This is another one of Marg’s quilts called Timeless Stars by Elise’s Back Porch and it is a paper pieced pattern. The original pattern is for a wall hanging but Marg made it larger to cover a bed. She used all batik fabrics in fall colours and added sashing between the blocks. I picked Whirygig for the panto design, used Quilters Dream Blend Batting and gold So Fine thread.
This is Marg’s version of our Highway 10 Designs Alternate Routes quilt. She used one of the layouts in the pattern and added three borders. She used a dark green and navy batik print for her focus fabric and a very light batik print for the background. The prints on both fabrics have a leaf theme so I used Bushberries for the panto and used medium green So Fine thread. The batting is Quilters Dream Blend.
This is Helen’s baby quilt and she brought a backing that is new to me….Rose Cuddle by Shannon Fabrics. It is very pretty and since it has such a distinct design I thought I should quilt a very simple design so the rose pattern in the Cuddle doesn’t get too distorted. Here is the backing fabric before being quilted.
And here it is after being quilted with open free hand curls and Dream Blend Batting.
The quilting does distort the rose design a bit but I think once it is used and washed the long fibres trapped under the stitches will pop back out again. I’m curious if anyone has experience with this backing and how have you quilt it?
This is Yvonne’s Paint Chip Challenge for our quilt show and she made a baby quilt for her project. She asked that I make the star pop so I used Dream Puff batting, lightly quilted the star and did free hand 3’s and E’s in the 6” squares. I then added the pebbled frame around the star in the white background fabric but then couldn’t decided on what to do in the rest of the white fabric so I left that until this morning. Needed to look at it with fresh eyes and it is amazing how well that works. As soon as I saw the quilt this morning I knew how I wanted to do to finished off the design. On the inside of the pebbled frame I quilted a cross hatch design and then CC’d around them. Then in the very outer area of the background I did a zigzag and CC’d that as well.
Yvonne used a soft pink Minkie for the backing.
It finally got above freezing yesterday and we had some melting!! I shovelled the dock in hopes that that sun would clear the remaining snow off and it did. But now we are suppose to get more snow today….BOOOO!
I finished hand stitching the binding on my latest quilt this morning. I have been working on this quilt at our guilds UFO days and finished piecing it at our Retreat this past weekend. Since I am well ahead on my clients quilts this month I put it on my longarm Sunday night and quilted it yesterday.
This quilt has a great story to go along with it. My friend Laila, who lives in Norway, had made four quilts like this and every time she shared pictures of them on her blog I would just drool! You can visit her quilting blog here to see her quilts and the pattern is from issue#3 of the Vignette magazine. I was very drawn to the colors and the geometric design of this pattern. Well Laila, being the sweet person that she is, sends me her leftover fabrics from her quilts so I can make one!! This are beautiful Japanese fabrics and they even feel just as nice as they look…but they did have a bit of an adventure on there way across the Atlantic. You see when I got to the post office to pick up Laila’s package and I gave the notice card to the lady at the counter …she give me this look and says “Oh this package, it should be an example of how not to mail packages!” No, not my special package of beautiful fabric! She then brings out my package all wrapped in plastic and said that something liquid broke inside. Hummm, I don’t think so! So I opened up the plastic on the counter to find the package and fabric inside is soaking wet and the center frozen solid!! No broken bottles so not the senders fault. Somewhere along it’s travels it sat in a puddle for a very long time and the postal worker who found it just stuck it in a bag for the rest of its trip! So I brought home my frozen soggy bundle with hopes that I was going to be okay after a thaw and soak in warm water the kitchen sink. Once I was able to pull the fabrics apart I threw then in the washing machine with hopes they would survive and still be good. Only a few pieces bleed and I was able to salvage most of the fabrics! Whew! I was so relieved and now tell people that this fabric was dipped in the Fjords of Norway on its way to me. The image of it sitting in the back of a delivery truck in a puddle of melting snow is not as exciting to imagine! :)
I used an extra wide Stonehenge fabric for the backing and the panto is called Bayside. Since I am keeping this quilt for myself to cuddle with on the couch I used the wool batting that Desley has sent me last year from Australia. So this truly is an International Friendship quilt!
