Avignon Picnic and Batiki Argyle

Occasionally, a quilt gets sent home before I have a chance to grab a few photos.

Here's two of them that I only had a few iPhone photos.

Marilyn made this really cute Avignon Picnic quilt.  It was a Moda Bakeshop pattern by Andrea Harris.  I tried to link to the Moda Bakeshop page, but google couldn't find it for me.  Here's the pattern from when the Calgary Longarm Quilters made this pattern for a Heritage Park Group Entry.

 I felt like I was being watched as I quilted :)  Aren't those owls cute?

And this is Ethel's latest Batiki Argyle, pattern by Debbie Bailey.  Ethel has made this quilt before, and decided to remake it, in purples and pinks.

Hunter Star in Silk

Colleen made this Hunter Star wall quilt/table runner for her daughter and new son in law's wedding.  They used the reverse side as a guest book, having the guests sign their good wishes with markers.  Colleen very cleverly pinned a clear vinyl to the front, so people could see the quilt, but not accidentally mark it.

 Colleen asked for hearts --so I added mirror image curls that came together to make a heart--much like a marriage--two coming together to become one (I *can* get whimsical while I'm quilting LOL). 

 The stars, and some of the background fabrics are silk...and they gleam differently in certain lights.  So pretty.

Write Your Story

 This is a quilt I made for my eldest, for high school graduation.  The pattern is Broken Herringbone by Violet Craft  but I didn't break it :0  Also, I made it wider and longer than the pattern.

 This quilt is all about the writing fabrics, that I had found at Flare Fabrics
 

 My daughter has said since she was little she was going to be a writer.  She's a poet.  She's got a gig at an arts festival here in Alberta this weekend--very exciting.

Halloween

Eleanor brought me this sweet Halloween quilt.  The body of the quilt is wool applique.  IF I recall correctly, this was a block of the month type of quilt from Out of Hand. 

 The challenge was that some of the blocks  had their buttons (like the head of the skeleton above, and the roof of the yellow house) and embellishments added already, so I had to go around a few.  Luckily, Eleanor found out before she finished all the blocks that it's best to add such embellishments after the quilt has been longarmed, so she has some details to add yet to several of the blocks.

 This is another quilt that called for custom quilting, but wanted to be budget friendly, so the time and effort all went into the blocks--the border, which has such busy prints anyway received a simple treatment. 

The only quilting detail Eleanor was sure she wanted was spider webs between the top two houses above.  It's hard to see in the photo, but it's there.  

Camelot

This is Katherine Murray's Camelot, pattern by Trish Harper.

The great thing about this quilt is it is 100% HAND PIECED.   And then, Katherine asked me to longarm it!  One block had me stumped, so I googled to see others had done with that block--any photos of Camelot I found on the interweb were hand quilted as well.
 

 Each of these unique 14" blocks are fussy cut and hand pieced.  And I've got a lot of photos, so refresh your coffee and enjoy.

 Katherine asked for feathers in the background, and then I added straight lines, u turns, more feathers, swirls/curls, some continuous curves.    I kept the quilting elements simple, to let the piecing shine.    Each block also had some unquilted elements, that could pop up and be positive space.  The other benefit of keeping to only a few quilting elements is it helps unify a sampler quilt.

 Katherine entered this quilt in the Calgary Stampede Creative Arts and Crafts Showcase, and it won a first place ribbon in the Hand Piecing division!!!  Congratulations Katherine.  The judging was only on the piecing, but I do take it to mean the quilting didn't detract from the piecing.  I didn't see any of the other entries, but Katherine's Camelot is meticulously fussy cut and pieced, so it is a well deserved ribbon.

 I love the fabrics Katherine chose--blues are my favorites.  There is a constant fabric in each block--have you noticed it?

I quilted piano keys in the border, to make it look like a border....I had considered feathers there too, but felt it wouldn't define the quilt as much.

The texture shows nicely on the back too, with the wool batting. 

The next two photos are of the whole quilt, with two different settings on the camera, the second shows the quilting better, the first is a truer color.

Yellow and Black quilt - Playa del Sol

I should have asked Nancy the name of this pattern, but I didn't.  Nancy tells me this pattern is Playa del Sol She made this quilt for her son.  The fabrics are fun--lots of stars and dogs.

 Nancy put a soft grey fleece on the back.  Very cozy.

Heather's HST's with Medallion

Heather T made this quilt, with a lovely border print in the center, and a medallion panel.

Heather has tea-dyed the medallion because it was too white against her other fabrics.  I think it looks nicely antiqued.  A 60deg. diamond crosshatch provided a nice contrast to all the 45deg angles on the half square triangles.

I think it's quite visually interesting how the HST units change directions around the medallion

The border print is hard to see the quilting--it was loops of varying heights.

And a continuous curve in only the light fabrics provided a neat texture in the HST units.

First Run

This is Noreen's First Run quilt.

This quilt had so many rectangles, I decided on a Greek Key type freehand E2E design.

I loved the fabrics so much in this quilt--I had it hanging here on my railing for a few days before I sent it back--it made me happy every time I walked by.