the Other Scrappy Needleworks Quilts

So, after the post on the Arabesque quilt, I was thinking about the others I'd made from those classes.   They've all been given away to family members, and they were all quilted on my short-arm Husqvarna machine on a Grace frame...I had only 5-6" of quilting space at a time, but it sure was a great way to try out frame quilting.

I was fairly new to quilting, so these classes were a fun way to learn some techniques, make some scrappy quilts and hangout with some fun people.

We did bright batik flying geese:

 Greens and Floral fabrics for a Garden Block quilt:

 This one was made into a bedsized quilt with some extra borders and a picket fence to contain that garden

 Delectable Mountains in a Icy White/Blues coloring:

 Snowball blocks in a Valentines/Chocolate theme:

There was also a pineapple block class, but unfortunately I missed that one.

Arabesque

 This quilt is one of mine.  It's a scrappy quilt called Arabesque, from a fabric swapping class at Needleworks years ago.  We met once a month, each bringing 6 lights and 6 darks (for example) and swapping fabrics to get lots of variety for a scrappy quilt.  Those sewing nights were a lot of fun, and I wound up with 5 very different quilts, and at that point in time I certainly didn't have enough scraps to make a scrappy quilt on my own.  This is the last of mine to be finished.   I was glad to see recently that my friend Nancy had a client bring in one of the other quilt patterns from one of  the same classes to finish, so I'm not the only one still working on these years later. 

I had always planned to do a custom quilting job on this quilt, and have been waiting for months for it to 'speak' to me about how it wanted to be quilted, but ultimately couldn't decide on anything, and so....pantograph!

 This pantograph is Plumage by Jodi Beamish, and adds a lovely texture to the quilt.  Hobbs 80-20 batting and a nice flannel backing to finish it off.

The binding is done, the label is on...all I need do is give it to its new owner.

Lori's Dancing Ladies-Blanket Toss

This is the second of Lori's Alaska quilts.  When she first gave me this, I had just recently gotten my Innova, and I wanted to wait and build some skills and comfort level before tackling this quilt, so Lori waited several months for me to get this done.  I sure appreciate her patience. 

Lori said these characters are from a storybook she and her daughters have loved, and so when she spotted this kit on her Alaska cruise (and apparently there isn't time to shop for anything other than kits on those stops), she had to have it.  The storybook is Mama Do You Love Me by Barbara Joosse and Barbara Lavallee.  The pattern is Blanket Toss by Mount Redoubt Designs.

This is the top before quilting, or a 'flimsy' as it is sometimes called...

I had so much fun with this quilt, deciding on how to quilt the 'snow' behind the dancers, and how to quilt their clothes.  Their snowpants and mittens all got cross-hatched, in reminiscence of some snowsuits my Mom had made in the late 70's early 80's from quilted fabric.
 

 The echoed curls in the above 'snow' was a design I saw in Angela Walter's new Free Motion Quilting book, which arrived just as I got to this block.  I'll be using that one again.

It's maybe too hard to see, but this dancer is a little older than the others (her hair is a little grey), and she's been dancing up a storm--her grey hair is all messy!

 The back is nearly as fun as the front.

Unfortunately this is the only picture I took of the completed quilt in entirety, and it's not a great picture.