Triangles

 Katherine made this baby sized quilt with many different variations of a triangle.  I just loved looking at this as I quilted it, looking at all the variations. 

Etno Bay

When I finished Soulful Windows, I could then do something with the remaining fabrics from the kit I had purchased at Quilting From the Heart  

Because I had strip tube pieced the half square triangles in the original pattern, mostly this meant just cutting more HST from the already pieced strip tube remainders.   Really, it took me more time to play on my design floor and figure out the layout.      The only fabric I had to add was binding and backing.

I named this quilt Etno bay, because the fabric line is Etno by Pat Bravo, and I looked up synonyms for Soulful (nothing that struck me) and for Windows and Bay was the option I liked best--so I put them together. 

 I did a light custom quilting on this--continuous curves, with a few curls thrown in.  A soft grey minkee backing shows off the quilting nicely.  

This is a baby sized quilt, and will wait until I have the right recipient.  

Here's a photo of Soulful Windows, if you didn't feel like clicking through.  The quilting doesn't show in this photo, I think it's worth clicking through to see the quilting. 

Columns

Heather made this columns quilt, with columns of 1" squares, alternating with two different fussy cut fabric columns--one of which features--yes, columns!!

Quilting these 1" squares made me happy.  I love continuous curve quilting

 Some large ribbon candy in the columns to either side of the 1" squares. 

And a curling vine in the Columns columns. 

This quilt is an example of light custom quilting in my studio.  No rulers (I can SID horizontal and vertical without rulers with my Innova), no thread changes, continuous path quilting. 

Star Quilts

 Katherine made these two star quilts.  I had so much fun quilting them, the fabric choices were so wonderful.  This first quilt got a plumage pantograph, lovely large feathers

I love having Katherine as a client---she wanted to use this Liberty fabric as backing,  it was large enough for the top, but not large enough for loading--so she added some extenders to the backing.  

The second star quilt was done in soft brushed cottons (I think, they had a lovely feel to them whatever they were). 

 

Katherine presses her seams open, so there was no issue with bulk in the center of the star.

 This quilt got a freehand square meander pattern. 

20 minutes until closing - Up Square Down Square

 Chris brought this great quilt to me for quilting.   I love the colors and fabrics she chose.  She was in the USA,  visiting with friends, and by the time they got to the quilt store, they had 20 minutes before closing, and she picked out all these fabrics in just 20 minutes.  

 Sometimes a fabric pull is easy--the quilt comes together in a snap!  (I've seen this happen with others, not sure it has ever happened for me that easily).  Often, I build 2 or 3 quilts before I wind up satisfied with a fabric pull.    Chris chose wonderfully.

 I wish I had asked the name of the pattern. The pattern is Up Square Down Square by Cozy Quilt Designs.   They have such good patterns, I've made several of them and they all work out nicely. 

 My photo really doesn't do justice to the depth of color and texture in this border fabric.   Chris is planning to use this quilt in their trailer, and so put a fireside fleece on the back for a warm, heavy quilt.

Antependium 2

 The church was looking for another antependium (a hanging from a music stand), and I had recently picked up this mini Hoffman Dream Big panel (do they call it a Dream Small?) so it seemed to be just the thing.  It's about 21"x23"

 I started with outlining and echoing the petals, and then pebbled the center.  All the photos of the Dream Big panels show marvelous sampler type quilting with lots of details in the petals, so I had that in mind, but realized the scale of these petals were small, compared to all those other quilts I had seen and drooled over, and so decided to quit there, other than adding some match stick quilting in the background parts of the outer edge.   This Antependium will hang from a music stand.

Nancy's Bicycles

 This 9 patch quilt is so fun with that bicycle fabric.  Nancy's Mom was very excited to find this fabric and make her daughter a bicycle quilt.  

and there was a bonus quilt too...the left over fabrics from the bicycle quilt, and a few other quilts made this little baby quilt.

Bossy - aka Abilene

 

This is my version of Laura Heine's Abilene.  I call her Bossy.

Bossy was a real challenge for me.  I've not done a collage quilt before.  Luckily, I was able to take a class with Terry Rowland, and she had lots of great tips and suggestions, such as how to make the eyes more realistic.  

I am not, by nature, an artist.  I cannot pick up a couple of coloured pencils and create amazingly shaded drawings, as so many can.  So, this was a challenge.  I was creating the shading with fabric.  And it's amazing how these loud, bright, many coloured little bits of fabric blend from a distance.   It's like a Van Gogh painting.

 I thought "this won't take long"  but this partial head is as far as I got in the day long class, in February 2018.  And then it was put away until summer and I pulled it out again. 

I just had to keep telling myself to 'trust the process', almost as a little mantra as I laid down the pieces. 

 Turning the photos to black and white helped with shading--for example, in the photo above the belly blends into the rear leg, and I wanted the left side to read a little darker.

 Better

 Same photo, in colour and in B&W.  The process worked!!  Despite my misgivings.

So this is how far I got in July 2018, and then she sat again until January 2019 when I got her onto a shaded background.  I had originally bought a kit from My Sewing Room for this project (not having the right variety in my stash), and then added several of my own fabrics in as well.  The background provided in the kit was, for me, too busy to show the quilting well, so I found an shaded ombre instead, and used the kit background as backing.  Quilting and faced binding completed in February 2019.   I had fun with the quilting, building on some Christina Cameli Wild Quilting and Karlee Porter Graffiti Quilting

 and some stencils from Jodi Robinson

I also added my father in laws former brand, of which we have a wood burning, which I traced

and now Bossy hangs behind my Innova Longarm, where we get to watch each other as I quilt.  

Time Warp

I have been loving the texture of this Time Warp pantograph (or similar ones) for years, and finally bought it for myself.  I rarely use a pantograph, but the TEXTURE on this one!! 

I use a panto so rarely, in fact, that I've owned this one for at least 6 months before using it.    It seemed the perfect fit for this batik quilt of Noreens.   She used navy as the dark, which was the perfect choice for this blue loving quilter! 

 I didn't take enough photos of the fabrics in this quilt...I loved that they looked very much like the old batiks that my Mom used to make, not in terms of color, but in terms of seeing wax crackles