Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas

I've given away a couple of quilts as Christmas gifts so far this year, and tomorrow (Christmas day) I will be giving away two more. I love giving a quilt as a gift!! It always means so much to me to give a quilt to someone. It is something that I have worked so hard on, putting a lot of time and effort into it to make it just right. Here are a couple of the quilts that I have made for Christmas this year.
This first quilt was a joint effort. Back in 2011 I participated in the Back To School Sewing event with Quiltmaker Magazine, see link here... http://www.quiltmaker.com/blogs/quiltypleasures/2011/09/introducing-nicole-brouillette-a-back-to-school-sewer-for-quiltmaker/
The ladies that participated in this with me are all really close still, we talk on Facebook almost daily. One of them, Carole,  recently learned that she has breast cancer. I couldn't get it out of my head. I wanted to do something for her!! So I was talking to Valerie and we decided to get together with all of these other ladies and make Carole a quilt. We each made a row of 6 - 12" blocks, everyone sent them to me, I assembled the rows, put the borders on, quilted and bound it, and sent it off to Carole, all without her knowing a thing! This is the finished result:
Isn't it great? I used a pattern called Tickle on it:
Thanks to USPS tracking, I knew exactly when she would be receiving it in the mail and it was so exciting to see her reaction to it on Facebook. I hope that the quilt brings her comfort when she needs it.
I gave another quilt to Jenny. I went to high school with Jenny, and we were friends in Drama class. She is always so nice and friendly to everyone. Recently she became my step-sister-in-law! Jenny has Cystic Fibrosis and makes frequent trips to the hospital to help her lung function. I wanted her to have a small quilt that she can take with her to the hospital to keep her warm and comfy. She really seemed to love it when I gave it to her.
It was my mom's 50th birthday on the 11th of this month. Admittedly this is not a Christmas gift, but it is Christmas themed so I thought it would be ok to post it anyway! Mom is currently building a log cabin house and I thought that this quilt would fit perfectly into the theme of it! She loves it and has been showing it off to everyone that has walked through her front door! (PS I originally made this quilt to be used as a sample in my local quilt shop, that is why the picture is inside of the quilt shop)
 
I made this next quilt to be given to one of my husband's customers as a thank you. It was a surprise for her as well. I got the sweetest voicemail from her saying thank you.

 
This quilt was made with a jelly roll and I used a new-to-me method called "tube quilting" It was a lot of fun to try new things! Due to my very talkative and inquisitive child, I knew that Mary's favorite colors were pink and green and she loved polka dots so I knew this line of fabric would be perfect for her. I used my plummage pattern and a wool batting and I think it turned out just great!
I have two more quilts to give as gifts tomorrow morning (christmas!!!) They are going to the two most important people in my life, my husband and daughter. I'll share photos once they have opened them!
Merry Christmas everyone!!! And happy quilting.


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

All in one place!!

This is proof that sometimes all it takes is one happy customer to grow your business! Maurya has had me quilt a few of her quilts for her. She is really great at sharing her love of quilting with those around her. In this case, three of her co-workers worked on quilts to give as gifts for Christmas and she referred all of them to me for the quilting! This first one was made by Melissa. It is a beautiful modern quilt! I love all of the batiks in the quilt!

 
I used my Arabesque pattern on it and it showed up really great in the solid cream background fabrics and didn't take away from the gorgeous batiks that she so carefully chose.
The texture that this quilting pattern creates is awesome! I love running my fingers over it.
This next quilt was made by Anne. She actually made one for each of her daughters, but somehow I didn't take a picture of the second one...doh!
I put a great butterfly pattern on it and it really showed up great on the minky fabric that she used as backing!
The next quilt was made by Wendy.
The batiks are gorgeous and the fabrics are cut large so that you can really see the patterns in the fabrics! I love this quilt!!!
I put a new leafy pattern on this quilt in a chocolate brown thread. This pattern is a penny and half per square inch, and I can't wait to use it again!

Since there were so many quilts from one place, I decided to make a "work call" and deliver them all at once to the ladies. It was like Christmas for me, all of those ladies spread out their quilts on the table in the conference room and admired their quilts and each others quilts. Fun all around. Thank you all for letting me work on these quilts for you! Let's do it again!
I have some more really great quilts to share with you all, but I want to wait until the owners get their quilts before I share them with everybody else! Stay tuned...and Happy Quilting!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Christmas Time

The Christmas rush is in full swing around here! I've been really busy quilting, but I wanted to take a moment to show you some of what I have been up to!
This quilt was made by Gloria for her sister.

