Debbie's quilt

Debbie waylaid me at the April Forsyth Piecers and Quilters Guild meeting:)  She had loved the swirly pattern I quilted on my teacup quilt and she asked if I would have time to finish her quilt of valor before the next month's meeting. Debbie made this quilt for her son, Christopher, who has been a combat photographer for the US Navy for the last 14 years. She told me she was headed out to Italy in 5 weeks to see him. Could I get this done in time? Sure, I said, no problem, hehehe.

I had a baby quilt and a t-shirt quilt in line before her, but I was confident I could get this done in time. And here we are, a record two weeks (30 hours of quilting and 33 bobbins later)...

Debbie wanted the swirly pattern quilted on all the white background, but she gave me free license for the rest. So fun! I ended up choosing a feather design for the red 'ribbons'. At first I was thinking more geometric, but the straight lines I tested on my plexiglass sheet just looked cold and stiff. I thought the feathers made the ribbons flow more.

The yellow stars were the most challenging for my machine. My poor little Jane is worlds better than the original Viking I started quilting on, but she still balks at seams. I was able to power ahead, teeth clenched, through the start seams with only one thread breakage, yay!

I had a lot of fun with the the large blue star. I used a design that Green Fairy Quilts uses a lot for squares. Love these loops and circular square echoes:)

I wanted to do a similar design with these squares on point for the outer blue border, but my math leaves something to be desired. The squares wouldn't line up properly for the length of the border and would have ended up more like rectangles. I decided to quilt more feathers instead to bring all the sections together.

 

Thanks so much Debbie!

Annette's baby quilt

 

 

Annette made this gorgeous baby quilt for her first cousin's second child. Her colors are aqua and coral.

 

 She pieced the back using extra scraps of fabric leftover from the top.

I quilted the whole thing with a wavy line pattern.

 

Annette also made this adorable little doll with the scraps to match. The 'K' on the front of the doll is for Kohen.

Thanks Annette!

Linda's quilt

Linda had been holding onto this queen-sized quilt for a while and she asked me not to quilt it too densely.

I quilted feathers on each pinwheel in a light pink matching thread.

 

Then I free motioned a leafy floral rose pattern all throughout the blue background.

 

Thanks Linda!

School

Ok, so Adele has inspired me. I had a look online at Sew Original's Solids Challenge and decided to give it a go. I couldn't find the submission date online, but Adele told me all quilts have to be in by April 12th! I had to work fast. So last Monday, I piled the kids in the car, and my husband too (and all 3 dogs) and we headed out to Joann Fabrics. There is a great fountain just across the street with a walking trail as well, so the kids and dogs all headed out while I examined the solid choices. Fortunately there were loads of different shades of aquas and greens and grays. I knew I wanted to do a school of fish across the middle of a navy background. I figured I could get all 12 different solids in using the fish. So I bought a 1/8 of a yard of each of them. Well, 14 total:)

I traced each fish individually and fused them all on with Steam-a-seam Lite 2. Then I got to work on the bottom of the ocean.

I looked at some clip art online, just to get an idea of coral shapes and I used my wonderful white Bohin marking pencil to trace the outlines of all the coral. I stitched over that first so the markings wouldn't fade and started filling in the spaces in between.

It has a Where's Waldo feel. You can just make out the sea monster/angle fish in the above photo in the lower right hand quadrant. That one was my oldest daughter's idea. There are also the outlines of little fish spaced here and there through the ocean deep.

There's the seahorse, smack dab in the middle. I did that before I filled in the background. In retrospect, I should have just done the shape and not detailed inside. It blends in a little too well.

I was feeling really so impressed with myself after finishing the deep that I was totally stumped as to the shallower water. I hadn't planned on the filler being quite so small and detailed and I was worried that I wouldn't get the quilt finished in time if I did the same on the top half. At the same time, the dense filler on the ocean floor creates depth and I wanted it to look a little less busy on the top.

So I stitched some wider wavy lines through the school of fish to create a transition between the two levels of water. Then I stitched scales on each fish because some of the corners were coming up. I'm guessing I could have fused them a little bit longer.

I had a lot of fun with the jelly fish. I used a lighter aqua thread to make them stand out a bit more.

I even got a family of killer whales in there. I stitched them in black first, but they didn't show up at all, so I used the same color thread as the shallower water.

I used some scraps from my aquas to do the narrow 1/2" strip border and for the binding as well.

So now I've got to head over to Sew Original and drop this off. Fingers crossed for the big gift certificate! I could buy a lot of fabric with that, and who doesn't need more fabric:) Voters choice. Head in and vote if you get a chance.

Adele's quilt

Adele started quilting this quilt for Sew Original's Solid Challenge on her own machine. She had quilted about 1/4 of the quilt and her machine started acting up. She had to take it to the shop and leave it while they tried to figure out what was wrong.  She asked if I would finish this for her.

She wanted straight, well, not quite straight lines on all the light gray fabric to give it a nice modern look. Perfect! I got to go super fast on my machine and not have to worry about the lines been exact. So much fun!

Thanks Adele and good luck!

Help, the dog ate my quilt!

Laura came to me with a quilt that she had started 20 years ago! She had taken a class and had pieced this all-flannel lap quilt and started quilting around some of the squares. Then the teacher left town and this quilt has been languishing in a dark cabinet somewhere:) Laura decided it was time to get this quilt finished so she brought it to me.

 

Have a look at these plastic ties! Apparently, this was the fashion for basting when Laura took the class. The upside was that I didn't have to baste the quilt and I could get started quilting right away. The downside was having to cut them all off as I went along. I was terrified that I would hit a piece of plastic with the needle or cut the quilt trying to get them off. I was fortunate not to experience either of those things, but they still keep popping up on the kitchen floor in the most unexpected places:)

 

So, anyway, Laura calls me up a few days later. Help! she says, my dog ate my quilt! Can you fix it?

Hm, that really is the question, isn't it? Her puppy, a humongous, innocent-looking, white Great Pyrenees named Lady, really did a number on this quilt.

Doesn't she look sweet and harmless;)

And this corner is no longer even in existence! I know it is possible to 'quilt as you go', so I looked online to see how it is done. The video I watched presumed that there was actually backing AND batting fabric upon which to 'quilt' pieces as you go. Obviously not relevant in this case:)

So what did I do? I trimmed off the bad corner leaving a nice triangle. I cut out a piece of backing fabric. Stitched them right sides together and then did the same with the border fabric. Of course it always works out that the fabric you need is the fabric you don't have. Laura had plenty of leftovers of everything but the dark blue. Fortunately, she still had some of the other blue, so I used that one. I sandwiched a piece of batting in between and quilted over the whole piece.

Then I bound it normally, just folding the ends of the binding under 1/4".

 



I pieced some patches to cover where the rips went across seams and then turned them under and topstitched them and quilted the design over the whole thing again.

You can see the seam lines, but it isn't as noticeable as it could be. In fact, it took me a second to find the patches so I could show Laura what I had done. All in all, success I think:) Now I can self-style myself as a restorer, hehehe. No thanks! Think I'll stick to quilting and leave restoration to the professionals, barring any emergencies:) Thanks Laura!

Trying to switch over

Just when I got comfortable with Google Reader, I have to switch.

Guess I'm supposed to copy this link?
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5113969/?claim=fdwfmx7rcn6">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Let's see if this works. Fingers crossed!