Posts Tagged ‘Machine quilting’

Focus Friday – Wrented

Friday, March 11th, 2016

This week spring has sprung – the trees are blooming and some are even leafing out. There are daffodils everywhere and it is beautiful! There is much activity at the bird feeders and nests are being built. Spring inspires everyone to get busy.

Wrenovations complete, the Wren family has moved in and set up housekeeping! So I thought an appropriate choice for today’s focus would be “Wrented”. If you’ve ever wondered about the process of picture piecing, I’ve produced a few little wall hanging patterns to show you how fun and easy it actually is. “Wrented” is 24 x 24″, the design is charted with colors and numerical order of piecing listed, for easy straight seam sewing. Fat quarters work well for the background and birdhouse, the rest can probably be found in your scraps or stash!

INNOVATiONS #10856- “Wrented” – 24 x 24″ $9.00
Click on PATTERNS in the side bar to order.

The pattern sample quilted wall hanging is for sale, $300.00 Machine pieced and machine quilted. Email if interested.

Focus Friday

Saturday, March 5th, 2016

Focus Friday on a Saturday this week, because, well, I forgot! I’m going to go for color this week with “Endless Possibilities”. The block is simple, only four seams! But the possibilities are endless!!

This pattern includes instructions and fabric requirements for a lap quilt, a wall hanging, place mats and a table runner. The photo shows the 60 x 63″ lap quilt illustrating the possibilities of a multitude of scraps, or possibly you would rather do planned design, with only a few coordinated fabrics. It’s all in the pattern. Possibly you will work small, possibly you will work large, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination!

450EndlessPoss

“Endless Possibilities” – many possible sizes – $9.00
Click on patterns in the side bar to order.

The sample quilt is for sale, machine pieced and machine quilted, for $1250.00. Email for details. The wall hanging sample is also for sale, approx 49 x 37″, it can be seen on my website, listed above. You will be surprised at how different it looks!!

Heron Finished!!

Saturday, January 9th, 2016

The heron quilt is FINALLY finished. “Tranquil Dawn”, 40 x 52.5″

heronFull
It’s not that I’ve been working on it all this time, but so much time was wasted looking for that “perfect” fabric. When I just let it go and added some others, I think it was even better than it would have been had I found the one I wanted in the first place. More is usually better! As usual it is loaded with machine quilting with many different threads used.

HeronNeckDet450heronThread

Now I am seriously thinking about what is next; it is always exciting to start something new, and I hope, smaller!

But first I need to get those books caught up, sales tax is due soon……

Focus Friday – Garden Path

Friday, January 8th, 2016

It’s January so the seed catalogs are piling up and I am starting to think about spring and new gardens. It’s a weird winter with the Forsythia already blooming confusedly in the rain! We know it is much too early to be planting outside, but not a moment too soon to dream of a flower garden quilt to while away the hours until Spring really arrives!

This is an original 12″ block design that I gave to 20 friends, along with a piece of the colorful batik and the instructions to combine it with coordinating colors from their own stashes and some yellow for each block, for a scrap quilt. When I got all 20 blocks back, I arranged them and added some flower blocks to make a Garden Path. A border of the starting batik gives a nice finish! In case you would prefer a one fabric background, that yardage is also included.

GardenPath

 

Garden Path – INNOVATIONS #06848 62 x 74″ $9.00

The machine quilted Cover Sample quilt is for sale, $1500.00. Email for details.

Heron Quilting Finished!

Monday, December 28th, 2015

The day before Christmas, I finished quilting the Heron quilt.

MQthefaceThere are some metallic threads in the water for sparkle.

MQthedetails

I settled in to watch some TV and bury all of the missed thread ends. I get most of those as I do the quilting, every time I change to a new color of thread, but there are always a few that get missed. I got interrupted and then didn’t get back to it til after Christmas.

I always like to lay it out and check it from the back side to be sure there are no missed spots.

MQthebackThis backing fabric is a home dec fabric that I like to use on the back as it has a nice weight that helps to keep the work flat.  But it does present a problem when it comes to blocking because it is treated to repel water.  I prewash to help overcome that and work a little harder to make sure it wets evenly.

Before blocking, the work is already pretty flat,

heronbeforeblockingjpg

but after blocking and drying it is perfectly flat!

Heronaftblocking

Catching Up

Sunday, December 13th, 2015

I’m not doing so well, am I?  With classes ended for this semester you’d think I’d have more time, but it’s not happening. It seems like there are so many things vying for the available minutes; meetings and appointments, shopping, wrapping, decorating, entertaining, plus all of those daily tasks that are never really done. Same for you, I’m sure!

I grab minutes when I can to try and finish the heron quilt. It’s deadline is in January and I have the next project bouncing around in my head. I laid it out after yesterday’s session to examine it from the back and found a few spots needing more quilting, plus the majority of the sky left to do, but the end is within sight finally!