She used some pretty batiks with a lot of tropical floral prints on them which gave me the perfect chance to try out my newest pattern "Caribbean"

 I used a light purple thread which showed up really great in the lime green sections and on the dark purple backing!

This next quilt was made by Becky. She used those adorable Dr. Seuss fabrics! When I first looked at the quilt the circles all over the fabrics jumped out at me so I quilted a large pebble pattern all over it.


 This next quilt was made by Carol.
She told me that she has pieced this quilt a few times, never finding quite the right balance of fabrics. One day she was looking through a quilting magazine and she saw these applique flowers, she knew that she had to put them on this quilt and I think that the results are stunning! It made an ordinary log cabin quilt extroardinary! I quilted Plummage, an all-over feathery pattern onto it using a yellow thread and I think it turned out great!



Allrighty, back to work! Merry Christmas and Happy Quilting everyone! 

Monday, November 19, 2012

From a jelly roll!!

I had the opportunity to quilt both of these quilts recently. Believe it or not, they were both made with jelly rolls! I love the pattern on both of these and really enjoyed working on them!
First up is Sandi J!
The entire center of this quilt was made with jelly roll fabric. The only thing on this quilt that wasn't part of the Jelly roll is the outer border and the backing fabric. Isn't that awesome? I loved getting to do some fun custom quilting on this one.
 I had just returned from the Machine Quilters Expo when I started on this quilt and I got to use some of the new techniques that I learned! I used some dense background fillers here...
 
I got to make my own templates for the flowers and inner border here, along with a fun and stunning feather for the sashing!


I can't take all of the credit for the ideas of the custom work that are on this quilt. Sandi gave me the book that she had gotten the pattern from and asked me to recreate it on her quilt. Of course, I made my own tweaks to it, and I really love how it turned out!
 
This next quilt was made by Flo. She told me that she took a class to make this quilt at a shop in Arizona. When she asked for the class supply list so that she could buy materials they informed her that she would be recieving her fabrics in the class, and that everyone would have the same fabrics. She is a braver woman than I am!! She had no idea what it would look like until she arrived for the class. This is what she got.
I freely admit that I checked the selvage edges on the fabric to find out the name of it...isn't it beautiful? I love the colors and the patterns of every fabric!
I quilted my Clematis pattern onto it using a slightly metalic looking light purple thread.
I love quilting this pattern. The flower is beautiful and then it has those little swirly's all over the rest of the quilt. Wider view...
That's it for now, I'd better get back to work!
Happy quilting everybody!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Monsters

My first customer has become a great friend!! Annie has had me quilt over 15 quilts for her so far this year. She is a busy woman!!! Not only does she let me quilt some great quilts for her, but she lets me be my kooky self and put some crazy patterns onto her quilts when she knows that I am excited to try them out! This next quilt is proof of that.
This is her owl quilt. She wanted owls quilted onto it but I didn't have any owl patterns, so we decided to put monsters on it!
 She used a brown solid for her backing and let me use a cream thread so that when you turn the quilt around, you can REALLY see the monsters! Aren't they fun? Annie and her husband decided that they liked this pattern so much that she wants me to put it onto two of her next quilts...the fabrics in these two quilts are floral.
 Cute little dragon guy. Sorry, excuse the blurry picture!
 This guy is kinda like a ghost, he even has a belly button. Silly silly.
 
This next quilt was made by Jeanne. If you follow my blog you have seen quite a few of her quilts on here as well. It has been so much fun getting to know these two ladies!! She made this great quilt. I just love how the colors POP! She wanted a simple stipple around the blocks but no quilting on the blocks themselves. I used 2 layers of poly batting so that the stars would stick out after quilting...what do you think? Do you like the 3-d effect that quilting can create?
 



I love the great contrast between the super bright colors and the very white background!

This next quilt was made by Marney. This is the first quilt that I have quilted for Marney so far, but a week after I quilted this one she brought me another and now I have 2 more in my closet to quilt for her. I love a satisfied customer! She told me I could do whatever I wanted on this quilt, so I chose a simple loopy pattern. I figured it would look like the bees were swooping all over the air! I started a thread at the tail end of each bee and went for it!

