Strips & Curves

I received this quilt from quilt shop owner Lynette from The Blue Iris Quilt shop in Palo Cedro, CA. All she really said to me was that the quilting had to be "AWESOME". Ok. No pressure! I fretted over this quilt for a long time. Nothing "AWESOME" came to mind. A few weeks passed and I knew I had to get this quilt back to her soon...so I loaded it up with only an idea for the border in mind.

It's funny how a quilt can get to me sometimes. I don't always have a clear vision of how to quilt a quilt immediately. I finally loaded the quilt onto the frame and took it one portion of the quilt at a time and the ideas started flowing almost immediately! OH!!! I should do THIS!

I took each individual block one at a time and it made life so much easier. In the previous picture I used my own version of a curli-cue feather. In this next photo I did some pebbling but I wanted to show depth so I went from itty bitty circles in the center and the pebbles got larger as they got closer to the edge of the circle.

On this 3/4 circle I decided to put a type of sun with rays coming out from the center. I thought it turned out very well and may be my favorite! (there was really no way to get a picture of the whole circle while still being able to see the quilting, so you get a close-up shot of 1/4 of it)

This next one is a flower, I added some curli-cues inside of the petals and did a bit more pebbling...

Another wavy flower...

And a fun and funky feather!

For the border I really wanted to bring the strips from the center of the quilt to the border, so I did a piano key style quilting job on it and I love how it turned out!

Lynette, I hope you think that the quilting made your already awesome quilt even more AWESOME! Thanks for letting me quilt this for you!
Happy quilting everybody.

Big

This week I worked on the biggest quilt ever! The backing of this quilt took up every inch of my 12' table! It is good to know that I made the right deciscion to purchase the 12' table instead of going with the 10' version. I was really worried about the 12' fitting into the room that was designated to be my longarm room. Check out this clearance.

This small space is how I get to the back of my machine, multiple times a day, in order to be able to do pantograph quilting. Needless to say, I have to turn sideways and suck it in in order to get back there!
This is my beautiful room! I love that it has that large window, front and center, so I have plenty of light. Another bonus is that as soon as you come through my front door you turn right and this is what you find. My customers don't have to walk through my entire house to get to my quilting room!

OH! Back to the quilt. This quilt was sent to me by Cheryl from North Dakota! It was made using stonehenge fabrics and it is so beautiful and soft!

This picture is while it was still on the machine...

She used a solid brown for the backing and I used a tan/gold thread on the back so the quilting showed up really well. She chose my Arabesque pattern.

I attempted to lay the finished quilt out on my floor...but the quilt was so big that it covered all of my floor space, as well as the overflow of quilts that currently don't fit into the cupboard! I really like this picture because you can really see the size of the quilting pattern in correlation to the size of the quilt. I spent quite a few hours on this beauty.

Cheryl actually sent me two quilts. This is the second one.

Yup, its another large beauty! She chose my new pattern "Wave on Wave" for this quilt and I think that it was the right choice.

 

I used a maroon thread. The quilting showed up very well on the back of this quilt as well.

 

This next quilt was made by my friend Kris. This is the second quilt in a month that I have finished up for her for a school auction. I sure hope that they are selling well, because she does a fantastic job on these quilts!

 This quilt has a bunch of pictures in it with children's names on them. If I had to guess I would say that the children took the pictures and then someone took the time to write the childs name on their picture, printed them on fabric, and here is an awesome personalized quilt. Priceless!

 

Thanks for reading my blog! Comments are always welcome and encouraged.

Happy quilting everyone!



Eek Braces?!?

It's been another busy day! I took my kiddo to the dentist this morning. Yikes!! They did a panoramic x-ray of her mouth and discovered that due to crowding, she is going to need braces someday. Well, at least I know now so that I can quilt even more to pay for those things!!! So, as soon as I got home, I got busy.
I just completed this quilt. I made it!! YAY! I get to make samples at The Blue Iris Quilt Shop in Palo Cedro, and this is my latest.

It was made using an Avalon jelly roll made by Fig Tree. I love it!! It is a picnic blanket, there are these little "rock pockets" on each of the corners so that you can put rocks into it to weigh it down during picnic time.

I got to use a new pattern on it called "Petal Pushers" I'm in love. It is so cute!!

This next quilt was made by Barbara. I love the modern fabric designs mixed with the traditional piecing! I got to custom quilt it!

I've actually quilted this pattern before, and I pretty much mimicked the quilting design by stitching in the ditch, and doing a tight stipple in all of the background...

The biggest difference would be the fun feather that I put into the border!

This next quilt was made by Melissa. I've shown a few quilts of hers before. Her quilts always stick out in my mind because she has such great color choices!! That and she lets me use my newest patterns!! Thanks Melissa!

Do you see what I mean? Isn't this quilt gorgeous? I used my new pattern Shangri-La on it. Since she used a solid backing piece, you can really see the quilting, even if the thread color matches so well.

Well, thanks ladies. Not only for choosing me to quilt your quilts, but for helping me start a braces fund for the kiddo! We need this smile to stay gorgeous!

Happy quilting!

Busy Busy!!

 

Gosh a lot has happened since my last blog post. I've been busy quilting, of course. But I've also been busy being a mom to this gorgeous girl! Easter was a blast. Look at those silly eggs! My uncle bought this dye kit that included stickers for the eyes and the mouth, and MOHAWKS!!! What silly fun.