I thought Focus Friday might help me focus more on this blog, and it has to some extent but I don’t want it to dominate and turn my blog into a sales venue, as it has been doing. I will try to do better. I did meet last week’s deadline on Facebook, but it didn’t make it over here to blog land. This week’s Focus Friday quilt is “Strip Trip”. I love this quilt. Not only is it pretty, it is so easy. There are only six different fabrics and they are cut into large units of color that get sewn together into a large block and then sliced into strips to be re-arranged and sewn together for the top. A great way to use the bright large contemporary prints, or even in solids for a more “modern” look.

StripTrip

Strip Trip – INNOVATIONS #06447 approximately 56 X 71” Pattern: $9.00
Click on Patterns in the side bar to order.

The Cover Sample quilt is for sale, machine quilted, $1500.00. Email me for details.

Focus Friday – Scrapmagic Stars

Friday, November 27th, 2015

The weather has taken a decidedly wintry turn with freezing cold rain and icy conditions. Time to start thinking about a nice cozy quilt project to take you into winter. Here is just the thing to use up a lot of scraps!

Focus Friday for this week is “Scrapmagic Stars”, a true scrap quilt made up of repetitions of just one 12” block. Even the border is just more blocks colored in such a way as to imply a border by concentrating more dark fabrics there. I’ve placed my lightest fabrics toward the center to make it ‘glow’. The corners of your blocks done in contrasting color make the stars appear like magic when the blocks come together! So fun and easy!!

ScrapMagic

Depending on the fabrics you choose, you can get a totally different look as illustrated by the baby quilt shown below.

scrapmagicBaby

The pattern contains instructions for five sizes.Baby-36 X 48”, Crib-48 x 60”, Full-72 x 84”,
Queen-84 x 96, King- 96 x 108

“Scrapmagic Stars” – Pattern: $8.00
Click on Patterns in the side bar to order.

The cover sample bed quilt is no longer available but the baby quilt, machine quilted, is $200.00. Email me for details.

First Friday

Saturday, November 7th, 2015

Yesterday was First Friday and I worked at The Topeka Art Guild Gallery til it closed at 8 pm. The current show is the annual judged competition with a Kansas theme which has been up for a month, with another month to go. My entry “After The Storm” which had already been awarded first place, also received People’s Choice last night! Always fun when quilted art is recognized  amidst the expected fine art offerings.

Since finishing my Figure Drawing homework,

reclnude

I have been able to get back to quilting on the Heron and it is progressing very nicely. I must be about half way done and hope to do a lot more today.

QuiltingHeron

Focus Friday – Goose on the Loose

Friday, October 30th, 2015

“Goose on the Loose” is one of my earlier patterns that continues to be a best seller. Now at the end of October, I am reminded of how it came to be as the wild geese are flying overhead. They don’t stay in those nice orderly V’s as they are usually depicted, but rather they tend to ravel out into tangled skeins as they constantly switch positions, honking loudly at each other as they go. Usually a quilt gets named after it is finished, but this one had a name before it was even started. I looked for a block that would portray the vision, maybe with Flying Geese blocks, but instead I settled on Fox and Goose, which doesn’t even contain Flying Geese. Instead it is worked from half square triangle units and what can be easier than that! Half of the blocks have gray sky centers and half have autumn leaf colors and it is the way that they are sewed together that gives the effect of the geese straying from their formation. I love to make it so you have to really look for where the block is, makes people think it was harder than it really was! Of course that is all laid out for you in this very easy pattern.

The pattern contains instructions for both a wall hanging and a bed quit. There is only about half a box of patterns left and it will not be reprinted, so act fast if this is a quilt you would like to make.

GooseSample

Goose On The Loose – approximately 36 X 42” or 72 X 84” Pattern: $8.00
Click on Patterns in the side bar to order.

Cover Sample quilt for sale, lovingly hand quilted, a steal at $400.00 Email me for details.

The PRIZE winning bed quilt, made from batik fabrics and free motion machine quilted in swirls and maple leaves can be seen in the Large Quilts Gallery on my website.  It is also for sale.

After The Storm

Sunday, September 27th, 2015

On Friday, I finished the quilting on this new piece and blocked it. On Saturday, I trimmed it to size and prepared the sleeve and the documentation tag, which meant I had to come up with a name. “After The Storm” won out.  The finished size is 39.5 x 24″.

AfterTheStorm

I love to see this fleeting vision when after the storm everything is clean and sparkling, the sky is still dark but the sunlight comes in and lights the foreground against the dark storm clouds. It was a lovely fall day here, so I sat out on the deck to do the hand work and listened to my Art History lectures on the tape recorder. Perfect! I met the deadline and will enter it into the next Topeka Art Guild show with the Kansas theme later today.