Monday, July 31, 2017

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.


Saturday, July 29, 2017

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.





Friday, July 28, 2017

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!












Thursday, July 27, 2017

Funky Flying Geese

This great wall-hanging came from my new client, Joy. And it makes me JOYful! A really neat arrangement of beautiful batik fabrics in flying geese (triangles in a row). It inspired me to put some flying geese of my own in the lovely outer border. Aren't those colors divine?

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







Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Mary's Bold Beauty

Such vibrant colors in this quilt from my new client Mary. High contrast fabrics make pattern really striking! I love the way my red quilting thread looks against the solid black fabric! For whatever reason, I don't get to use a lot of primary red thread. It's so yummy!

Mary ordered an edge-to-edge quilting treatment, and I love the way these meandering loops spill out over the quilt top. Great job, Mary!

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


 





Quilter That Shall Not Be Named

This quilt is only posted on a promise that I would NOT share the piecer's name. She is so stinkin' humble about the quality of this project! It was purchased as a kit, and she wasn't in love with it, and she kept saying it wasn't perfect and not to look too closely. And I'm here to tell you, I DID look at it closely (it's kinda my JOB to look at every single inch, as I quilt through each quilt top! Ha), and it is wonderful!

Though the colors aren't necessarily within her (or my) range of comfort, they are no less fabulous! Cheerful and happy and smile-inducing! The quality of workmanship in piecing and pressing was outstanding! Edge-to-edge "rosebud" quilting (combo of swirls and football-shaped leaves) was the order of the day, and I think the whole thing turned out beautifully!

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









Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Betty's Comeback Quilt

Betty is a very accomplished quilter and artist. She has a house full of beautiful works to prove it. Unfortunately, she has recently experienced health trouble that has affected her artwork. It's called wet macular and requires her to get shots into her eyeballs! This treatment has seemed to give her some relief, but it's still hard for her to quilt with precision. This project was the first she pieced after treating her condition, as a sort of experiment to see how it went.

It was a simple pattern with varying shades of browns, taupes, and creams. And Betty wanted a simple custom quilting treatment. She's one of my clients who I've learned wants quilting to be sparse, because she likes her quilts to be soft, supple, and cuddly. That's a tricky combo - sparse and custom, because the very nature of custom quilting is to fill up every little individual space. But I thought LARGE and went to town with feather wreaths, overlapping swirls, and stitch-in-the-ditch.

I'd say Betty Is Back!

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