Baby Quilts

Last month at our Guild meeting we had a sew-in. Basically what we did was we all brought our sewing machines, sat down, and sewed up some charity quilts. I love being able to participate in events like these. During the meeting, the Pres. read a letter from a quilt recipient. He was so grateful for his bright quilt that he sent us a letter to thank us for it and a donation of $100. WOW! It's so great to know that the people who recieve these quilts really understand the work that goes into making them!
This is the quilt that I made:

There are mistakes, I know. But hey, I finished piecing the top at the meeting!! I quilted stars and loops all over it. I just know that it'll go to some sweet little boy and hopefully he will love it to pieces!

I got to quilt another fishy quilt. This one was done as a nine patch with sashing. I used my water ripple pattern (freemotion) again with a light tan colored thread.

They say that you learn something with every quilt. This is definitely true with this quilt. The backing had some eggs on it that were labeled. They were cute and I liked the colors...but I didn't think anything else of it until I got the quilt off of the frame and I was taking pictures. Well the fishies were facing upwards on the quilt top, but the eggs on the backing were upside down...woopsie! Now I will check the backing to make sure that it is directional, especially if the top is too. It is a good idea, if it is directional, to mark the top left hand corners for me so that this never happens again. Luckily my customer (Annie, I love you) was completely understanding.

Next up is one of the most adorable little baby quilts that I have ever seen.

Isn't that CUTE? Those bears are applique'd on in MINKY! The customer asked for a overall pattern that didn't go over the teddy bears. So what I did was the stars and loops pattern, which is pretty great on a lot of stuff, and then outlined the large stars and teddy bears.
The backing was minky also.

Happy quilting everybody!
Nicole

More Custom Fun

Stunning right? This quilt intimidated me from the moment I saw it. In fact, I took so long figuring out what I shoudl do on it that I almost missed my deadline to get it back to my customer! Kris, I hope you love this quilt as much as I do!!  This quilt will be in the Marin County fair this year and I am so excited to hear what the judges think of it. Leave a comment telling me what you think!

This is my version of a curly cue feather...

The corner, I curved the feathers around the whole border, the corners all look like this. I had a lot of fun creating these feathers for the border. So much fun, in fact, that I used the same look in the sashing as well.

Here is a picture of the backing fabric so that you can really see the feathers.

The blocks got some micro loopies to make the blocks pop out, check out these itty bitty loopies!

Next up is Elise's quilt. Elise, Kris, my Mother-in-law Kathi and I all went to a quilt retreat, which was taught by Linda Ballard. This is Elise's finished product...someday I will have time to quilt my own quilt top that is in the same pattern but different fabrics, and I will share photos when I do.

I got to do some custom quilting on this lovely quilt as well. I chose some linear patterns, some curvy patterns, and some orange peel patterns This is the final result.

The lines were more difficult to create than I thought they would be. It's easy to get the ruler and do the lines themselves, but trying to stitch in the ditch that quarter inch to get to the next line was more difficult than I expected.

Orange peel. This turned out so neat! I didn't think that at my skill level I could do something like this, but confidence in yourself is more important than anything and I am learning! My fellow longarming friend told me how to accomplish this look, and while I will be the first to admit that it is not perfect, I still think that it turned out pretty darn good!

This border treatment is called Piano Key. Turned out so neat. Thank you so much to my friend Tenna for helping me come up with the design to quilt onto this quilt! Also a big thanks to Elise and Kris for believing in me so much to send me their beautiful quilts for me to add my own touch to.
Happy Quilting everybody.

Vintage & Modern

I recently had the opportunity to work on a vintage handmade quilt. My customer dated the materials back to the 30's!! The dresden fans were awesome. She found the middle of the top in a garage sale for $30, added some reproduction fabrics to the border and here are the finished results.

Isn't it amazing? What else is there to say about it? Some of the fabrics are from flour sacks, old tshirts, and dresses!
I stitched in the ditch around the fans and inbetween all of the fan spokes, then did a tight stippling in the cream around each fan.

The borders got some great treatments!!

The fans were so much fun to create! I wasn't sure if I could pull them off, but I think that they surpassed my expectations! :D

I am truly thankful that I got to add my own touch to this piece of art that was so long in the making!

Up next, something a little more current!



I apologize for the blurry picture! This is probably the most beautiful trip around the world quilt that I have ever seen. The batiks in this quilt are stunning...check them  out a little closer,

Beautiful right? I got to use a new thread that I LOVE called Glide. It has a bit of a sheen to it and comes in a gorgeous array of colors. I did a freehand swirl on the quilt top using the lilac thread, it turned out great. Minky was used as the backing, the quilting always stands out so great on the minky that I just have to share a pic.

Fun right?
On a more personal note, I took the last 2 weeks off because I traveled to see my mother, she had surgery. I am so happy to share that she may not have a thyroid anymore, but she IS cancer FREE!!! Happy Quilting everybody!