Reel Time

 This is the second quilt Vicki has made with her stash of Reel Time fabrics.  I cannot find the first one on the blog, so maybe I never blogged it, since it was a gift and I delayed--maybe forever LOL. 

 anyway, the point being Vicki had these wonderful fabrics left from her making of the first quilt, and she made this quilt, which was a wonderful way to showcase these great fabrics.

 

I wanted to add movement and not compete with the fabrics, so I quilted echoed swirls with a soft grey thread, probably Omni silver.

 a black minkee backing, it's so hard to photograph nicely but it sure feels warm and cuddly.

I went looking for pictures of the first Reel Time quilt, and couldn't find any---maybe it was a quilt that got away unphotographed.  So, you'll just have to imagine another awesome quilt with these interesting fabrics.

Starlings

This is Heather's Starlings quilt, which is a pattern by Pretty By Hand
 It is always nice to see patterns by local designers.  Pretty By Hand does some fabric designing too, but these aren't her fabrics in this quilt.

 Heather asked for E2E quilting, something swoopy and curly to echo the movements of starlings, so I became determined to learn JoAnn's echoed swirl pattern.  I've tried it before, and it always just turns into regular swirls, but this time I watched the video and drew it out about 3 times, and then I was good to go.  The key, which I was missing before, lies in the echoing.

 Above is  a grouping where most of the starlings are going in the same direction.    Have you ever seen a Murmuration?  I've never seen it in person, but the videos are amazing.  If you click the link it will take you to an amazing video.  Or just google, and find your own videos, there are several out there.