And look at how well it goes with my Pine Needles wall hanging in my livingroom! :)
Here is a 70’s flashback for you….remember liquid embroidery? Wendy created this cute Flower Girls using liquid embroidery many, many years ago and had no idea what to do with them so they just sat in a box. Well now that she caught the quilting bug this year she got them out and made a quilt with them! She framed each block in green and used strips of bright fabrics on the diagonal for her setting blocks.
She asked that I do not quilt across the girls and since I had never quilted over liquid embroidery I agreed. I used Invisifil thread to SID around them and stippled the background. For the setting blocks I quilted in the ditch using green So Fine thread.
It has been snowing and cloudy here so hard to get a good picture of the quilting but I did loops in the red inner border and ferny feathers in the outer green border.
I was at our guilds quilt retreat this weekend and finished a new quilt top. I am hoping to put it on my machine tonight and quilt a simple panto on it. Once I have that done I’ll share pictures and it’s story!
This is Evelyn’s Paper Bag quilt and was a guild project from two years ago were we exchanged 3” squares of fabric and collected them in a paper bag. This is the first time I have used a panto on this pattern and I was really pleased with how it looks. Evelyn asked for masculine quilting and since I usually quilt feathers and wreaths when I custom quilt this pattern I thought I would try a panto.
The panto is called Mimosa, the batting is Dream Blend and I used White So Fine thread on top and Navy Bottom Line in the bobbin. The backing was a Navy Batik and I could have used white thread on top and backing but if I can get the tension on my machine just right I will try my best to match the thread with the backing fabric.
Back in September I asked Lori and Desley if they wanted to participate in a Round Robin. They thought it was a great idea and we thought it would even be better if we had another quilter so Desley asked her friend Bronwyn to join in. So we had two participants in Canada and two in Australia! I got busy writing up the instructions and we all had a 12 1/2” block ( non-directional) made by Dec 1. Here are the blocks we all created. Mine is the picture above and I used fabrics that Desley sent me last year.
This one is Lori’s and she used some of her hand dyed fabrics.
This one is Bronwyn's and she used teal and purple for her block.
And last but not least Desley’s block and she fussy cut her center and used very traditional fabrics….not something I have a lot of in my stash!
So we mailed our blocks across the ocean. Desley got Lori’s, I got Desley’s, Bronwyn got mine and Lori got Bronwyn’s block. The only instruction was to add a simple border, no appliqué.
Here are the results of that round.
I managed to find three fabrics in my stash that worked well with Desley’s block. Whew! I added three small borders with diagonal squares in the corner.
Lori added a pretty teal border to Bronwyn’s block and used a HST design in the corners.
Desley added small squares and put it on point.
Bronwyn added flying geese and corner pinwheels to my block.
We just exchanged our blocks again on March 1 and I now have Bronwyn’s, Lori has Desley’s, Desley has mine and Bronwyn has Lori’s block. This round the instruction is to put it on point and either appliqué or piece a design in the corner triangles. I call this the ‘Wow Factor’ round.
Now for our Highway 10 Designs news….we have our Lug Nuts pattern available in paper now! They arrived on Friday, just in time for my day trip down to Swan River with a few quilting friends to shop at Fabriculous! I meet up with Lori and a few of her quilting friends and we had a great time taking over the shop. It was one of the coldest days this winter ( –45’c windchill) but that didn’t stop us from the 370km trip!
This is Wendy’s Third Time Around quilt. The pattern is designed by A Quilters Dream and is fat quarter friendly . Wendy is new to quilting and has become totally addicted, she also didn’t start with a beginner pattern either! She did a great job with her piecing and fabric choices. This is a large King size quilt and I used Quilters Dream Blend batting, brown Lava thread and Plush pantograph.
