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.

Marilyn's Ocean Quilt

Marilyn made this quilt with fabrics and applique patterns she got in Hawaii.

She wanted the chevrons to look like waves, and some special treatment in the applique blocks.  I was so pleased with how the crosshatch on applique worked on Evelyns quilt that I used it again here.  This time I used a wavy crosshatch, so although I did mark the lines with chalk first, I didn't have to use templates for the stitching.  I think the wavy lines worked great too--to me it looks like I'm looking at these ocean creatures through a glass bottom boat.

 The chevrons are meant to be rows of whitecaps on top of the waves beneath.  (I have to amuse myself while quilting, so can get whimsical).

Evelyn's Applique

Evelyn probably told me the pattern name and maker, but I'm not at home with my notes, so I don't have that information just now.

Evelyn wanted custom quilting on this beautiful applique quilt that she had spent many many many hours making.  But, like many of us, she wanted to be conscious of a budget.  So, the applique was outlined, rather than stitched in the ditch--and by that I mean 1/8" inch away from the edge of the applique, rather than right in on the edge.  This is a much faster treatment to stitch, so more budget friendly, and yet still looks good.  Especially with this more folksy type of applique.  The appliques were then echoed in the border.  The large flowers were too large to leave, so I also stitched around flower centers.

The next decision was how to treat the blocks, and Eveyln wanted me to cross-hatch right through the block, right over the applique.  I know many would be surprised at this request, and at how well it works.  Evelyn and her friends are part of the Alberta Quilt Study Society and they see a lot of antique quilts, and this is often how they were quilt.    I had never treated applique like this before, (I know of many who do this with embroidery) and I was thrilled with how it turned out.

The cornerstones were also crosshatched, but at a smaller scale, and the sashings were outline stitched as I ditched stitched them.  This would up being a continuous stitching path, which also helps keep the budget reasonable.

 The bottom border was larger and had these vases and the year appliqued on.  We decided to add some feather sprays coming out of the vases, and I cross hatched behind the numbers--again at a different scale to provide some variation.  The echos in the border are quite loose, as the quilting in the rest of the quilt is well spaced, I didn't want to add tight quilting in the borders.

Thanks for letting me quilt for you Evelyn, this was a fun quilt to work on.

Cross-Hatch Ruler

 The cross-hatch ruler was a show bonus when I bought my Innova.  The usual round deadbar is replaced with a square bar with a channel, and then there is a sliding bracket that holds a 40" ruler at various degrees.  

I needed to try it.

First thing I learned is you need lots of extra backing when trying to use both the cross-hatch ruler and red snappers.   I also learned that you can quilt closer to the takeup roller on some angles than on others, as the ruler surface rounds.   So, 45 deg was OK, 135 deg was affected by this 'rounding'.   Again, this could be solved with extra backing. 

 I wasn't doing 'traditional' cross-hatch in a block, I'll have to save that for another quilt.  Here I was doing large cross-hatching across the whole quilt as an overall design.  I did really like this ruler for that, because I could cross two 9" blocks at once, re-angle my ruler and zig-zag my way across the quilt without breaking thread.  I think it would be much harder to do this accurately with the usual shorter straight rulers (but haven't tried it, so don't know for sure).

I didn't tighten the slider every time, and I think I will look for a drop-in pin for the angle adjustments as opposed to the thumb screw that is there now (seen better in the first picture) , because I got really tired of screwing and unscrewing (plus it was really time consuming), and wound up just relying on the tiny lip to hold the correct angle.  If this were heirloom or full on custom quilting, I'd be tightening up all the attachments each time I think. 

And then I went back and meandered every other diamond...this added texture, and also took attention away from those points that didn't meet exactly.

 

and now this quilt is ready for binding.