Debbie's Friendship Quilt

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Debbie's Friendship Quilt came off the frame this weekend.

I'm really happy with it! She made this quilt for a friend, and let me tell you, that is one lucky friend!

I did some curvy whirlwinds in the blocks formed by the horizontal and vertical lines. I put a flower star in the square on square blocks.


The border was done with a branched scroll motif and repeats of the flower star in the cornerstones.

Debbie gave me the green light to do this one custom and it really brought the pattern to a whole new level.

I know Debbie will LOVE it!

Jubilee Tree

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I got another top done!

The center of the quilt is a panel called "Jubilee Tree" by Clothworks. I adapted a pattern distributed by the manufacturer which was going to be difficult to reproduce consistently and, therefore, difficult to teach.

I'll be teaching this top as a class in September. It will be a great lesson in applying and modifying borders to fit any space.

I picked up the backing fabric and batting today. I'll be putting it on the frame right after Debbie's Crystals.

T-shirt quilt for my Pop!

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It's done!

I pieced the top at RIM and now it is officially quilted and bound!

The shirts came from my dad's closet. He's got a bit of everything in there, including his army patches/insignias. I even put a functioning pocket from his Walgreens smock at the perfect height for a remote.

He was speechless when I revealed it to him. He said he had no idea what a tshirt quilt was but he loves it. He was especially glad that he has his army patches back in his everyday life. Emily asked Pop-Pop how he earned so many "merit badges". He got a chuckle out of that one.

I used a very lightweight non-woven fusible interfacing on the t-shirts and it went together FAST. Each block is 14" finished- 'cause my daddy's an XL kinda guy!

The quilt is now at the quilt shop up the road where I'll be teaching the tshirt quilt class in a couple of weeks. I'm getting excited!

Debbie's Crystals

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Debbie's beauty is up next on the frame. Isn't it modern and delicious? The high contrast really works.

I'm working on some design ideas. I want to highlight the circle forming behind the vertical and horizontal lines. This quilt reminds me of ice crystals!

When I start designing a quilting approach for my client's quilts, I like to use my tablet to draw on the image. I use it to visualize my ideas and, more times than not, I come up with motifs that I couldn't have dreamed without the trial and error. I use Adobe Photoshop but any paint program would work.

In this case, I kept seeing circles behind the horizontal and vertical lines. I wanted a motif that would give motion and action to the top. Plus, this top has such a modern feel that I could let my imagination fly.

Here's what I've come up with so far.

What do you think? I've sent it to my client, Debbie, and I'm looking forward to hearing her opinion.

I'm a teaching again!

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I homeschooled my kidlets through second grade and we all had a ball. They learned so much. I learned so much. It was a tremendous blessing to have that time with them to focus on nurturing their love of learning.

When our homeschool journey came to an end, I was sad. I had learned that I was actually a pretty good teacher and that I actually loved to teach.

The good news is that I've found a way to blend my love of teaching with my passion for quilting. I'll soon be teaching at a new local quilt shop, Sew Vintage on Shelbyville Road.

The first class I'm teaching is a beginning piecing class. We'll be making this table runner in the class. The three blocks it has contain most of the major building blocks of quilt making and it should give the students a good introduction into the "how to" of piecing.

I'm really excited about this new venture and thrilled that I get students yet again. Only this time they already know how to read and write!


GooseyGirl has been dressing up Yogi for photographs. She took this one and entitled it, "Cat in a Snowstorm". He looks thrilled, doesn't he?

BirdMan proves boys can quilt!

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BirdMan, one of my 9 year old triplets, took a spin on the longarm and finished the quilting on his Christmas lap quilt.

He pieced this quilt in April of 2006. At that time he told me he wanted the backing to be flannel and gave me the mandate to purchase backing fabric for him. Well, It took two years but I finally did it!
Life sort of got in the way over the last two years. It is amazing to me to think about how drastically our world has changed in the time it took to get his quilt finished.

He will be entering it in the Ky State Fair junior division this year but he said he wants a label that clearly states he would have finished this quilt a LONG time ago of mommy had just gotten herself together.

