What have I been working on in December?

Riddle me this:  How do you know you've found a good machine quilter? (Answer at the end.)

I finally finished the table-runner  quilt I gave my parents in cut-out pieces last Christmas!

This top is for my daughter.  She slept with the Disney Princess border fabric for two months.  I finally got it from her and she watched patiently while I sewed it to the quilt top.  This quilt is actually a compillation of many projects I started for her.   I soon realized that she didn't need five twin quilts for her bed so I added extra borders, sashing and half-square triangles to get the various blocks to fit into a sampler quilt.  It is a lot of fun.  The embroidery butterfly squares are hand-embroidered.  When my grandmother passed away, there was a pile of linens, some incompletely embroidered, some stained, and some stained with holes.  My grandfather was going to throw them away or donate them to a thrift store.  I couldn't let that happen, so I asked for them.  The butterfly embroidery blocks were on a damaged table-runner which I fussy-cut to salvage the hand embroidery.  The embroidery was either competed by my grandmother or her mother, my great-grandmother.  I like how it adds a sentimental quality to this quilt.



Answer: They're too busy quilting during the month of December to update any blog posts!

Continuous Curve Paradise

Here are photos of my latest custom quilt job completed for Kathy W.  She won the quilt top in a charity auction, and was actually pieced by her friend Mackenzie.  I love how it turned out.   Kathy chose for it to be quilted in a very classic style, desiring it to mimic the look of hand quilting.  We decided to use continuous curves on the heirloom sampler blocks and checkerboard sashing.  Micro-stippling was used to help the hand embroidered applique "pop" out from the back ground.  The heirloom look was completed with echo styled feathers in the outer borders.  Enjoy the photos!

Learning to Quilt from You Tube

A good long-arm teacher is hard to find, and when one is found, the prices to take a class are often astronomical.  Due to this, I started looking for good demonstrations on YouTube.  Here are some of my favorite links.  Enjoy!

Feather Circle Quilt Video.wmv

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdBgXEhjAMY

 

LongArm Class: Dancing Feathers SuperFAST-

www.youtube.com

http://www.SharonSchamberNetwork.com/ This is a promo for some of our new LongArm lessons that will be ready for download after launch

Continuous Curve Quilting by Off the Edge (channel)
http://youtu.be/nc7NZf9tUZY

Baptist Fan Quilting by Off the Edge (channel)
http://youtu.be/oD5QrFG1YiY

Quilt of Valor

Here's the latest quilt, it was completed for the Quilt of Valor campaign.  I free-motion quilted loop the loop and stars in the outer border, a vine in the inner border, and then used a ruler to complete the cross hatching in the center panel.  The cross-hatching is my favorite part since I am new to the technique.  I enjoy how it mimics hand-quilting.

Front of Quilt

Back of Quilt

Terry Twist

Here's the latest quilt, created by Heidi M.  She chose a quilted leaf pattern for the sashing and borders, and the "Terry Twist" (by Sally Terry) stencil for the patchwork sections.  I love how this quilt turned out.  The quilted pattern fills in nicely as she chose to use two layers of "Cream Rose" 80:20 cotton-poly blend for the batting.

The quilt top.

The quilt back.

Seasonal Pantograph Quilting

HAPPY HALLOWEEEN!

This month is October and my studio has quilted a lot of Halloween quilts.  They are so much fun.  One customer, Bev B. asked, "Can you put spiders on my quilt?"  I said "Sure"--posititve that I could find a pantograph with the thread paths already available. 

After checking all of my usual sources, I could not find any pantographs with spiders...so I played around for half an hour or so....and ta da!  Not only did I figure out how to create pantographs into PDF files, but I also created a custom one for this customer--Pumpkins and Spiders.   Her quilt was darling with this done edge-to-edge.

Bev B.'s Quilt Top

Her Quilt Back

Pumpkins and spiders Pantograph

Spiders in the Spider Web!

This is how the Pantograph looked all over the quilt top squares.

This is how the pantograph looked up close in the back's borders.
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Because I now can create custom pantographs, if a customer chooses to use one I created, I will not charge the $5.00 royalty fee because I'm the author!

 

My Daughter's Birthday Quilt

Several years ago, a friend of mine gave me her leftover 1 1/2 inch strips that she used to create a 1930's log cabin quilt.  After playing around with them, I created this quilt for my daughter's birthday.  It is an original pattern and I hope you like the pictures!  Perhaps when I get some time, I'll post the pattern here for you!  Let me know if this interests any of my readers.

 For many years, I have admired quilts where simple quilted background designs appear in the muslin or not-pieced areas (I call these the negative space areas).  Although the piecing is the focal point of the quilt, extra effort in the non-focal point areas always added value to the quilt.

At the time, I was new to machine quilting and did not possess the skill to trace a negative space design in the muslin areas, but I knew I could do small scale back-ground fillers around it.  To quilt this project, I first marked the area for the flower negative space design.  I then loaded it on the frame and did loop-the-loops with hearts in the pink borders and patchwork areas and did a small scale stipple in the muslin.  Because I had learned to quilt first using a domestic sewing machine, I took the quilt off the frame.  Then, after changing my domestic sewing machine to it's walking foot, slowly went around the drawn on negative space design.  I was pleased how well it turned out.  The design was able to be followed with perfect accuracy.