Jelly Roll by Kelli

Start (and maybe finish) with a jelly roll.   A collection of fabrics cut into 2.5" strips and rolled up together into a design that resembles a jelly roll pastry.
I don't know if Kelli randomly cut the lengths, or if there was a pattern, but it surely works. 
Quilted with Baptist fans.

"Autumn Leaves" and "Funky Monkey Rail Fence" by Michael

I have forgotten a good portion of the story, but Michael's friend offered him so fabrics, and this is a portion of what he found. I know that I took more photos of both quilts but these are all I can find.  (Why I don't work with computers).  Autumn leaves is quilted with a lovely leaf panto, and has a black backing making the gold thread really stand out.

"Funky Monkey Rail Fence" because that's the name of the panto he chose to have done on this rail fence quilt top.  Why not?  It's really fun to do something off beat like that.

"Hexagons" by Carol

Carol came to me through our mutual friend Xande.    The quilt is Carol's design. and is made up of lots and lots of little triangles.   Carol further told me that it was Xande's idea to cut the hexagons and add the gold bars because the quilt was "so brown" without them.  I love how it turned out, and I really love the gold thread on the black background.  Way cool!

Carol came

Stars of Hope

 This quilt is a long time in the making.  In Sept. of 2015, while on Cycle Oregon, Xande and I stopped at Jo's quilt shop.  In a town in Eastern Oregon that I'm sorry to say I've forgotten the name of!  Great little shop, and then there's the barn in the back.  We went a little crazy there.  I bought the remainder of the red police badges fabrics, at Xande's urging. "With all the police quilts you make, you really need that." where her words.  Started piecing the blocks soon after the terrible shootings in Dallas, TX, and used the block "Star of Hope".  Seemed more than a little appropriate.

 The problem is that the black or grey triangles are supposed to have been the same fabric as the light grey background, so that they blue stars in the blocks becomes lost.  Argh.  That's why I quilted such a bold design in the blue, to attempt to make them stand out a bit. Not sure it was effective, but I did try. Then attempted to tone down the "wrong" fabric, with a simple square design.

 Played a bit with my rulers in the setting squares, but not thrilled.  At least I changed to a pale grey thread to have it blend a bit more.

Used "Military Gold" thread in the main body of the quilt and the borders.  While the police aren't necessarily "military", it seemed appropriate.

Asian Squares by Michael

 This is another on of those quilts that you don't realize how cool it is until you hang it up to take a photo.  I hadn't noticed the darker sashing on the center squares until then.

Quilted with the "Oriental Clouds" panto and a gold variegated thread.  The backing is black and the gold thread in the bobbin really shows up.

Butterflies by Jillianne

Possibly in no particular order, here's Jillianne's butterflies quilt.  This quilt is HUGE!  The top and bottom borders are 13" wide.  I believe that she said this was a block of the month quilt that she used her own fabrics to make.  I had a good time playing around with different quilting designs.

Here are some shots of the backing so that you can see the quilting.

She fussy cut and then appliqued several different butterflies through the quilt.

 Some ruler work, but mostly done freehand.

Carpenter's Star by Jillianne

Here's a portion of the outer border, all done in piano keys., but pieced with different fabrics from the quilt.  The outer border is about 10" wide.

Oh wow.  Here's a beauty.  The photo above shows as much of the whole quilt as  I could get to show.  I think our eyes naturally stop at the white border.

 A narrow cream border filled with feathers that wind between the seams, then a feather that goes out on both sides in the pieced border.  Leaves on a vine in the red border.

The center star with feathers that radiate out from the center.  All of the above is done with Glide Military Gold thread.

For the background fill, a Peacock Feather meander in Glide Cream

Trying to get a shot of the backing with the center star.  Squint.  You can see it.

Here's a better shot of the back of the quilt.  Love all that texture! 

 Jillianne chose Hobbs wool batting, and I love the loft that it gives to the quilt.  Also very light.  Lovely work Jillianne.

Terri's baseball t-shirts

Okay, so technically they are her daughter's shirts, but Terri is the one who made them into a quilt.

And what a quilt!  Most of us take the shirts, and cut them down to a uniform size.  If necessary, build them up with extra fabrics, and maybe add sashing strips between the blocks to frame them.  Not Terri, at least not this time.  She made the shirts into blocks, or made blocks into sashing strips.  Quite amazing.  I love the checkerboard border too.

