etsy.com/listing/117368293/america-the-beautiful-finished-quilt

Enjoy the photos!

$5.00 Summer Popsicle Quilt PDF Pattern

Hey!  Happy back-wards day!  As you can tell, I have children...and they celebrate "back-wards day" so I thought my blog should too.  A lot of people do "Christmas in July" sales so I thought I would do a "Summer in Winter" surprise.

Because this post has so many visitors, I decided to re-open the link and leave it up!  Thanks for visiting and enjoying this pattern.  Simply click on this link to download your $5.00 copy!

http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/quilting/home-decor/summer-popsicle-layer-cake-quilt--free/51068

The pattern also comes with yardage requirements if the quilter does not want to use pre-cuts.

Two-toned layout

Mono-chromatic layout.

Merry Christmas!  I thought some of you would like this fast and simple pattern--just in time for all of your Christmas project sewing.  I used the Riviera II stack ("Layer Cake" is TM of Moda and works well with those) and some extra fabric.  I will be posting more patterns soon!

Additionally, I cordially invite you to become a Follower.  Happy Quilting!

Just A Few of My Favorite Things

Here is a list of a few new quilting favorites!

1. Deep Wave ruler from Off the Edge Quilting my hubby gave me for my birthday!  Look how nice and even these waves are in the border!

2.  1 1/2 inch by 2 inch wave ruler by the Westalee system with Quilter's Rule.  This is the perfect ruler for smaller waves.

3.  I always seem to use my circle templates!

4.  Using my laser pointer to trace little cute elements and place them with perfect positioning on the quilt top.  Here I traced over lines from a free coloring book page from the Internet (and modify it for correct thread paths) using the laser pointer and quilted it to the top.  Genius!  I admit it wasn't my idea...it was from my quilt club at Floyd & Lizzie's quilt shop c/o B. Bell.

5.  When they don't make the shape of template you want and you really really want that cute figure in a specific spot and don't trust your tracing abilities...spend an extra 10 to 20 cents on...yeah...a child's wood cut out from your local craft store!  No, serious--another genius idea shared at my quilt club and Floyd and Lizzie's also c/o B. Bell.  Now, you have to be careful when using wooden templates.  Quilting machine manufacturers recommend a thickness of at least 1/4 inch of templates for safety reasons--I've found templates can slip a little.  So...I have woodworking connections and get these cut out of a thicker wood.  The only draw-back is that they are not see-through (like the "professional" snowflake in the photo next to the wood templates).

6. My favorite customer's quilt in April: the stork by J. McArthur.  She chose long-arm feathers driven off the curved seam lines to wrap around the storks.  It has Minkee backing which helped the quilt puff up and 80/20 quilter's batting by Fairfield.  I want to share this photo (with her permission) because it turned out beautifully.  The variegated thread makes the whole quilt sparkle.

7. Minkee fabric for the backing.  At first, I really dreaded using Minkee, it seemed like no matter what I would encounter thread breaks and tension headaches.  Well, after playing around and adjusting my settings (and writing them down) I no longer have troubles with it.  Look how beautifully the stitch detail shows up on this backing--and it is so soft an warm!