He really did a good job, didn't run over any pins and even had fun!

Garden beauty and dragonflies buzzing about

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I finished it! This Garden Trellis quilt and is so special to me. All the charm squares in it are from my internet quilt guild. My internet guild sent quilty flowers to the members when they need a pick me up. So these are my flowers!

I pieced this at the retreat I went to a few weeks ago. I just love that every time I look at it, I think of my quilty friends.

I put a meandering feather undulating across the top. I'm really happy with it.

I especially like how the values of the florals move diagonally from corner to corner. I used a variegated King Tut thread, Hobbs 80/20 batting and Bottom Line in the bobbin.

I'll be entering this quilt in the Ky State Fair. I know it won't win a ribbon but it will be fun to see it hung.

I joined The Finish Five by July challenge- so this will be my first of my five. I'm hoping to have two more done today. Wish me luck!

Today, Linda will be picking up her Bug Jar quilt but I wanted to share a close up of the dragonflies I put randomly throughout the top. I think they really add some fun to the top and fold in nicely with her bug theme.

The dragonflies and butterflies were all done freehand.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!

Linda finished another bug jar quilt. My kids love it when I work on bright, novelty quilts like this.

I did a meandering butterfly with a few dragonflies thrown in. The frog on the top will get a button eye.

Linda made this quilt for her grandson- lucky, lucky boy! Perfect boy quilt don't you think?

New life for this antique quilt

Amy's Double Wedding Ring Quilt is finally done!  

This top needed LOTS of TLC. 

 The top was hand quilted and some of the pieces had come undone.  Much repair work was needed on the edges and patchwork.  

The quilt top had also fallen victim to some water stains over its lifetime and I hope Amy will be able to get those stains out eventually.

For now, it is done and darn pretty too!

The furry scottish fellow is Yogi.  

GooseyGirl decided to put her doll hat on him.  Doesn't he look thrilled?

GooseyGirl's big girl bed

GooseyGirl has claimed the 5 yard bundle quilt I finished recently. It makes her new bed look so grown up! I recently found her mattress on clearance at Sears. 

It is one of the thickest and most comfortable twin beds I've seen. It is so high that she had to take a photo of the height of her bed from the side! I've been informed that it is 1" higher than my bed. Her old bed was awful, cheap and only about 4" high. Basically, a creaky, lumpy mat. Ick!

The furry critter perched upon the pillow is Snowy. Her hands down favorite animal. She took all these photos, didn't she do a good job?

I finished the aged Double Wedding Ring quilt yesterday. Now I've just got to make the binding and apply it. Hopefully I'll get that done today and get started on a bug jar quilt. Freehand butterflys- fun!

Jacob's Ladder Block Lotto Winner!

I went to a fabo quilt retreat last week in St. Louis. I don't have the words to express how much fun, laughter, learning and fellowship we enjoyed. This yearly retreat is the highlight of my quilty year.

Plus, this year I won one of the block lottos! Everyone makes the chosen block in the chosen colorway. If your name gets picked, you get all the blocks! And.... I WON!! I put them up on my design wall when I got back home. Now I just have to design a good border for them.

GooseyGirl's Candy Cane Lane Happy Dance

*sigh*

It has been a while since I've posted.  I've been so busy that it has been hard for me to keep up with keeping all of you up to date!

First off, the kids are out of school!  I'm really going to miss their teacher.  She was the best and an incredible blessing for my kids first year of public school.  

Right after school let out we headed up to Great Wolf Lodge and Kings Island.  It was a wonderful little vacation for us.

Then my little GooseyGirl finished up this quilt top she made for her cousin who just graduated from high school.  She is so proud of it.  It still needs to be bound and she is going to enter it in the fair.  GooseyGirl did every bit of the piecing and quilting.  I did the cutting but she picked out the fabrics and everything else!

I've also been working on a Double Wedding Ring that was in very rough shape.  Nursing it back to health has taken quite a bit of time but it is coming along.  I've got two borders to go and then I'll post an update shot.

I'm off to a retreat this week but I'll post more when I return!

