Dawns Ladybug Quilt

 

Dawn brought me this quilt to finish for her--there are ladybugs in the fabric, otherwise I might have called it a hexies or windmill quilt.   I did E&3 Edge to edge across the quilt, with some Continuous Curves in the hexagons--so much work had gone into hand-piecing those, they deserved some extra attention. 

Dawn put a lovely red fireside fleece on the back--it makes a very cozy quilt.

Hearts 2020

 When better to catch up on blogging than during a quarantine (we are all fine, but staying home), and what better quilt to start with than this cute baby quilt with pink and red hearts made by Dana?

 This was the first, and only, quilt I quilted in January 2020, and it happens to be the exact same pattern and same quilt maker as the first quilt I did in January 2019.   At the time I had thought it might be nicer without the echo-d lines in the white squares--and so now I got to try it again.  I like it both ways.. 

Java Argyll

Colleen made this gorgeous quilt top, the pattern is Java Argyll by Jinny Beyer.  
I see when I found the link that the pattern is free.

I watched Colleen do much of the piecing on this top a few retreats ago, she took great care to pin all the seam intersections and it paid off!   I knew I wanted to CC (continuous curve) those diamonds as she was piecing, and of course feathers in that outer border.  Some quilts really do speak to you.  The only decision I had to make at time of quilting was the inner borders.   The thread is Glide Dusty Plum.

 This quilt made me so happy while I was quilting--I generally do CC freehand, and this was no exception. 

 The navy Minkee backing shows the quilting so nicely, as well as being super soft and cuddly.

 

It's a little hard to see- the blue diamonds got a double CC.

I'm pretty sure Colleen said this was going on her guest bed....I might have to go have a sleepover :)

Center Ice

I've gotten permission to share this quilt now...actually, I received the permission about a month ago, but ALL of my computer time in the past month was spent on non-quilty things, so now I'm catching up here.   

Vicki made this quilt for her son, the pattern is Center Ice by Gendora's Girl (Jacque Riddlemoser), and I cannot find a link for it that isn't Pinterest, so I didn't link to the pattern.  Vicki altered the pattern to suit herself. 

If you look closely you can see Vicki embroidered some facial details.

The colors, are, of course, the team her son played on, and his number.   I love love love the laces on the skates. 

This is an example of light custom quilting--it pays attention to the piecing, but doesn't involve rulers or other very time intense quilting.  The center ice is jagged straight lines--like the ice surface looks after the game is in progress.

The black edges got loopys -the hockey players spin a lot too, moving the puck around, avoiding the other team.  Some ribbon candy in that inner border--like skating around pylons during drills.

and some jagged continuous curve in the 'boards' 

I echoed around the hockey player, and did some contour stitching within, he was too large to leave unquilted.....it shows better from the back.  The backing is a lovely navy cuddle. 

Her son now has this quilt on his bed in the dorm at University.  

Purple

Purple really is just the best description of this quilt.    I am in love with how visually striking this simple scrap quilt is.  This quilt started with the remains from the 20 FQ used in Monkey Business.   I saw a similar layout with the half square triangles on line somewhere, and then went to EQ7 to design a quilt with the best use of my scraps.    I later went back to the original inspiration photo, and it is more of a blocks and sashing design, but  I'm very pleased with this.  I like it better.

 I see two shapes in this quilt--the diamond above, and the star below.   Those 16 patches were just asking for continuous curves, so I did a light custom quilting job on this quilt.  

I even used three threads--a white, a purple and a teal (in the borders for a special bonus for those looking closely)  I've included a photo of the border, but I cannot tell from the photo

and a lovely cuddle fabric on the back, which shows the quilting so well, you can still pick out the diamond shape,

 and the star shape

And here's a photo of the original quilt, in case you didn't want to click through

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. 

Leaders and Enders quilt

 Katherine made this 16-patch quilt as Leaders and Enders.  We decided on a simple continuous curve quilting.  I really like the stripe effect achieved by the half square triangles as setting squares.

 

 Freehand quilted.   I love how such a simple quilting design can be so effective. 

En Provence 4

This is my En Provence. 

En Provence was Bonnie Hunter's 2016 Mystery Quilt.

The other 3 En Provence quilts I quilted  (one, two and three) were all E2E designs , so I decided to do a light custom on mine--continuous design, no stitch in the ditch, no rulers.    I did use two colors of thread, so I had to make two passes through the quilt but I was OK with that.  I 'gave' myself a budget, and was able to stick pretty close to it, so I was pleased. If I had used just one color thread, I probably would have been within my original budget.

And if you've seen the others, I love how different fabric choices (and in Colleen's case (quilt 3) a few different units within the blocks) can make a quilt look so different.

 This quilt was a little scrappy--I had 3 navys, and 3 of the teal/greens, and 4 neutrals.  I simply don't have a large enough stash to be able to make a quilt of this size from stash/scraps.

 I'm really really pleased with how this turned out.  I learned a LOT about making Tri-Recs units making this quilt. 

The binding and label are on the quilt now--I just haven't photographed it since adding them. 

Twice As Nice

This is Linda A's quilt, which is one of  the cover quilts on Kari M Carr's Twice As Nice book  

Linda has chosen different value for the sashing than the quilt pictured on  the book, so they do look quite different.

 

 This photo above is when I reached the bottom of the quilt and still had to go up the quilt again with the rose toned thread.  Also you can see in this photo that the bottom and outside edges were quilted differently to provide a visual border, on a borderless quilt.

 

Linda worked hard to make all those kite fabrics to face the same direction.  This quilt definitely has a top and bottom.  

And she reported it was also 'fun' to get those kite points lined up on opposite sides of the sashing.

 Wool batting gives such lovely texture.  And I see below the quilt is upside down, because the trees are upside down.