"Blue and Cream Stars" by Sara

Isn't this quilt a stunner?  All scrappy, my favorite way to quilt.

This is the backing, the pattern is called "Northern Lights"

 

"Mom made it" for Erin

This quilt was huge!118"x116".  Thank goodness for my 14' longarm table.

 Quilted with freehand leaves allover the middle of the quilt, and then a leafy border design in the outer border.  So soft and feminine.

"Luxurious" for Janet

 This is a whole cloth for Janet's customer who wanted it to be "Luxurious." Double layer of poly batting, and then a simple outline of the medallions.  Janet will cut it down to size and do the binding.  Hope it meets his needs.

"Baby Bliss" by Maria

 Here is Maria's second quilt of this batch.  Baby Bliss is for a friend's baby.  Lucky little kiddo!  Such soft colors with a cream background. 

 A somewhat Celtic Knot in the setting squares.

Outline of the bowtie shape in the pieced blocks.  Hardest part?  Making sure I didn't over or undershoot the line on the ties. 

Wool applique in cream and black by Leigh

 How does she do this?  Leigh told me today when she picked this quilt up that it took her "about a month" to make it.  She does not watch television, but likes to spend time with her husband who does, so she always has her hand work.  Just amazing!
 Here's what we did.  First, I listened to my brain when it told me to change what we had initially discussed for quilting her quilt.  Then I contacted her, and she told me to listen to my brain, and do what it was saying. 

First, SID around all the applique pieces.

Then add feathers in the black setting triangles of the applique blocks. .

In the larger corner and side triangles, more feathers, but this time, give them a little more definition by echo quilting along the seam lines.  Gives them a frame.

It's really hard to see since the thread matches so well, but there are 2 little echoed triangles in each triangle off the alternating applique blocks.  That would be 128 little triangles in case you're counting.  No wonder I didn't finish those in the first afternoon that I was working on them.  (I have such great plans for all the things that I will accomplish)

"Here Kitty Kitty" and "Mr. Soft Ears" by Me

My friend Anne has a neice who is going to have twin girls.  Any excuse to make a quilt, or two.

Anne has a lovely dog, Talon, who is represented by "Mr. Soft Ears."  Talon has the softest ears I've ever felt! "Here Kitty Kitty is for the cats that live where the girls will live.

A detail of Mr. Soft Ears. Can you see his whiskers?

Outer border from the front and the back below.  I've got rulers, let's play with them!

Detail of Here Kitty Kitty.  I tried to quilt in things that cats like to play with.  Feathers in the border, bubbles, and then some "fur" in the body of the cat.  The arches in the border, below, are more playing with my rulers.

Bedspread for Janet's customer

Janet is an upholsterer who found me online.  She has a customer who wanted a bedspread made from this great black and cream fabric.

Quilted with an edge to edge design of leaves, using wool batting for warmth and loft. 

9 patches by Kris

 The amazing Kris, strikes again.  I can hardly believe that she just mails me her quilts, we talk via e-mail about how to quilt it, and I send it back to her.  Going to have to meet this lady some day.

 Again, such a beauty!  Kris and her perfect piecing really make this a joy to quilt.  I followed her lead in stitching the on point squares in the border, then stitched diaganol lines in the setting triangles.  I'd keep forgetting where I started at, and so stitch, realize I'd made a mistake, frog that section and back to it.  I think it was worth the time though.

 Feathered wreaths in the blocks, and a feather border in the outside.

Island Chain by me, for David and Joy

 First I have to say how very lucky I am to have married someone as wonderful as my darling husband Randall.  Who designed my website for me, by the way.  Then there was the added bonus of wonderful siblings and parents that he brought with him.  Then we have Joy and David, the sister and brother in law of Randall's mother.  Lovely people as well.  They were in the process of moving back to Hawaii, and Joy spent the night at our house before going to the airport the next day.  A few weeks later I got an e-mail from Joy asking if I would make a quilt for their guest room "just like" the one in our guest room.  She would choose the fabrics, or at least make suggestions as to the colors, and I'd get all the fun of making and quilting the quilt.  She looked for fabric swatches on the island, but found only Asian and island prints.  Darn, I have to go shopping for fabric!  Armed with one swatch that she was able to find, and two paint chips, off we went to the fabric store.  The piecing was fun, and I think that my piecing has improved since I made our Double Irish Chain quilt back in 2003. 
Then I got to the quilting!  All done with Glide "Cream" thread.  A slight shine to it, but still traditional.  Wool batting.  I know, it's going to Hawaii, but still.  I wanted the loft of the wool, and Joy had said that this wouldn't be a "sleeping under" quilt.  I must say that I'm quite pleased with the end results.

 I knew that I wanted to do a feathered wreath in the open background blocks.  Something pretty traditional.

 What to do in the "chains"?   I thought about continuous curves, but wasn't that enthralled.  Then I started to look through my class handouts and found one from Dawn Cavanaugh, Director of Education for APQS.  Here it is!  This is what I want to do!