The quilting design is called "Flaming Baseballs".  Perfect on this quilt.

Table runner by Jan

Jan is another customer that I have yet to meet, but I'm hopeful that soon we shall.  Here is a table runner that she mailed to me with the the dreaded "Do whatever you want" for quilting.  Okay, not dreaded, but thought provoking.  I decided to play with the quilting on this and used some different fills in all the blocks.  No quilting in the border, it is so narrow that by the time the binding is on, only minimal quilting would show.

I love how the diagonal lines in the red squares almost make a leaf shape.

Shells or "The Cheddar Quilt" by Kris

Kris contacted me via e-mail, and we have yet to meet.  She had 3 quilt tops that needed quilting for a cancer fundraiser coming in June.  This quilt was made to honor a friend of hers who owned a Shell gas station for many years, but had recently passed due to cancer.  After a quick consult to my friends at APQS online, I got the perfect suggestion for quilting.  Since the gentleman had owned a Shell gas station, why not quilt the Shell logo in the open spaces?  I simplified the logo, but you still get the general idea of a shell.  Smaller in the blocks, and a larger version in the setting triangles.  Kris referred to this as the "Cheddar" quilt when we were talking about how to quilt it, but in my mind it became known as the Shell quilt.

Now if I had only further listened to my online friends and used white pounce chalk power to mark the shell design!  I went over the quilt with a damp toothbrush before sending it back to Kris, but she still needed to wash it before finishing it.  I used So Fine! thread in top and bottom, cream for the continuous curves in the squares and nutmeg for the shell design.

Christmas Stars

Sara hasn't even seen her quilt yet. Personally, I can't imagine spending all the time necessary to piece these dimensional stars, but it surely works.  We used a poly batt for the extra loft so that the stars would lift up off the quilt top, and then densely quilted the background.  I hope that she will put this into a show.

Stars by Leslie

Because the mother of the bride has nothing else to do prior to her daughter's wedding, so she made a .quilt top for her and her husbands bed.  Leslie is truly amazing, she hosted a buffet dinner for the wedding at their home.  Wow.

Leslie and Gordon also chose wool batting for their quilt, and I love how the fans show off with this batt.

Paper Pieced Starburst by (guess who!) Michael

I don't think that Michael sleeps.  How else could he possibly make all these glorious quilt tops?  Someday, I'm going to try my hand at paper piecing again, but I'm not quite there yet.  I also won't start with something this complicated.

When Michael left the quilt with me he chose a very fine turquoise thread and told me to "Have fun" for the quilting design.  So I did!  Flames and fathers and what  I call "Mimbari"  Such fun to play with.

Perkiomen Valley by Betsi

Here's a quilt that Betsi made from scraps for her son. I just love scrappy quilts! I know that Betsi told me the significance of the name of this quilt, but I've already forgotten.

It's really lovely in harvest colors, and the backing is actually a deep red, not the orange that my camera made it look like. Lucky son to get such a beautiful quilt!

With a LIttle Help from my Friends

This quilt has had a quite a history. The two primary fabrics in the top came about after Wendy asked me to piece a quilt of her design for Lars. Either my math was off, or her computer program, but I ended up with a bunch of blocks that were the wrong size. This was in about 2009. I gave those to a woman in Australia after the fires in Christchurch. In Dec. 2011, I've decided that I can't start anything new until I clean up abandoned projects in the sewing room closet. This quilt top is made from leftover fabrics and partial blocks that I had stuffed into a ziploc bag about 9"x6". Lots of corners that were cut off from making snowball blocks. While this quilt will never win any prize at a quilt show (there's not a single corner that matches I don't believe), it will keep someone warm. The entire quilt came from my stash and all of it came from former projects for friends. Even the wool batting was leftovers that were pieced together. Plus, I've got one less project in my closet!

Harvest Table Runners

These are 2 different runners that Grace made using the same fabric collection, but a different design for both of them. That meant that I needed to find a different way to quilt them both too. The longer one has leaves in the blocks and vines in the borders and background. The smaller runner has a landscape design and bamboo in the border. Who knows, now that Grace is retired, maybe she'll quilt more! Of course, she's got those grandbabies that she loves to spend time with too, so...