Clam shells and geometrics

I quilted Annie's first ever completed quilt top! She was so shy about bringing it out but I think that it is really nice for a first quilt! Check it out...

We decided to use the clamshell flowers pattern on this quilt and I think that it turned out really well. It goes with the print of the fabric.

She pieced her backing on this quilt and in the center was a large white strip, I chose a pink thread to go on the back so the pattern showed up really well.

What do you think??

She also had me quilt this one for her

Her husband called it his "Route 66" quilt. You'll see why in the picture below. They asked me to do my geometric design on this quilt and it was fun to hide a few things in there. Brian, I'm not going to show you everything, you are just going to have to look at every square inch until you find it all!!
This is the backing fabric. I hope that someday you two get to take that route 66 trip of your dreams!!

Next up is a quilt that was shipped to me from a new friend in Nevada. I loved opening up the package to see this gorgeous stained glass window quilt. It is just beautiful!! 

There are some small dragonfly's in the pattern of the border fabric so I was asked to quilt some dragonfly's onto the quilt.

I had a lot of fun quilting these little beauties onto this gorgeous quilt!!

I am still playing catch-up as far as blogging goes, so stay tuned for some more pictures of beautiful quilts that I have been priviledged enough to add my own touch to...in the meantime, Happy Quilting!

I'm Back!!

Ahh the internet, we forget how great it really is until we don't have it anymore! I've been without it for 2 weeks now and it has been torture! I finally have a web connection now so y'all will be hearing from me a lot more! I'll give you a quick run-down of what I have been up to and share a LOT of pictures! Let's dive right in!!

This first quilt was made by a new customer, Maurya. She did an amazing job piecing this quilt, every one of the blocks lined up perfectly, and the prints on the dino blocks were cut so meticulously that each of the dinos were in the same place in each block!

I quilted this in wavy diamonds.

The backing was flannel, the little boy that is going to receive this blanket is really going to be warm under this quilt!!

The next quilt was also pieced by Maurya. This pretty quilt will be going to the sister of the little boy who will be receiving the dino quilt. What lucky siblings!!

 Again, the piece work was impeccable! Great job Maurya!!

I used the cotton candy pattern on this quilt, which you will really be able to see in the next photo. Maurya used Minky for her backing fabric which really made me nervous. I have heard that a lot of longarm quilters have had a lot of problems with Minky bunching up on itself and making the finished quilt look more like a scrunchy...luckily for me that wasn't the case, the quilt layed out nice and flat and the feel of the super soft minky was awesome, it has inspired me to try minky on one of my daughter Jordan's next quilts!

The flow of this pattern is great, very smooth...following it for half an hour I got a little motion sick and had to sit down for a few minutes before starting again! I still love the way i turned out though and I can't wait to try it again.

I just LOVE how the pattern stuck out so much on the minky backing.

Allright, there is no way that I can make blog posts short, I just love sharing all of these photos with everyone! More to come later! Stay tuned...In the meantime, Happy Quilting!

Internet

I have been super busy and quilting away at home. I am quilting full-time now! The only thing that is bugging me right now is that I do not have the internet at home yet. I haven't been able to update my blog in a long time!! I just wanted to let all of you know that on April 11th my internet will be hooked up and you will be bombarded with pictures of the beautiful quilts that I have had the pleasure of working on for the past couple weeks!
Stay tuned, and happy quilting!
Nicole

Annie's quilts

Alright Annie! I know you are sitting on the edge of your seat to see these photos so I am going to just dive right into them! First up...The Green Mod Strip Quilt...(yup that's what it will forever be called in my eyes!)

This quilt was made from a jelly roll that Annie actually told me she hates. She added some additional yardage, the green, and it made a very funky quilt. She said that she wanted a design on it that was very "mod" so ...

I used my "Double Bubble Trouble" pattern on it. Here is a picture of the back which, no offense Annie, is my favorite part! 



It was a lot of fun being able to do some free motion quilting, no pantograph involved! I got to be at the front of my machine! Yay!

Next up, the pretty little Christmas quilt.

This quilt is just so cute! There are a couple of prints in the smaller blocks that look like knitted sweaters! When my husband was looking at it he had to actually touch it to see if it was made of yarn.

She made this next one for her brother, I did an all over geometric design. If you look closely, I bet you could make items out of the random shapes that I made!

Thank you for letting me quilt for you Annie!



Customers!!!

Ok, it is official...I am a professional quilter! Eeek! Terri had me quilt another quilt for her and I used the Plummage pattern, she paid me enough for shipping the quilt back to her and there was a generous tip included...enough so that it almost paid for the quilting on this quilt, so we could say that she is one of my first official customers! Thanks Terri! I loved this quilt, so dainty and feminine!

