New Project with Hand Dyed Fabrics

I was having fun dyeing fabric for my new project this morning. I have always wanted to make a whole quilt out of my hand dyed fabrics and I finally decided on a pattern, it's called Whisper from the book Transparency Quilts

It took a few tries but I finally got the results I was looking for in the lighter colors and I might add a few more darker colors to the mix.  I used the Low Immersion method but instead of leaving the fabric in the jars for an hour or more I squeezed the fabric out after a few minutes of being in the jar and then let them sit in a baggie for an hour.  This give the fabric a solid look with just a bit of texture which is exactly what I wanted.  Now I hope I can cut into them, they are so pretty!!

Bali Love Song #2 and #3

This is Sheri's Bali Love Song quilt and she used the Coconut Bali Pop to make it.  Looks so yummy!!  

She wanted Edge to Edge quilting so we choice the Mimosa panto for the design.

I used a brown Lava variegated thread for the top, brown Bottom Line on the back and Dream Blend Batting.

I love the batik backing Sheri chose for this quilt!!

She actually brought me two Bali Love Song quilts to do and this pink one is going to be a gift, she is keeping the Coconut one for herself!  I don't think I could part with that one either!!

I used the Double Plume panto for the quilting design and pinkish gray Lava thread.

I have quilted this quilt before and you can see how I custom quilted it here.  You'll also find a link to the free Hoffman pattern Bali Love Song in that post as well.

Paper Pieced Trees

This is Gail's quilt and she made it for her husband Larry.  Now Larry is a man with a vision and knew exactly how he wanted his quilt quilted and best of all was very good at communicating what he wanted. Or should I say what he didn't want!  :)   No feather, swirls or curved lines of any kind.  We tried to tempt him to let me do a curved design in the inner beige border but nope, straight line quilting and SITD was what he wanted.  And I am happy to report that both Gail and Larry were very please with the results...and that is probably because Larry hasn't found the feather I quilted into it yet!!    Just kidding Larry, but I was tempted.  :)

Gail paper pieced all these lovely trees and set them in attic window blocks.  

Out of the Blue Quilt

This is Lorna's Out of the Blue quilt and it is made from the pattern Out of the Blue by Blue Meadow Designs.  She made it for a little boy who's father is a pilot.  Since it is for a child I like to keep the quilting light so they have a soft quilt to cuddle with.

Edited * This pattern is no longer available as the design company is no longer in business. Please do not email me asking for the pattern as my client sold it to the first blog reader that asked back in 2012*

I did simple wavy lines to add motion in the sky and echoed the clouds to give them a fun cartoon feel.

The border was a bit of a challenge as it was hard to see where I was going when I was quilting, I matched the green thread too well! 

I thought since the outer border was green that it needed grass and trees on it and then a little airplanes flying loop-de-loops above the trees.  I used a stencil of a tree and repeated that design around the quilt.

Popsicle Sticks Quilt

This is Phyl's Popsicle Sticks Quilt by Atkinson Designs that she made using all batik fabrics.

I used the panto Taro, Dream Blend batting and So Fine thread.

I dyed the backing for her using Royal Blue MX Procion dye.

This is the second Popsicle Sticks quilt I have quilted for Phyl, I quilted  this one for her last fall.  I didn't realized until now that I picked the same panto that I used on her first quilt...guess I really like Taro on this pattern!  :)

A Great Deal!

I finished my circle quilt (I don't have a name for this one yet) and used a panto design called Raindrops.  It seemed appropriate for all the rain we are getting.  This afternoon I had a window of about 15 minutes of blue sky to take a few pictures.

It has a spot hanging in my Shack for now, I'm not sure how long it will stay there as I might have other plans for it.

The Raindrops panto was a free one off Lisa Calle's website, here is the link.  I just printed it out 18 times and taped together in two rows to make this size of a panto.

I have more exciting news today.  Do you remember the photos my husband took of the Northern Lights this winter, well our neighbor Ron is a wonderful painter and he made an oil painting of Tim's picture. Well I saw the painting for the first time today and just fell in love with it.  Ron was more than happy to make a deal with me on it.  It is so great to have a painting by Ron and one that has personal meaning to us. 