I love to quilt feathers, so that was the obvious choice for the sage borders.  They all meet in the middle of the border and then "grow" out from the center. 










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I did do continuous curves in the on point squares in the border, but they still needed something in the background of the squares.  More feathers!  Again, "growing" out in both directions from the center.










My favorite part is the backing where you can really see the quilting.  I chose a cream tone on tone print in 108" wide so no seams in the backing.

Once the quilting was finished, I didn't have enough of any of the fabrics for the binding, and I wasn't thrilled with the idea of using any of them anyway.  Back to the fabric store!  Personally, I like my binding to be slightly darker than the border so that they form a frame for the quilt.  I found a marbleized print that picked up the darker tone in brown fabrics perfectly

Mexican Stars or 8 pointed stars by Pat.

Pat brought me another stunner to quilt for her. This one is for her Sister in Law, the lucky lady!  Here's what Pat had to say about the recipient of the quilt.

 When I think about my sister in law (whom the quilt is bound for), I think of words such as snazzy, somewhat glittery in that she likes rhinestones on her western garb, not afraid of color and a amazing seamstress.

So we went for "Snazzy".  I used "Glide" thread since it's got a bit of a sheen to it.  I was going to do something else for the quilting, but it just hit me that this is what this quilt needed.  Snazzy, but still feminine. 

I love the continuous curves in the stars, and how the feathers fill the background.  Such a fun quilt to work on.

Terri's Layer Cake

More quilting terms.  A "Layer Cake" is a package of 10" squares of fabric, pre-cut and usually from a fabric line so that they all coordinate.  I believe that Terri said she won these, and how come I didn't get in on that contest?  Kind of a 1930's theme, but updated at the same time.  It's amazing to me what you can do with a 1/2 square triangle.  Take a square of fabric, cut it in 1/2 on the diagonal to make a triangle.  Sew it with another triangle to make a square again, but with two different fabrics.  Lay them out in various patterns until you are pleased with the results.  Terri also used 4-patch units in the corners of the square.  Quilted with the Swirls board and So Fine! thread.

Burgoyne Surrounded by Terri

After seeing this quilt finished, I think that I may have to add making one of these to my list of quilt tops. I love scrappy quilts, but also the consistent tones that Terri has used here.

Quilted with So Fine! #402, cream, and the Swirls board.  So pretty!

Snails Trail by Sara

This quilt will be going to Florida for the parents on the new baby who received the baby animals applique quilt that Sara made. 

We seem to be having a run on So Fine! #402 thread.

All done in seashell fabrics.  Creams, pale blues and greens.  So soft and relaxing.  I quilted a Pond Water meander design as an edge to edge, and that made it that much more relaxing to look at.

All those lovely snails trail blocks, and all those triangle pieces that have to be matched up.  Well done Sara!

Two by Susan

 Here are a couple of quilts that Susan recently finished.  I call this one "ZigZags" because of the design in the fabric.  Quilted with white King Tut thread and the Vanilla Cream pantograph.  Pictures just don't do it justice.  It's really cool in person. 

Another one where the photo doesn't do the quilt justice.  It's actually done in jewel tones, lots of purples and teal, plus some rust thrown in for fun.  I believe that this one is a wedding gift, so don't tell.

"Morning Coffee" by Me!

 I love doing Block of the Month (BOM) quilts.  Each month for a year, you make a quilt blocks or two, so it's not as overwhelming as starting a huge quilt and saying "I can't work on anything else until this is done."  Instead, you make you block, then put it away for a month.  Next month you start another block or two. 
This one started because I had gone to Corvallis, OR for a service call on a longarm machine.  I can't get all the way to Corvallis, and not check out the local quilt shop, so off I go.  Oh look!  They are just starting their BOM program for the year!  Since the shop is about 2 hours away from me by car, Quiltwork Patches was kind enough to mail me my fabric and directions each month.
A year of making 2 blocks each month goes by, and now I have all my blocks ready to go.  I set them as suggested with narrow sashing strips and cornerstones, then added my own borders. 
Since this was my quilt to play with, I really wanted the quilting to shine.  I used wool batting, which gives it extra loft, then a tight background fill in the cream behind each star.

 The stars are quilted with feathers, and each block has continuous curves in each piece.

 Below is a photo of the back of the quilt, showing the quilting.  My only regret is that I didn't take a photo before washing.  Since the batting shrunk up when it was washed, I've lost the crispness and detail of the quilting that was there before washing.  Live and learn.

 The outer border is quilted with a fern leaf pattern to represent the leaves of the coffee bean plant.

The quilt is twin sized, and available for purchase.  I haven't listed it on my quilts for sale site yet because I want to get better photos with a real camera as opposed to my Ipod.  At least I know how to get the photos online from the Ipod, even if they aren't that great.