The next picture is of the backing. I used cream colored thread on the back and I think it showed off the quilting really well without being overpowering!

I am shipping these quilts out to Terri in the mail today and I can't wait to hear from her and I really hope that she likes them as much as I do.

Next up is Annie! She is amazing! She is still new to the quilting world and she is so enthusiastic about everything that it is infectious! She hadn't even seen my work yet and she gave me not one but FIVE quilts to quilt in our first meeting! Wow! Talk about faith in me! I am so lucky that she picked up my business card and decided to call me!

This is the first quilt that I have completed for her. She made it for her Mother in Law and I just love the colors!!!

Although she is SO not a floral person, her mother in law is. This is the only quilt out of 5 that she is allowing me to put a floral design on and I just love how it turned out! I picked a pale pink thread for the top and I think that it pops the quilting out just enough so that when you are looking for it it is noticable, but if you want to look at the piecing it is not overpowering enough to take away from the original design of the quilt.

Annie, I am so lucky that you chose me to be one of your quilters and I can't wait to see what funky quilts you come up with next for me! In the meantime...here is a sneak peak at the second of five quilts...



It is almost done and I hope to share the finished quilt with everyone tomorrow...in the meantime...Happy Quilting everyone!



Charity Quilts & More

Being in the local quilt guilds has been so much fun! There's prizes and lectures and beautiful quilts on display...not to mention lots of new friends to meet and they all share my love of quilting!
One other thing that I love about the guilds is their love of sharing their gifts with those less fortunate than us! Each guild donates quilts to the senior center, or the hospitals, or the women's refuge and I wanted to be a part of it! You can help in any way, from cutting fabric, sewing it together, or quilting the quilts. What better way of helping out than doing the longarm quilting? It's great practice for me, and it helps those in need!!!

This is one example of the GORGEOUS quilts that the guilds put together to donate! Wow, they don't exactly do things on a small scale do they?

Since this quilt is pretty patriotic, I went for the star & swirly pattern. I think it really turned out great! I noticed a difference between my first time doing this pattern and this time...I was more confident in my ability to really go for it and I got this quilt done a lot faster!

This is a picture of the back, you can really see the quilting!

I picked up two quilts from the Redding Quilt SewCiety this month, this is the second one, it is much smaller at 41 X 41" so I decided to do some really fun quilting on it..."Swirly flowers" Yes, I love swirlies!!! :D

This is a picture of the backing. The quilt is still on the frame...so I took this picture laying on my back! It really shows off the design, I chose white thread and the fabric is turquoise!

The front.
Charity quilts isn't all that I work on though. I did mention in my previous post that I was taking a few quilts from my friends for free so that I can practice. This quilt is Terri's. She did this great quilt with retro fabrics in awesome circles.

The funniest part about this quilt, at least to me, is that Terri doesn't even remember making this quilt, it was tucked away in the back of her closet!

Due to the fun circles she made, I decided to make some of my own! I call it double bubble trouble!

It's kinda hard to see in the photos...but in person, they really pop! I hope that Terri likes it as much as I do, it was a lot of fun to quilt!

Kris & Elise

I recently told my friends on Facebook that I would take up to 3 quilts from my buddies, and quilt them for free. I took 5. These two are from my good friends down south, Kris & Elise. I first met these two ladies at a quilt retreat two years ago and we hit it off immediately. I was super happy when I learned that they would be attending the same quilt retreat this year and we got to see each other once again in January. They were both excited with me as I got my new longarm machine and so I couldn't have been happier to accept these two quilts from them and hopefully they love the finished products as much as I do!

The first one up was Elise's quilt! This quilt is something else! I love the bright colors and it'll be such a neat look once this quilt has been washed! The edges of the petals on the flowers are a raw edge, so once this quilt has been washed the edges will fray and it will have a lovely 3d effect to it!

This quilt was begging for some wonky custom quilting and so I happily obliged. I traced around each of the petals on the flowers and did some fun swirlies on the background.

I know that it is a little tough to see, but the inner border has some fun swirls going through it.

And the outer border has some flowers with swirls as centers.

Next up is Kris's quilt, and you could say that it is a little different in style from Elise's.

Kris made this adorable sampler quilt for a very lucky 1 year old girl in Wisconsin. The colors are adorable, I love the complimenting fabrics as well as the contrasts!

I chose a sweet all over pantograph design that I think is just perfect for little girls. There are sweet little flowers, heart shaped leaves, and ribbons. If you recall I used this pattern earlier, but with practice comes better results and I am very happy with how the quilt turned out.

Thank you girls for being such great friends, and for letting me get some great practice on these adorable quilts!