Lavender by Susan

Susan approached me about quilting for her many months ago, she was initially interviewing quilters.  Then she waited 2 months for her backing fabric to come in, only to find that it had been discontinued.  She also decided that the front of the quilt was too busy, so took many blocks out and rearranged them, and ended up using those on the back. (Bottom)  Beautifully pieced and with tiny little fussy cut cornerstones.  I'm looking forward to seeing what else she brings!

 

"Sunflowers" by Janice

Janice also made a lovely purple Irish chain, but I've managed to lose the pictures of it.  Guess you'll have to take my word for it.

This is her Sunflowers quilt, made up of a Sunflowers and yellow fabrics.  So, it was quilted with an edge to edge design of Sunflowers and bright yellow thread.

 

Wooden Shoes by Kim

What an adorable quilt for a soon to arrive baby in Holland!

I hope you noticed the wooden shoes and Tulip quilting design.

Kim will also be traveling for a bike and barge trip in Holland in March, so I hope she will get to meet the baby when she is there.

 

"Crazy Quilt" by Gerry

Gerry always seems to have more and more quilts to do, and then she gives them away.  This one is a crazy pieced quilt, and the fabrics incorporate flowers, specifically roses.

 So, I quilted it with a rose design

3 from Janice

Janice is a "new to me" quilter.  So, she brought me 3 quilt tops to help finish.  She let me decide on the quilting design, and the threads for all.  Hmm.  Decisions!

I'm referring to this one as "Fall Leaves" because of the fabric choices.  I found a thread that had all the colors of the leaves in the focus fabric, but didn't like any of my leaf designs.  Ended up quilting it with "Tiramisu" for the design.

Is this a "Crown of Thorns" block?  I'm not sure
.  Pretty red and white and pink.  "Tea Leaves" for the quilting design.

This one I am calling "Tulips" because that's what
the dark green fabrics remind me of.  So, quilted with a "Tulip" design in a variegated green thread.

 

2 more quilts from Mike from Mom's clothing

These are such special quilts.  This one will be a wall hanging for family in Guam.  The large white flowers on blue are from a set of sheets
that a relative embroidered for Mike's mom, and now the flowers in this quilt represent family members.

This quilt is for Mike, about a twin
size.  The wide borders really give the Hawaiian Flower quilting design a place to shine.  Mike's mom loved flowers so this is another way to honor her.

 

Several from Zoe

Zoe reached out to ask about quilting, and said "they just seem to pile up."  So here are 4 stunning quilts by her.

This is the Bear Paw, quilted with "bean sprout" design.  She wanted something leafy, and this is what I had ready to go.

"Darting Birds" for her son Henry.  Quilted on my "big" machine with a paper pantograph.  It was too large to fit on my computerized machine.

"Diamond Divide"  I don't know if she paper pieced these blocks or not, but it's really lovely.

I think this is my favorite.  Tulips, quilted with a tulip digital design in pale cream thread to just blend into the background.

 

"Japanese throw quilt" for Louie

I got a phone call from Louis and he said that he had a quilt that needed repair.  I was thinking patchwork, lots of holes in it, probably not salvegable.  I was srong.  The top and bacing where in great shape, but any quilting stitches to hold the batting together were long gone, and all of the cotton batt had fallen to the bottom.

I wanted Louis to find a quilting design the he liked, and sent him some ideas, none of which were right.  Then I asked him,"Please, if you can, tell me what you think of when you look at that quilt?  That will give me an idea of where to go looking for quilting ideas."

This is his response.

This quilt is probably one of thousands of its kind. It is a common dorm blanket from Kokusai Budo Daigaku, a very serious Martial Arts University in a small fishing town in Eastern Japan.

It was my dorm blanket the first year I lived there, training in Judo 4-8 hours a day every day from 2013-2014.

The following year, I had the opportunity to move to Tokyo City to pursue more training at the Kodokan, which is the source dojo of all Judo in the world.

I took the blanket from my dorm and moved three hours by train with all of my belongings into a small apartment in the city, where I lived alone and trained at many universities, schools, private practices, and of course at the Kodokan from 2014-2015. The lodging was small. Only enough room for a bed, a toilet, and a hot plate stove for cooking, but I made it work and focused on my studies.

When my time was up in 2015, I brought the blanket with me when I returned to Kokusai Budo Daigaku with the intention of leaving it at the school.

But when it came down to my last day in the country, I couldn't bring myself to leave the blanket behind. It had comforted me through so many battles and so much change.

In the end, I see this quilt as a representation of a major chapter in my lifelong study of Budo, or the Martial Path. It represents acceptance, comfort, change, and of course reminds me of the many battles I fought against the hundreds and hundreds of nameless opponents I faced every day I lived and trained in Japan. The moments alone. The endless train rides. Tokyo City nights. Snow. Warmth.

When I look at this blanket, I think of all of those times and what they mean to me.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Thank you,

-Louie

 

 

I was hoping to be able to save the batting, but when I looked at it a second time, nope, not even for a donation quilt.  So, that's gone to the bag of fabric donation.  I had a blue backing fabric almost the same color as the original, so that was the new backing, and then used the original backing to make a new binding.  I hope that this will provide Louie with many more years of memories.  What a lovely story, and the amazing people that you get to meet through this business.

 

Roses by Gerry

I believe that Gerry said this quilt was for her daughter.  Lost of diff

erent rose fabrics, and then quilted with a rose pattern.

"Floral Parade" by Pat R

This is an amazing piece of art work by Pat.  I had never quilted for her before, and during our quarantine, there were several emails with photos back and forth.  Now I realized that I didn't get a full on photo of the completed quilt and am very annoyed with myself.  12 flower blocks, each appliqued beautifully, some shaded with ink.  Then hot fix ribbons were used to outline each piece, and some got little crystals.  Oh my!  This quilt is a stunner!

Cross stitched squares

This is just a preview of a quilt that's coming.  I wanted to take a "before" photo.  Still on my girl machine, Pearly, but we are having so much fun working on it!  I can't wait to show it to you.

"Purple for niece" by Pat

Another quilt for one of Pat's lucky niece's.  This one in shades of purple.  Quilted with a digital design called "Antwerp", so some pretty tulips and swirls.

"Paris" by Fay

Fay's grand-daughter has been promised a trip to Paris, so this is a gift for her.  Fay chose Minky fabric for the backing, and no batting.  Something I've never done before, so I got to learn something new as well.

Two from Gerry

Here are pink and green squares

 This design is daisy.

 And blue and yellow.  Not sure who these are for, but both quilted on Lenni with the computer.  This design is called "Flowers plump."

"Hydrangeas" by Dorothy

 Another huge quilt!  This one was quilted as an edge to edge, so faster than others, but still several days on my girl.  I love the hydrangea print, and warned Dorothy that since I was in the midst of a "large print" mystery quilt of my own, and these would be perfect in my quilt, she shouldn't be surprised to find large holes in her quilt when I returned it to her. 

Here is proof that I left Dorothy's fabric in her quilt.