Taupe Sampler

This quilt also belongs to client Heather T.  She called it her Taupe Sampler. 

The goal with the quilting on this top was to put something interesting in each of the settings squares and triangles, and to put a medallion type design in each of the sampler squares, and because at the time Heather didn't know where the quilt would wind up, to not make it feminine with the quilting.

So, we chose some Heavy Metal quilting for the setting blocks and triangles,

and a fern design for the blocks.  So that the quillting didn't make the quilt directional (assign a top or bottom), and to provide more movement, I placed the fern designs in all directions.

and the pieced border got continuous curve, and the outer border got ferns, to bring the design out.

I had purchased a 'grab bag' from a supplier in January, and one of the items was a Quilters Magic Wand.  It's meant to be used to draw the lines across a square when sewing half-square triangle units, but I knew exactly how I'd use it....

it's the perfect size for marking the edge of the borders to make sure the fern fronds didn't extend into the binding area.  Often a larger ruler is too wide to fit between the rails and the edge of the quilt, or it's falling off the side edges.  This little tool was perfect.

I totally love how this quilt looks from the back too.  The pieced backing adds some interest as well.

  There was recently a little discussion on a quilting forum about stitching in the ditch(SID)--it's a great tool, and it makes everything look really sharp, but sometimes, even with a custom quilting treatment such as this quilt got, it's not necessary, and, not doing the SID can make the quilting more affordable (leaving more room in the budget for doing the SID on a quilt that does need it).  Sometimes looking at the back can tell you for sure if the SID is required-- and these pictures clearly show that it wasn't necessary for this quilt. 

Having said that, you can tell, if you look closely at the left side of the above photo, that I did ditch the borders--I felt that they needed it.

The backing photos also show more clearly how the ferns face all directions.

Heather had been looking on my blog and noticed that I prefer 8" of extra length and width for loading the quilt, so she added some extra fabric to her backing, to make sure I had enough room to work---and you can see I started below her extra fabric, so it's not sewn into the project and she can remove her stitches, and that fabric is still useable for another project.    It's a great trick if you're short on that extra length or width.

And here's a before quilting photo that is at a better angle to see Heather's wonderful piecing.  If I remember correctly, they are 6" blocks.

Thanks for letting me play with your quilts Heather. 

Purple Crossroads--Heavy Metal Quilting

The fabric and pattern for this quilt was purchased a few years ago, when eldest daughter loved everything purple.

The pattern is Crossroads, by Allison Spence of Needleworks, and I bought all the batik fabrics from her then store as well.  Allison now quilts and blogs at Meadow Rose Quilting.

The really neat thing about this pattern is its about value placement, and depending on how the values are arranged, I see different things.  For the quilt above, I see the purple stars first, and then, as i look further out, I see the light diamonds, and finally, the medium 'chains'. 

The first time I made this pattern, I saw the diamonds first...and then the stars, and I never really did see the chains.  You can see more photos here  2012 Crossroads

I have the fabrics purchased to make this quilt again, changing the placement of the values again.  But I digress....

The purple quilt--I wanted to quilt it differently from the one with the yellow stars, and so I decided to play with Kim Stotsenberg's Heavy Metal Quilting designs.  I'd been wanting to put them on a quilt for some time, and this one seemed the perfect choice. 

The first step was to take a photo and do some drawing...

I did some sketching first with markers on a plexiglass, to get a basic idea of shapes and how it would look across multiple blocks

 and then I took a photo that was more of a closeup, and used a pencil and tracing paper,  to get a better idea of detail

 The pencil work also let me see how to make it a continuous design, so I could go across the quilt without starting and stopping.  I removed a few lines to enable that.  I also could see that I really liked how the chain blocks made the star block look like it was set on point.

and now to the good stuff--the photos of the actual quilting...

 I had found this very neat tie-dye purple minkee at Chinook Fabrics.  The perfect backing for an 'all about purple' quilt.