Noah's Ark

Here's a baby quilt I finished for a new client.  She is giving it to her itty bitty great grandson.  

Lucky boy!  

I really liked how she elevated the center panel with her pieced pinwheel blocks.  The fabric uses storm clouds as a theme.  It is a perfect companion block!

Here's the latest finished T-shirt quilt!

Here's the latest T-shirt quilt I pulled off the frame and delivered.  

My client loved it and said it was going to be incredibly difficult to keep it a secret until the big presentation moment.  The shirts are from all the teams her daughter was a member of over the course of her school years.  

I had so much fun making this memory for my client!

Quilt Rescue

This double wedding ring quilt top is in pretty bad shape.  

It belongs to my cousin and you can see how frayed the edges are.  

I've stay stitched the edges to stabilize the top so that I could wash it.  

I was hoping some of the stains would also come out but they are set in.  I've done a lot of repair work to the seams that had come apart.  It is always so interesting to see the types of fabrics used in an old top like this.  

There is a WIDE variety of fabrics and some of the weaves are very loose.  The one that really made me do a double take was the dish rag scrap.  Really, it is a dish rag.  I wish I knew more about who made this and what the significance is of the fabrics selected.  

But, yep, dish rag scraps is a first for me!

Portrait Block

This is the centerpiece of the T-shirt quilt I'm fabricating this week.  The quilt is a graduation present and the center block is this photo transfer specialty block.

It showcases her daughter's senior photo with some photos of her as a little girl.  

Isn't that a great idea?  This will be a treasured memento for years to come.  

I used the Heirloom Treasures photo paper in my HP printer with Activa ink.  It looks great!

Stitched Memories

I'm working on a T-shirt quilt right now.  My client brought me 23 shirts to use as blocks.  I've prepared those and I'm piecing those rows together today.  It is going to look GREAT.

The quilt itself will be a 25 block quilt, of which two are specialty blocks.  The center block will be a photo composition highlighting her daughter's graduation photo with one of her as a 5 year old. It will be the perfect centerpiece.  I'll post a photo of it when I get it finished.  

But the specialty block I worked on over the weekend was a custom Girl Scout block.  I took my client's Brownie badges off her old uniform and sewed them onto this custom block.  Isn't it great! 

 I was a Brownie a long time ago and I was suprised at how many memories I had of my Girl Scout adventures while sewing.  

This T-shirt quilt is going to be be a wonderful way for her daughter to have her childhood memories stitched together with love!  

Sleepy field of flowers

This quilt is from a new client and it reminds me of a sleepy field of flowers.  It's watercolor palate is very calming, isn't it?

My client is a relatively new quilter who has a friend that owns a quilt shop.  

Her friend's quilt shop is a few states away but she sends little quilty boxes of fun to entice my client every now and again.  

This is the product of one of those quilty care packages.  

Wouldn't you love to have a quilt fairy like that??? (can you see me turning green with envy yet?)

Blue double wedding ring

The latest quilt on the frame is this beautiful blue scrappy double wedding ring.  

The woman who pieced this quilt unfortunately passed away unexpectedly.  Her family is getting this top quilted and it is humbling to complete her beautiful quilt.  

She had already marked it for quilting but was going to do it by hand and had marked it with quilt stencils that are difficult to do by machine.  

I've put more machine friendly designs on the top and it is going to be beautiful!

Stained Glass Rose

This quilt was also made by my client who did the baby fish quilt.  This stained glass quilt is her original design.  It is a wedding gift and the couple who open this gem will have a lovely wall hanging to commemorate their big day.  

She specifically asked me to treat her creation as a regular quilt and not as faux stained glass.  

I put a peacock filler behind the rose and used McTavishing in on the rose petals.  I outlined the leaves and added ribbons along the outside borders.  The hearts have ribbons on the outside heart and nested hearts on the lighter pink heart.

Pretty!

Water World

Isn't this baby quilt great?! 

I put a water freehand meander across the top and stayed off the fish so they would pop up in a trapunto effect.  

My client agreed to use a variegated King Tut blue thread that adds to the water shimmer effect.  It looks GREAT!