I LOVE IT!!!

 I found the perfect spot.  And I'm sure Ron's wife Raye will be very happy with the deal we struck....yes she is a quilter and a regular client of mine!  :)

 

Rainy Days

It is a rainy weekend and I found myself looking though my UFO's and decided to finish this quilt top.  I had all the curved blocks made at the last guild retreat. I though I would save it and finish it at the next retreat but I seem to have a growing pile of projects that would keep me occupied at the next retreat. So time to clean up the old projects....anything started in the last year I consider old!  :)

The above quilt was made with fat quarters I bought on sale from Kickass Country Quilts.  They had a online special last year...buy 10 fat quarter for $20 and so I bought two bundles!  One light colored batiks and one darker batiks, I could suggest colors too.  Can't beat that.  I used Eliza Back Porch Crazy Curves templates to make the blocks and the layout is my original design.  It is now loaded on my longarm so I hope to quilt it tomorrow.

Yesterday was our local fabric shops last day open so we are now without a fabric shop again :(

I did find a few fabrics to go with the Lily & Will fabric ( at 60% off) that Linda sent me so that was good.

I also finished my last set of Just Takes Two instructions.  I tried to make one of two blocks from an early set of instructions that is giving me grief but I just ended up throwing it in the garbage!! Sometimes it is okay to give up....right!!

What Could It Be?

Tim and I just got back from an evening paddle, it is so nice to get back into our kayaks! I took my camera and got a few pictures.

I had a lot of fun reading your guesses in my last post on what the helicopter was doing.  We live in an active mining region so think prospecting by air!   Only one guess was correct and that was Sherry's guess, she said "looking for deposits of ore or oil".  Not oil but most definitely ore.   The helicopter was doing an airbourne geophysical survey using VTEM ( Versatile Time-Domain Electromagnetic), click here if you want to understand it more. Basically the equipment under the helicopter is used to search for anomalies (ore deposits) deep under the ground.  Wonder if they found anything under my house?

Nine Patch Quilt

This is the second Nine Patch quilt I have quilted for Val and I wanted to make sure I quilted it different from the first one.  Last time I did a feather wreath from a stencil in the snowball blocks, seen here, and this time I did a free hand design inspired by this post from Terri's blog.  That was much faster than marking out a stencil as I only drew out the center circle using an air erase marker and a roll of tape for my template.

 I first quilted the circle then did the swirl in the center and then the feathers on the outside.  Quick and simple and it has a fun flowery look. 

I got a wonderful surprise in the mail yesterday.  A few weeks ago my friend Linda from the Quilted Pineapple asked her readers to guess how many stops and starts she had on the quilt she posted.  Well I love a challenge so I studied the quilt and figured out the minimum number of starts and stops it would take and I guessed the closest!  I thought guessing the closest and having those bragging rights was good enough for me but Linda, being the sweetie that she is, sent me a prize! Well I was blown away by the generosity of this prize, a fat quarter bundle of Lily and Will fabrics!!   I just love the buttery yellow and soft browns in this collection and know it will make a beautiful lap or baby quilt.  Thanks Linda, your awesome!!

Oh, one more thing.

On Saturday and again this morning I have been listening to a helicopter flying very low over our house and thought I would take a few pictures to show you what we commonly see here flying around our Northern town.  My local readers know what he is doing but I am wondering if anyone else has any guesses.

Urban Abacus

I have been collecting bright coloured batiks for awhile now and finally cut into them to make the Urban Abacus pattern using the Quick Curve Ruler.  This is going to make a great kids quilt and I am going to try to wait until the summer to quilt it when I have more time to try some custom quilting on it.

This reminds me of a toy my boys had when they were little that had bright coloured beads on a yellow metal maze of wire and you slid the beads along the wire.

I have also been working on my Just Takes Two blocks...but must admit that I have started to fall behind on the applique blocks and have two not completed.  My friend Lori got me started on this project so we would have a project to work on together but she has started to fall behind too. She has a good excuse though and I can now share the news....she bought a longarm!!!  I am so excited for her and she also started a blog to journal her journey into longarm quilting.  Her blog is Night Owl Quilting and Dye Works and you can check it out here.