Christmas Table Topper

In October I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Let's Quilt in St George Utah and take some Innova classes from Teryl Loy.  These classes had come with my Innova when I bought it, but I was unable to schedule them in for a year. 

Those classes were great, I learned a lot about my machine, and how to set tension, and met a whole lot of really nice people.

 This quilt was the day we learned about using the laser to follow and create patterns (the poinsettsas and the holly) and I used a stencil for the Christmas trees, and decided they needed to be ribboned.

I used a Superior metallic thread on the top, and Glide in the bobbin.

It turned out so nicely, I gave it to my aunt and uncle for Christmas.

The front

the back...

I had not expected that star image to appear, but what a nice coincidence.

Ladybugs

I guess it's safe to post pictures of Christmas-gift quilts now, LOL.

This quilt belongs to my friend Michelle, and she made it for a special young lady in her life. Michelle asked for red thread, and I am glad she did, because I would not have selected it on my own, but it sure looks great.

The ladybugs got a little stitching on their bodies to stitch them down, and then loopies all around them to resemble their flight paths.

The backing is this lovely textured Minkee.

And then Michelle went home and made a little dolly quilt to go along with....isn't it sweet?

Under the Covers

This center of this quilt is from the Under the Covers mystery quilt class I took at Quilt Canada when it was in Calgary...about 2 years ago?  The instructor was Kathleen Bissett and I really liked making her Magic Tiles pattern.

Kathleen made up kits that came with the class, and these blocks could be laid out in many different ways.   I added the blue and gold borders to make it large enough for a TV quilt for my son.  He said "Thanks for the quilt Mom, I really like it, but why did you put flowers on the back?".  Oh dear, I had just seen the dark brown color and not the flowers at all.  oops.

When I added those blue borders, I just added the widest borders I could (with the fabric available) to increase the size of this quilt.  I have since come to learn that this is what is sometimes known as a 'slab of border' in the longarm quilting world.

This was the last of the 7 quilts of my own I had saved to quilt when I was waiting for the Innova to arrive.  My plan had been to quilt those 7, and then to start taking customer quilts....plans change, but I am pleased to say this was done within the first 12 months of owning the Innova.  I had a new Swag Ruler from  Constantine Quilts to play with, so I quilted swags in the borders.  There was still a LOT of border left unquilted, and since my goal was to learn the swag ruler, I quilted more swags.  Happily, I liked the effect.

And my son and I both like the corners too...he thinks it's like Rocket Ships.

And that was the end of my pre-2012 to be quilted quilts. 

Bad Blogger

Yikes!  Has it really  been since November that I've blogged?  I guess I'm spending enough time enjoying everyone elses blogs that I haven't noticed my slacker tendencies :)


Well....I have some pictures stored up to show you....

Baptist Fan Anew

This Yellow Brick Road quilt was made by Patty, for her mother-in-law.  She used lovely florals, and we decided to use the pantograph Baptist Fan Anew. 

I think this is a great alternative to the full out custom treatment of baptist fan using circle rulers.

And I took Kathy's Quilt Photography 101 advice and took the photo of the entire quilt at an angle and that was great advice, I like it...but I don't have a lovely dock or iced over lake to put beneath it, so the picture still just isn't as exciting as one of Kathy's.

That raspberry zinger is very yummy.  We used warm and natural cotton batting, so it'll shrink up a little for an antique-y look.  I think Patty is shooting for 'favourite daughter-in-law' :)

Forest Floor

This quilt is Heather's Turning Twenty.  It's in greens with lots of leafy fabrics, so we chose to do a freehand 'Forest Floor' all over pattern.

 It was an honour to have Heather ask me to quilt this, as, when I was first learning to quilt on my domestic sewing machine, Heather taught me a lot about quilting...how to break thread and stitch over a few stitches if you went off your stencil or pattern or turned the wrong way, and a whole lot of other very useful things.  She decided that she didn't want to wrestle with a quilt this large on her sewing machine. 

 I was a little nervous quilting this, because I've seen a quilt that Heather has quilted in leaves, and she does such beautiful work,  I wanted to live up to her standards.    Once I quit being nervous, I had a lot of fun.

 I think this Forest floor turned out well, if I do say so myself.  Thanks Heather, for trusting me with your quilt.

 a photo of my design board, as I worked, I could look at the different types of leaves.  The Forest Floor idea comes from Suzanne Earley's book.Meandering Magic

"Mom, do you EVER use the whole frame?"