 

 

It was also my birthday. That's right...I'm 27 now! To celebrate, I went to a quilting retreat in Grass Valley, CA. It was wonderful! The food was amazing everywhere we went, and the class was awesome. If you love traditional piecing then you have to go check out www.letsquilt.com. Linda Ballard is my favorite!!! Check out what I got done in a weekend:

I just need to add one more brown border,  then I have to figure out how to quilt it! Those itty bitty triangles are 1 1/4" squares that were snowballed to create them. It was tedious but look at how pretty it is!!!

I got to quilt this adorable quilt. My customer, Louise, wanted simple, but the birds embellished a bit.

I did an overall loopy pattern while avoiding those sweet little birds. Then I gave the birds some feathers on their wings, and put some small curly-cues in their bodies. I love the way that it turned out!!

I just had to share this next quilt because of the sheer beauty of it! I wish I could show you a picture of each and every batik in this quilt...they are so pretty! Jeannie did a wonderful job on it.

Jeannie wanted me to quilt my river water pattern on it. I love getting to use that pattern, it's freehand so it always turns out a little differently.

 

Roxi pieced this adorable fairy. She hand appliqued the whole thing and did a fantastic job.

I had a little bit of fun playing with this one.

 

Ok, I'll show you one more quilt, and then I've got to get back to work! :)

This one was pieced by Melissa. She picked one of my new patterns Haiku, so I was very excited to get to this one!

Its another beautiful batik-filled quilt.

She used a muslin for the backing so the quilting really showed up well on the back! Isn't this a neat pattern?

All right, back to work for me. I hope you enjoyed the mini-quilt show!

Quiltmaker is going to be having another blog tour, this time it is for the newest 100 blocks issue. There will be plenty of fun and giveaways so make sure you check it out!!! It starts April 29th! http://www.quiltmaker.com/100blocks.html

Happy quilting everyone!





Newest Scrap Squad Quilt is UP!!

Good morning everyone! This week is a special week for me...not only is it birthday week (Eek I'm 27!), and not only do I get to leave for a weekend quilting retreat in about an hour, but also (as if that wasn't enough) my newest Scrap Squad quilt for Quiltmaker Magazine makes its debut on their blog!

If you haven't gone to check it out yet, here is the link: http://www.quiltmaker.com/blogs/quiltypleasures/
And here is my quilt!!

I used a new pattern on it called Wave on Wave. I charge a penny and a half a square inch for this pattern, plus the $5 thread charge that I charge on every project. For thread on this quilt I chose a light purple polyester thread that really shows up in the black, but in the middle of the quilt I wanted my piecing to show up, not the quilting, and it really turned out just how I wanted it too!

Please leave a comment telling me what you think!
Have a great weekend, and happy quilting!

New Patterns

I swear, any time that I order new pantograph patterns I am like a kid in a candy store. This time I had to limit myself more than ever, there are some gorgeous patterns out there that I would love to own, but the expense keeps me from buying everything I want. It's just like fabric...I want it all!!!
I decided on these four...they are all priced at a penny and a half a square inch.
This one is titled Haiku. I chose it because I wanted to have something manly, but also modern. I can't wait to quilt this one!!!


This next one is titled Shangri-la. These names are hilarious, I don't know how they come up with all of them. Anyways, I have a few leafy patterns, but this one has that lovely swirl in it and I like the shape of this leaf. I hope to get to use it soon!

This one is called Feathers A La Mode. I saw it on a fellow quilters blog and I knew that I had to have it. I love my over-all feathery patterns that I have already, but this has a new spin on it, literally.

Luckily for me, I have the best customers in the world! I mean it!! A few of them drop their quilts off with me and tell me to put whatever I want on them, so I got to use this pattern on a quilt the other day! Here it is.

I got to use it on a twister quilt. I thought it worked perfectly. I used a slightly contrasting thread color on the back so you could really see the quilting.

 

Oh I love it! After months of using the same patterns, this is so refreshing!!

The last new pattern is titled "Butterfly Beauty"

This quilt is intended for a four year old little girl. Luckily I have a four year old little girl in-house so I got her opinion on what I should quilt onto this quilt. She loved the butterflys and a light pink thread, so off we went!!

The butterflys are simple, but absolutely adorable.

 

 



What do you think? Which new pattern is your favorite?
In other news, I got to custom quilt a couple of fun ones!!! This one is called Funky Flowers and was designed and made by Carol.

I put an all-over leaf pattern on the outside border in purple, she wanted it to really show up, and it certainly does.

There were a few butterfly's in the quilt and they got a sweet little feather in their wings. I think those are my favorite part of the whole thing!

The flowers were echoed and I put my river water pattern in the background. I really love the originality of this quilt and I had a great time quilting it!

 

I also got to work on a Halloween quilt this week. When I was deciding what to quilt on this one all I did was look at the pattern on the fabric and it was easy!



The star fabric got stars and loops...

The striped fabric got stripes, just in the opposite direction...

 

And the border was pebbled!!

 

Fun fun fun!

I thought I would give you a sneak peak of my next Scrap Squad quilt...I am busy working on it. The top is finished and I think it is rockin!!  I got some backing fabric the other day for it and now I am just figuring out how to quilt it. If you want a sneak peak at it...here ya go! As usual, color is the word of the day! Tune in on the first friday of April so you can see the whole blog! I am really excited about this one.

 

Well, I'd better get back to it! Happy quilting everybody!