EOCQ-Gallery: February 2019

"Busy Bees" by Michael

Another Elizabeth Hartman pattern from Michael. Funny story, but what a delightful ending. Michael pulled the blue background from his stash, but was short. Ack! Looks all around on line to see if he can find more, and no luck. Finally he contacts the designer, Sue Beevers. Yes, she had a yard left, and sent it off to him. Just enough!

I love how the beehive turned out with all the bees quilted swarming around it.

This is Michael's bad pun. Don't blame me!
Sue "Bee"vers saved me with her fabric for my bee quilt 😁

Cats and a Cardinal by Xande

Xande and her love of paper piecing, or foundation piecing always amazes me. I can do it, but I am not a fan. All the more reason to admire her work.

I have seen her cat patterns before, but the Cardinal in the window was a new one for me.

I think the cat above is based on her "grand-cat" Pixel who is a Bengal

This one might be her cat Gaston, but he doesn't have a pattern of cats in white in his fur. Just some white bits.

Not sure who these two kitties are, but they seem to be having fun at the party. This quilt also gave me a new background fill. We're calling it "yarn balls". Small squiggle of quilting in a circle to represent the ball of yarn that the cats are chasing, then swirly bits around to the next ball of yarn.

Turkey by Sharyle

Here's a blast from the past! Back when Heart to Hand was still around, Sharyle chose these colors for the group as one option for making the Turkish Mystery. Beautiful colors, and a beautiful quilt.

Disappearing 9 patch by Joy

Nothing says "cuddle up with me" like a flannel quilt with wool batting. Joy will be very warm and cozy during the current snowstorm.

"Gingko Leaves in red and black" by Carla

Another lovely Asian fabric quilt from Carla.

This is the backing of her quilt. Just as lovely as the front!

"Cop Jelly Roll" by me.

I love a quilt that is totally made from leftovers! Not only did I get to clean something out of my sewing room, but it makes me think of the original quilt. This one started as a jelly roll quilt called "Lanterns" for the daughter of my friend Ursi in Austria. That's the original quilt below. After piecing the quilt top, I had a few strips leftover, so what am I going to do with these? Put them aside for a while and let them age like wine. Then a snow day! Grab that bin and just start sewing them together in a long strip. Cut them to a consistent length, and now sew them together on their long sides. Once that's all together, oh drat! Short a 4" piece. (See the top left corner and the dark purple). Once the top is assembled, dig in the stash for a border. I wanted something softer, but didn't have enough of anything else. Okay, I still like the red with it.

Here's the backing. Again, dig through the stash to find as many blue pieces as you need and then serge them together until it's big enough to work as a backing. Batting. Hmm. Let's grab this scrap and this scrap and so on, until it's all pieced together and quilted inside.

I was going to use a different design for quilting, but Hydrangea was still on my machine after working on Michael's, and I really liked it for this quilt. Something soft, but lots of quilting to hold my seamed batting together.

"Not smart enough for Stings"

Again, this is Michael's title of the quilt, not mine. Still really fun. Take a bunch of rectangles and sew them together. Poof! It's a fun scrappy quilt! Okay, it's probably more than just "poof", but it sounds like a good idea.

I love scrappy quilts because I'm trying to use up my stash, and it's like revisiting old friends when you see a fabric from another project. In the quilt above, I can identify at least 3 fabrics from former projects.

"Snowflake Splendor" by Michael

My friend Cathy got me hooked in an online mystery quilt group, and I was telling Michael about it, and he started this one. I don't think he had ever done a mystery quilt before, but I love them!

In case you missed it, here's mine. Michael went for a more subdued color palette, (and a lot less scrappy!) than I did.

Quilted with the hydrangea panto, which was perfect to pick up the flowers in his fabrics.

Mexican Mystery by Sharyle

A lovely memory of when the Heart to Hand quilt shop was still around and we were sewing monthly mystery quilts. Lots of fun bright colors, and quilted with the "Sea Life" panto.

"Cozumel Palace" by me

In January 2018, my darling husband's boss took the entire company (it's small) to Cozumel, all expenses paid for a week as a thank you. Oh my! So, this quilt is a long time in coming, but I found the pattern and knew that this was the one for them. Thomas and Penny are Chinese, so I tried to use colors that would be significant for them. Red for the background was the obvious choice.

Then there were these large open spaces just designed to play with quilting! I even had to get 2 new longarm rulers to make this quilt.

The backing fabric is a really pretty batik. So many solids on the front, that this was the perfect time to use this fabric. Also reminded me of some of the colors of the ocean there.

"Heart to Heart" for Delia by me.

My friend Kathy got me hooked on an online mystery quilt through Facebook. This is from the group "Mystery Quilts Anonymous." Made from my friend Delia who is going through some changes in her life, and needs the hugs that only a quilt can provide.

Since I love 1930's fabrics, this gave me a great "excuse" to use them. Also, Delia loves dogs and rabbits, so these fabrics work perfectly for her. The green blocks make the "Hearts" that give the quilt it's name.

The backing is actually sky blue, but reads dark in the photo. Since Delia loves bunnies, I had to quilt this with the Bunny Hop panto. So fun!

Frankenquilt #9 by Michael

Let me first state that Michael is the one who coined the term "Frankenquilt". I love his way of using up scraps of fabrics to make something, that always seems to work.

Fun to revisit old favorites from other quilts that I've worked on with him. Also very excited about this piece of Crater Lake because Cycle Oregon 2019 will be going there!