All Geared Up

Here is this year's "featured quilt" from the Okotoks Quilt Stroll. It's called "All Geared Up", which I think is so appropriate since the outdoor quilt show is held in conjunction with a classic car show.

Linda, the designer of the pattern and owner of Rumpled Quilt Skins, requested steam-punk shapes and motifs in the quilting... to which I replied, "what the heck is 'steam punk'?". She printed off a few pictures, and I did a little internet research. Gears, cogs, shafts. A whole sub-culture exists! Fascinating photos can be found!

All I can say is, thank goodness for my nesting circle rulers from Quilters Rule. And thanks for another great year of Quilt Stroll, Linda and staff!

Celebrating Canada's 150th Bday

My quilty friend Linda made this quilt in honor of Canada's 150th birthday. Since we're in the Great, White North, I think it's only too appropriate that it is winter-themed. Lots of cute extra-special touches in the quilt. Shimmery metallic threads. Fuzzy fleece and flannel fabrics. Embroidered snowmen. Appliqued maple leaves. The whole thing is a feast for the eyes.

I just added a few touches of quilting to tack down the layers of quilt top, wool batting, and flannel backing fabric. I outlined each of the embroidered snowmen/snow creatures. I did some simple straight lines in the sashing strips. Swirls in the white border. Echoing and filler in the outer border.

Happy Brrrrrrrthday, Canada!!!!

Simply Eden Quilt

Heather pieced this pattern from Tula Pink, which is called Simply Eden. Isn't it fun and ultra-cool!?

There are a lot of sharp points in this piece. The half-square-triangles that make the perimeter of each color swatch create a jagged feel. So, I thought it would be good to soften those angles by applying a quilting motif with a lot of roundness and flowing movement. Heather liked the idea of doing really big circles/loops. I agree!

It can sometimes be most challenging to quilt a seemingly-perfect shape when it's big, rather than small. As I'm driving my quilting machine, it's easy to maintain control over my machine with small shapes. Smoothness and consistent spacing can be tricky, when I'm moving my machine in larger movements. So this was a nice little challenge for me - honing my skill set for larger quilting shapes. I like it!

My quilting is all free-motion, hand-guided on a longarm quilting machine. 

 

 

Art History Grad Quilt

This beautiful quilt top was made by my new client, Katie, for her daughter Bailey, who is just about ready to defend her Masters thesis in Art History at the U of Victoria (BC, Canada). You can do it, Bailey! Katie said that she's not real experienced at quilting, but I think she did a really great job! This will be a beautiful, meaningful, and warm gift to commemorate this really exciting time in Bailey's life and career!

My quilting is all free-motion, hand-guided on a longarm quilting machine.

One of the things that Katie feels least confident about is the binding process. So she hired me to attach the binding to the front of the quilt - that way she doesn't have to worry about figuring out how to create mitered corners. Now she just needs to wrap the binding around to the back side and hand-stitch in place.

Heather's 9-Patch

This lovely little quilt is from a new client of mine. I refer to it as a 9-patch pattern, but it's actually a lot more intricate than that. Tiny little pieces, all of them matching up perfectly. Just great!

Heather asked for an edge-to-edge pattern, and the freshness of this crisp white-and-pink color scheme made me feel like peonies would make a good quilting application. Love it!

My quilting is all free-motion, hand-guided on a longarm quilting machine.

Lots and LOTS of ruler work

Did I ever tell you, dear reader, that I listen to movies while I'm quilting? So, when I look back at these photos, I automatically imagine the movies I watched while I was working on it. This quilt was mostly the movie, "Dreamer", with Dakota Fanning and Kurt Russell - and the audio commentary - and the extras about making the movie - and casting it - and training trick horses for it. This quilt took a LONG time!

All those straight lines/star bursts were achieved by dragging my machine's hopping foot along the straight edge of a special acrylic ruler, made 1/4" thick especially for longarm quilting. Ruler work is a really striking effect, but it takes FOREVER. Especially this piece, which was majority ruler work. I filled in the black background space with overlapping swirls, accented by pebbles.

Joy, this quilt's owner and piecer, told me to do custom quilting and "go nuts". I think I'm officially there. Now if I could just get the soundtrack to "Dreamer" out of my head!