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.

 

"Traverse" by Deanna

I was so pleased to see that Deanna had made a part of this quilt with foundation piecing.  I as so astounded at her ability to match points on those triangles!  Also, astounded with her willingness to take on foundation piecing.  It's not my thing.

Quilted with  an edge to edge design called "Wiggo". 

Even the circles are beautifully pieced curves

 

Hand pieced Lone Star from Pam

This is a quilt from Pam, but she did not piece it.  I believe that she found it at an antique or thrift store/sale.  Clearly vintage, probably 1930's or 1940's.  Hand pieced, and a few (as we call them in the business) "issues"  That is a lot of bias edges of fabric that often stretches out of shape resulting in quilts that don't want to lay flat.

Quilted with freehand feathers in the setting blocks, and continuous curves in the diamond shapes.    Truly a pleasure to work on, and I hope that the piecer, whoever they may be, is pleased with my work.

One little appliqued circle to cover the center hold where the star begins.
 

2nd quilt ever by Emily, made with Cyanotype and Ice dyed fabrics

Emily is my neighbor, and we met when we started talking when I was on a bike ride on our street.  I told her I lived in the quilting house.  Some time goes by, and then she reached out about quilting this lovely for her mom's birthday.  Made by Emily and her brother.

The background fabric is plain muslin.  The light blue is ice dyed, and the dark blue patterns are a Cyanotype fabric where you use the sun to change the fabric, and then create the patterns by leaving items on it as a relief.  So cool!

 

2nd quilt from Dad's T-shirts and Hawaiian shirts

Missy had so many shirts that we made 2 quilts for her mom.  One, the smaller, will be a "travel quilt" that she can take with her.  This one is much larger, probably close to a queen sized quilt.

We initially had 28 shirts, so the quilt would be 4 blocks wide and 7 long, making it very long and skinny and out of proportion  I suggested that 2 more shirts would make it a more even size, and  Missy mentioned that there were some things that her dad had written, so she printed them onto fabric and we included them in the quilt.  This is clearly a card that was included with flowers as you can see "Minot's Flowers" on the bottom of the card.  Then he wrote "Thanks for the perfect family."

There is also a poem/story that he wrote about meeting his wife when he was 11 years old, and how they came to be married.  I nearly cried the first time I read that!

 

"Large quilt for Betsy's bed"

This is an amazingly well pieced quilt.  No points cut off, all perfectly matched.  Wish my piecing was as precise

 Quilted with the Buzzsaw design

"Highland Coos" by Michael

Oh how cute!!!  I love the breed Highland Cows with their great shaggy bangs handing over their foreheads ,and here Michael has made them into a quilt!

Complete with a "Tam O'Shanter" hat on a few of them

And Scotch thistle in the corners.  Quilted with a thistle quilting design in green thread that doesn't show up on the background.
 

Mary Beth's "Modern for her daughter in law"

Another amazing quilt from Mary Beth.  So simple, yet so wonderfully graphic.

Mary Beth also shared that this amazing woman is going to nursing school full time, so thank you to a future RN.
 

"Food and Drink" quilt by Carol

Here is another "crumb quilt" by Carol  This one will be donated to Friendly House.

All of the fabrics in this quilt feature some type of food or drink item.  This is NOT the quilt to work on right before dinner.  I finally had to go upstairs and get a snack, but like a true Weight Watchers member, it was low in points and filling

Although impossible to see the quilting design, it's called "Simple Apple"

 

"Rail Fence" quilts for Officers

These two quilts are made from the same "3 yard quilt" pattern and it's a rail fence.  Recently 2 officers from City of Portland were injured on duty, so these are for them.

This is the backing of the top quilt, Both are solid black fabric with gold thread.  The design is called "Victory Salute"

This one has the "Spiral Stars" quilting design

 

"Sweet Lettering" by Leigh

I don't think that I knew until this quilt that Leigh does all of her lettering freehanded.  Amazing!

  This is her most recent creation.  No quilting on the embroidered blocks like I usually would so, the background fabrics are just too thick for my machine's hopping foot to navigate.  However, vines in the outer border and "wheat" in the inner and then pebbles, Leigh's favorite, as a background fill.  Stunning as always. 

I love the stitching on the stone walls.

This phrase is my favoirite

This is "Tucker", her sweet dog.

 

"Dad's T-shirts for Missy"

I'm sorry to say that Missy's father passed away, so she had me make this quilt for her mother.  This one is small, only 9 shirts so that she can take it with her when she travels.  There will be another larger on coming.

Missy shared that relatives did the Tye dye on 2 of the shirts, and that the purple one in bottom left corner shows her cousin's band's name

The center block is actually made from a Hawaiian shirt that was purchased on their 25th anniversary trip to Hawaii, and her mother had a dress from the same fabric.

 But this shirt was my favorite!  I don't understand all of the New England humor, but the "SHARKS" along the coastline makes me laugh.

Cross stitched blocks by Vickie

Vickie told me that this is her "last quilt", that she had given all of her supplies to charity.  I'm a bit sad about that.  Always lovely to see what she has come up with.

This quilt started as a stamped design in blue ink and then Vickie stitched over it with embroidery floss in either orange or red..  When the blocks are laid out, they make an alternating flower design in the corners, above, and this lovely design in the center of each block

My job was to quilt the remaining blue lines, so there is a bit of a scallop design that outlines and surrounds the blocks.  The blue ink will wash away the first time the quilt top is laundered, so I was not allowed to press the top before quilting.  That would have permanently set the blue ink, and that's not the look she was going for.

 

"For Neighbor" by Pat

Pat is one of the most giving people I know.  Always making quilts for people to celebrate or to help offer comfort.   This one is for a neighbor of hers, and I love the pattern!

She told me that "This is the top", and I carefully marked it because it looked upside down to me.  Once I saw the full quilt I figured out that they are all vines growing from the bottom up, and then getting more sparse at the top than at the bottom.  Of course!

Quilted with a leafy vine design because what else could we use on this quilt?  Lovely as alwasys.
 

"NY Beautry by Pam

Oh my.  Wow.  This quilt is made by Pam, and she will hand quilt it as well.  The entire quilt has been hand pieced, and she had me baste the layers together for her to quilt.  

I asked, and she said that it took her about a year to hand piece this, while holding down a full time job.

 "I used to work weekends for Jinny Beyer in her Great Falls, VA studio and machine piecing was simply not done there! "

Not being a hand piecer, or a paper piecer, this quilt just blows my mind.  As I was basting it with bright orange thread that will be easy to see and remove, I kept thinking of how I would machine qiult it.  I can't wait to see how she finishes it!  Amazing!