 She did such a great job on the applique and embroidery!

Christmas time is almost upon us! I have certainly seen an increase in quilts coming in to be quilted before Christmas. I just wanted to let my customers know that if you need a quilt done before Christmas you will need to get it to me before Thanksgiving (I can't believe that is next week!! Where oh where does the time go??). I am doing my best to accomodate everyone, but Christmas is approaching very quickly!!
Happy quilting everybody!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Jordan

Those of you who know me, or have visited my home, know my daughter Jordan. She is a hilarious, talkative, adorable 4 year old. She keeps getting bigger, and so quickly!!! So, my husband and I have decided that it is time to move her from a day bed to a twin sized bed, so you know what that means right? A new quilt. Being the novice mom that I am, I asked her opinion as far as what she would like her quilt to be. I pulled out a bunch of quilting magazines and books and we looked and looked...and looked. In my mind I was going to do a simple quilt, a take 5 or Just Can't Cut it, the kind that take a day to piece. Jordan had something else in mind. She wanted pink, I wanted purple...I swear she had different ideas on everything. Why did I ask her what she wanted? The world will never know...but the quilt turned out great!
 Jordan and I decided to pick a block out of Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine, so I made 25 of those, then I decided to put them on point, and added 2 borders. The quilt grew and grew!! It ended up being 82 X 103"...very large for a twin bed, but hey, it will be big enough for when she moves up to a queen sized bed, right?
 Look at that happy face!
I quilted this fun feather pantograph on it. It's called fantasia and is just beautiful on everything!!

Speaking of Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine...
I do pattern testing for that magazine. It is a lot of fun, they send me the instructions for a block, then I make it, making sure that all of the instructions are there and correct. It is so much fun when I get the magazine and see my name in print there.
 For this issue I also got to make a quilt for the magazine! What a thrill! They sent me the fabric for the top and I got to design a quilt based on the blocks that I tested. Mine is #8.

I used an all-over feathery pattern on this quilt as well, called Plummage. It also looks fantastic on every type of quilt.
Happy quilting everyone!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

MQX

Machine Quilters Expo...

I learned about  MQX about 4 weeks before the event. As soon as I heard that there was a conference just for us longarm quilters I was determined to GO! I immediately went home and signed up for classes. Originally I only signed up for about 5 classes but I ended up taking many more than that. I learned from some amazing teachers like Gina Perkes, who taught me how to design my own motifs. Kim Brunner
She taught Twirly Whirly Feathers and spoke at the banquet

Linda Taylor,

I took her Beginners Longarm Freehand Basics. The techniques taught in this class were amazing, and far beyond the basics. I learned a LOT.

I took 2 classes from Jamie Wallen
He taught mystical cotton tracks and mystical feathers. It was amazing! Just look at this sample that he brought, and this is just one sample of many! There were many many more!
Someday...:D
I met up with a friend in Jamie's first class too. This is Marsha, I actually bought my machine in her quilt shop!

I also took a class from Karen McTavish. Her class was about how to come up with ideas for custom quilting. She was a rocker chick/quilter.
I also took 2 classes from Angela Walters. She has accomplished so much in such a short time, and I learned a lot in her class.
I took her class right before banquet, so she asked me to save her a seat since she had to put all of her supplies away first. Here we are at banquet:

Here I am with my new friends. Thats me on the left, next to Lana from London, then Shannon from Washington, then Angela! We all had such a great time at banquet! We were, by far, the loudest table there and definitely had more fun then all the rest, even if we were the only table not to win any door prizes!! In fact, we had so much fun that we decided to hang out a bit after banquet!

I learned so much in my classes, and I had SO much fun making new friends. I know that I will go back next year and I hope to bring a bunch of people from my area with me.

I have actually been able to accomplish a bit of quilting as well. My little girl is growing up...she is moving up to a twin sized bed, so she needed a twin sized quilt! I just finished the binding on it last night and here she is all snuggled up with it on the sofa.
She wanted a pink quilt for her room, and I wanted her to have a purple quilt. I thought that this was a nice compromise. Her room is painted in similar colors. Now all we have to do is put all of the baseboard and chair rail into her room and she can move back into it and out of my piecing room! I love this kiddo!
Until next time...Happy Quilting!