Believe it or not, this is what my son asked just 2 days before I loaded these quilts, that came with a single backing of luscious minkee.  I had to load it the long way so I could attach the selvedges to the leaders.   I could have cut the backing into two pieces, but then I would have had all the fuzz would have been at my house, and not at the clients :D

 So, now we know that 132" of backing maxes out the frame...and I could have quilted a few inches wider, but really wouldn't prefer to do so...any wider and I would have been forced to cut the backing...

 The flash really makes that minkee shine.  It's actually a deep black.

 One of the tricks to loading it this way was to find a thread that complimented both quilts at once. My son and I found a Magnifico thread that would work on both.  They also both got the same pantograph.

 Maybe you can see the thread better on this closeup...it's got a lovely sheen to it.

Play Time

This was a top I picked up at out guild swap.  Already pieced and layered with the backing.  I prefer to have a top to 'play' on, I get bored with plain fabric, so I snapped this up.  Played with my clamshell ruler, and some straight line designs.  Learned a few things too, so that was time well spent.

Once I was done with it (ie: it was quilted, and I had had my fun), I gave it back to the piecer, and she said it was a wonky basket...if I'd figured that out I would probably have quilted that area between the basket and the handle a little differently, but oh well.  I probably would have oriented it differently for the photos too :)

A More Modern Quilt

I'm not sure why I missed posting this quilt when it was finished a few months ago...I think I was intending to ask Colleen what the pattern was named, and it all just fell off of my brain.  I do know it's a pattern from The Stitchery, in Olds Alberta.  They have it made up in several different size blocks and different fabrics, it's a wonderful pattern.

 Before Quilting...that's a lot of 4 inch blocks!   The funny thing about this quilt is Colleen's daughters, and my children as well, called this 'the purple quilt' and the purple pieces are the smallest pieces in it.  So, I used a purple thread to increase the purple.    This quilt just begged for some more 'modern' quilting, so I grabbed Angela Walters book, and away I went.

 The cross-hatch inner border is wonky to go along with the wonky blocks.

 A close up to show the purple thread.

 Alternating rows of square spirals and round spirals give this quilt a marvelous texture, which is all it needed.   A flannel backing and wool batting, and this is a very cozy quilt.

Thanks for looking!

Michelle

the Other Scrappy Needleworks Quilts

So, after the post on the Arabesque quilt, I was thinking about the others I'd made from those classes.   They've all been given away to family members, and they were all quilted on my short-arm Husqvarna machine on a Grace frame...I had only 5-6" of quilting space at a time, but it sure was a great way to try out frame quilting.

I was fairly new to quilting, so these classes were a fun way to learn some techniques, make some scrappy quilts and hangout with some fun people.

We did bright batik flying geese:

 Greens and Floral fabrics for a Garden Block quilt:

 This one was made into a bedsized quilt with some extra borders and a picket fence to contain that garden

 Delectable Mountains in a Icy White/Blues coloring:

 Snowball blocks in a Valentines/Chocolate theme:

There was also a pineapple block class, but unfortunately I missed that one.

Arabesque

 This quilt is one of mine.  It's a scrappy quilt called Arabesque, from a fabric swapping class at Needleworks years ago.  We met once a month, each bringing 6 lights and 6 darks (for example) and swapping fabrics to get lots of variety for a scrappy quilt.  Those sewing nights were a lot of fun, and I wound up with 5 very different quilts, and at that point in time I certainly didn't have enough scraps to make a scrappy quilt on my own.  This is the last of mine to be finished.   I was glad to see recently that my friend Nancy had a client bring in one of the other quilt patterns from one of  the same classes to finish, so I'm not the only one still working on these years later. 

I had always planned to do a custom quilting job on this quilt, and have been waiting for months for it to 'speak' to me about how it wanted to be quilted, but ultimately couldn't decide on anything, and so....pantograph!

 This pantograph is Plumage by Jodi Beamish, and adds a lovely texture to the quilt.  Hobbs 80-20 batting and a nice flannel backing to finish it off.

The binding is done, the label is on...all I need do is give it to its new owner.

Teddy Bears

We've been home from vacation for a few weeks now, and finally seem to be settling back in, with some time to quilt!! 

This is a quilt from one of the ladies in my guild, and it's a charity quilt.  I cc'd (continuous curves) all those squares, and stitched some fur onto the bears...I didn't even need to stitch in the hearts this time, they were already there!