Linda's Orchids

Linda made this quilt of orchids for her daughter and asked me to quilt it.  I used a filigree design that I find to be elegant, which I thought the orchids deserved.

Gail's Spring Quilt

Gail made this beautiful quilt in batiks for a very lucky family member.  

She played with the block layout and came up with this....love the striped effect. 

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.. 

Shape Shifter

Sharon Blackmore of Loveshack Quilts posted that she was doing a 1 day mystery quilt in October, which happened to be while my guild was on retreat.  5 of us decided to make the quilt, and we had a lot of fun. 

I tried to pull from my stash, but the fabric directions were to have lights and darks, and my lights kept becoming mediums.  So, I went shopping and found these two fabrics at Addie's.  Grunge Ruby Red and Kona Espresso (a dark dark brown).   By this time I had the initial cutting directions, so I thought I might have those large solid rectangles to have fun with the quilting. 

We are are in progress, lined up in the hotel hallway.   It was ridiculous how much it felt like a race, to get each step done before the next step was released.

And here are our 5 tops completed.   I added a small border to mine after, to fully enclose all the espresso fabric.

And then the real fun began.  I channeled my inner Jodi Robinson, and used designs from her Modern Simplicity book.  It has been my number one modern quilting resource for a long long time, and then about 18 months ago I got to take classes with her!   Great fun.

 Each size of rectangle got it's own design.  The are all freehand, organic designs, but a few of them needed a few registration lines to help with the spacing.

 Once I had decided to buy fabric, I had toyed with the idea of making it a true mystery, and asking a friend to buy fabric for me....to which my DH said "I'll text her and tell her to buy ugly fabric".  I said "you watch out, that will be your quilt"

 And so it is....not the ugly fabric part, but it is his quilt (and I did the fabric shopping) It is our 25th anniversary, and this is my gift to him.  His current couch quilt is I think the 3rd quilt I ever made.  I love the fabrics and pattern still, but it's well worn, very thin, and the quilting is lacking from a different place in my quilting journey--a simple outline of the patches, with dark thread on a very light backing, all sorts of starts and stops and thread snarls. 

Then I added ribbon candy in the red, I tried using the brown thread but wasn't happy, so I changed threads.

 And some hoop-y shapes in the outer borders. 

 a lovely minkee backing shows the quilting beautifully, and will be nice and warm and cozy for my husband to use in front of the TV. 

Labyrinth Walk by Wyn

Wyn made this Labyrinth Walk quilt for her daughter for Christmas, and asked me to quilt it.  It's in my favourite blues.   E's and 3's give a nice texture to the quilt top, and the optical illusion of the piecing shines through.

Australian Shadow Box

Sandy also made a quilt for her son.  The majority of these fabrics she got on a trip to Australia, and she spotted a shadow box quilt at the Heritage Park quilt display, and decided that was a perfect way to showcase these fabrics.  She drafted a pattern on her graph paper and this is the fabulous result.

 I quilted this with a wavy spiral, it almost looks topographical.  I thought it paired well with the graphic designs on the fabrics.

Raffia Weave

This is my Raffia Weave- Violet Craft quilt.  I have had the pattern for some time, and this summer happened to buy a FQ pack of Violet Craft's Betty's Luncheonette fabric, so it was meant to happen :)   (I'm currently working on top #5 from this FQ pack, so you'll see lots of this fabric in the next year).  I LOVE how the fabrics just glow against the navy hand-dyed Osnaberg fabric.

 The pattern is written so that you can either paper piece the blocks, or piece them traditionally.  I was piecing at retreat, so I chose to piece traditionally, saves getting up and down to the iron continually.  The only rub was, when I went to lay out the blocks, I discovered that I had pieced them referring to the paper piecing template--which meant they were mirror image.   NO  problem, the layout still worked and together they went.  It wasn't until after quilting when I was squaring it up that I realised the errors of my ways--the lattice work isn't centered because of the mirror image thing. 

I could have centered it, but would have lost considerable size.  It is something that very few people would ever notice, and the quilt is still bright and colourful and warm and cozy, everything a quilt should be.

 Quilted with a design from Christina Cameli Step by Step FreeMotion Quilting book. 

I have gifted this to friends, contacted their daughter and arranged for her to pick up the box and put it under their tree.  The package is labelled as "from Santa", and of course, they will figure out it was me as soon as it's opened but in the meantime a mystery gift from Santa is fun !!

Stereo

Vicki made this Stereo quilt from a kit she bought at The Sugar Pine Company. 

 Lots of great fabrics in this quilt.   Because it was named Stereo, I thought of these waving lines as sound waves as I was quilting them.  I threw in a few u-turns and pearls here and there for interest.

 and a row of ribbon candy every once in a while also

 Vicki pieced her backing, and it shows the quilting nicely.

Baby Quilts

 I also quilted several baby quilts for our guilds donation quilts this summer.     Top photo is a ribbon meander.

 This one got loops, and I didn't (at least not consciously) realize the backing had loops on it until I was done with the quilting. 

 E's and 3's on this cozy flannel quilt. 

 these pond creatures on the back look pretty happy

 and this last one got some light custom quilting, have to keep myself entertained :)