Square Dance #2--disappearing 9patch

This is a bright and cheerful quilt, made by Marilyn.

She used a whole jelly roll in this quilt, as opposed to this quilt that used 1/2 roll.  This quilt is the same, but larger pieces.  Using the whole jelly roll made the quilt large enough to cover a twin bed.

 This is a great photo, as it shows how the longarm system works  (as opposed to what my husband thinks)...the green is the backing, and you can see it attached to the take up roller with the red snappers (red tube).  You can see that the machine goes around this roller and the distance between the needle and the back of the sewing machine is 26"...thus the arm of the sewing machine, (not of the quilter), is long.

The batting and the top are then basted down to the backing... which has been done in that photo.

In the photo below, you can see two rollers, that the quilt is draped over.  The top of those two rollers has the backing rolled on it (green), and the lower roller can be used to roll the top, which I sometimes do, however in this instance I left the top to 'float', or just hang over the edge. 

 I should have taken a photo after I'd stitched a 'row' (or a swath, as I label it for my farming family), showing the next step, but basically I'll stitch along the exposed area of quilt on the top, and then roll it onto the take up roller to expose the next 'swath'.

 Marilyn asked for daisies, and that's what she got.  The lovely green colour on this backing just wasn't captured by the camera...made me think of green Popsicles.

 That's a whole lot of tiny pieces.  Nice and flat and square though, especially considering it was all on the bias.

Longarm Quilter

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a trunk show and lecture by Cheryl Arkison, hosted by the longarm quilters group here in Calgary.   Well, actually, we were hosted by Bev Reinhart, at Addies in Cochrane.  The group has several members who live outside of Calgary. 

When I mentioned in the morning what I was doing that day, my husband thought he was funny, and imagined we'd all look like this...

http://www.quilttshirts.com/images2/product-images/large/long-arm-quilter-large.jpg


He even bent down and dragged his knuckles on the floor.

He still laughs when he thinks about it.  And, he still bends down and drags his knuckles.  The kids say "Dad thinks he's funny".

That's all I have to say about that.

Applique 9 Patch: Plum Pudding

I should have asked Kerrie the name of this quilt.  This quilt pattern is called Plum Pudding.

As the title of the post says, it's an applique 9-patch.  When Kerri gave this one to me the instructions were "echo the applique, and do something with the 9-patch".  And I thought, I can do that. 

 I started with a photo of the unquilted top...and this isn't a great photo, the top really was flat and square...I was in a rush and didn't get it all smooth.

 I wanted to highlight those wonderful diagonals in the 9-patches, but also add some curved lines.

 I didn't want to detract from the pop of the white squares, so they weren't quilted at all.

Echoed the applique as requested, and then added some cross hatch to the basket, which was too large to leave unquilted.  The flowers are quilted around the centers for the same reasons...

 and the centers in the sunflowers were very large, so I added some 'seeds' to them.  I used invisafil thread for the echoing, and and then switched to a smoke mono poly for the detail work.

 I like the secondary design on the back too.

 The borders got a curved treatment to offset all the lines in this quilt.

This photo shows those diagonals really well. 

Athena's Puzzle

 

A before picture of 1/2 the quilt.

This quilt is Kerri's and when she gave it to me she said she wanted some geometric quilting.   So I did some sketching of different ideas, and used my plexiglass to audition a pantograph or two...

And this is the design Kerri chose--square spiral by Keryn Emmerson.

 This is a big quilt--about 84x95.  It's perfectly pieced, all the seams were pressed open, and every block measured exactly what it's neighbour did.  Very easy to quilt a quilt like this.

 The design added a lovely texture to the quilt, and there's just enough curve to the lines to soften the piecing,  but without detracting from it at all.

Warm and Natural 100% cotton batting.  It's going to have great crinkle texture when it's washed!

Batiki Argyle #3

This is Ethel's Batiki Argyle, although perhaps we should just call it Argyle, as she didn't use batik fabrics.  She also chose not to add the pieced border.

 This quilt was begging me for feathers, so it got meandering magic hooked feathers. 

 I wasn't too excited about the quilting until I got it off the frame, and could see all the texture.   Then I was in love. I think the quilting is very elegant on this quilt...that's what I was going for, anyway.

 It was very hard to get the colors to read right on the camera...the photos above and below are pretty close.  Ethel used a charm pack, I think it was Moda, but I don't know for sure.  Some of the fabrics have little potatoes on them.

 It was hard to narrow down the photos to show here, I took so many, I just loved how this quilt turned out.    So, you may think this is a lot of photos, but I restrained myself.  No, really, I did.

 and the minkee backing was not this color...it was closer to the inner border seen above.  It's lovely and rich in person. 

Quilts for Calgary

In June of this year there was a huge flood in Calgary and other areas in the Province of Alberta.  And, of course, quilters responded. 

The first batch of quilts is being distributed this weekend...there are over 1300 quilts ready to go.  Quilts and tops to be quilted have arrived from all across Alberta, all across Canada and from the US.  I think there have even been quilts arrive from other continents!

I was able to quilt 3 tops for the cause in July.  I had committed to doing 3 lap quilts.  These were all bed sized quilts.   I have no clue who pieced them...

I used Hobbs 80/20 for all of them.  They each got a different quilting treatment.  This first one received a pantograph called Plumage.

 The fun bit about this quilt was that the backing was about 1" wider than the quilt, and that included selvedges.  But, I managed...

It was clearly a feminine quilt with all that pink, so it got a very feminine quilting pattern.

 I'm glad I remembered to take before pictures of these quilts.  So often I forget. 
This quilt got light custom quilting.  I wanted those stars to well...be the stars.  I was inspired by Kim Stotsenberg's Heavy Metal designs.

 I guess remembering to take a 'before' picture didn't last too long, as I forgot for this quilt.  This quilt got freehand swirls to offset all that straight line piecing.  It was big enough to fit quite nicely on our king sized bed. 

Tea Time in Bali #3

Wow, I haven't blogged since July.  Summer was busy.  Lots of family, lots of camping, lots of fun.  Only a little quilting, the week the kids were away at Camp.  And now they've been back in school for 7 days...I'm getting caught up (a little).

This is Sarah's Tea Time in Bali quilt from the workshop in April.

She took her 7 yr old daughter shopping when buying border fabrics, and they picked out some lovely borders, as well as a luscious minkee backing.  Sarah had extra of the backing fabric, and her daughter decided it would make a good cape...she was running around wrapped in the excess with it flowing/dragging behind her--maybe she was being 'SuperQuilter' :)  It sure looked like fun anyway.

 Sarah asked for Daisys...so that is what she got.  I used a purple thread, as she was leery of the quilt being 'too pink'.