This is Heathers Yellow Brick Road quilt and she used a very modern blend of fabrics for her queen size quilt. She asked for geometric style of quilting and the Dazzle panto seemed to fit the quilt. Dream Blend batting , Yellow So Fine thread on top and off White Bottom Line for the backing.
I finished my Perfect Ten quilt using the Under the Australian Sun fabric collection and Kona Snow for the light frames. Desley sent me more fabric to add an outer border as I can’t get it here and it finishes the quilt off nicely. I also used one of the pantos she sent called Reflections and I really like how that one quilted out.
I was planning on using a gold coloured thread but when I auditioned a medium green So Fine thread on the quilt top it blended in so well with all the fabrics that I used that instead. I always like to lay a few different thread colors on the quilt top before deciding on the one as I can sometimes be surprise by the one that looks best.
I like the juxtaposition of this fabric line from Australia being photographed in the snow!
As my title indicates this quilt as a bit of a story I want to share but first lets get to the quilt details. This is Sandra’s baby quilt and she used the Yellow Brick Road quilt pattern. Too make this a cozy baby quilt it has Dream Puff batting and a Minkie backing. The panto design is Flirtatious.
So one of the challenges of living here is getting fabric as we do not have a local fabric shop. Most of us shop online or buy fabric when we go out of town. But I had a good laugh when I heard how Sandra received her order of Minkie backing from a quilt shop that is 400km south of our little town. I guess the order was talking longer to arrive at the shop than the owner hoped so she felt bad it took so long. So once the Minkie arrived in her shop she wanted to get it to Sandra right away. I imagine she knows the train engineer on the line that runs up to Flin Flon so asked him to take it up to her that day. You think that would be fairly simple, to pick up fabric at a train station….but Flin Flon doesn’t have a train station, the train goes straight into the mining company yards which the general public is not allowed in. So the engineer said he would meet her at the only train crossing in town at a scheduled time but Sandra couldn’t meet the train at that time. Luckily Sandra has a daughter that was free to meet the train. So imagine if you will the train is approaching the crossing and her daughter, who by the way is very pregnant, is waiting by the crossing feeling pretty silly as all the cars that have stopped are now watching her chase a train that doesn’t stop but slows down to drop the package out the window! I wish I had a picture of this. The things we do…or make family do for our fabric addiction!
So now this has me wondering….is anyone willing to share the strangest thing they have done, or asked someone do to get fabric?
This is Val’s Alternate Routes quilt and she used a layout created by another quilter that she saw on our Flickr page. Nice to see our page being used for inspiration because that was the whole purpose in creating it. She used light blue batik for the background fabric and a blue/purple batik for the focus fabric.
I used one of the pantos Desley sent me called Joust. I have had this panto on my wish list for a while and it is really nice to quilt. So Fine light blue thread and Dream Blend batting.
This is Marg and Barbs Midnight Sun quilt, the pattern can be found in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Love of Quilting magazine. I wasn’t sure who to give credit too as Barb bought the fabric to make her son this quilt and paid for the quilting but her mom Marg pieced it. Barb said she was going to get around to making it one day but her mom beat her too it. Yeah we believe you Barb! :) I have quilted one of these before, you can see Blanche’s version here. It was this quilt the sparked the idea for Barb to make it was the first quilt her son ever commented on that he liked. He was even allowed some input on the fabric as he like bold bright colors. With this pattern you end up with two quilts because of the angle you cut your strips and the color run the opposite direction giving the quilt a whole other look. So there is a second top waiting for borders so once that one is done Barbs son gets to pick which one he prefers.
The quilt has Wool batting, the center is quilted with the Plush panto and I custom quilted the three borders. Straight lines in the inner border, triple loops in the middle border and Echo Curves in the outer border. I have a tutorial on how to do the Echo Curves here, you can find all my tutorials listed on my sidebar.
This quilt is 98” x98” so about the same size as my ice rink now! The slush has been encroaching and this is the little bit of ice I have left. I tried to walk out a small design in our bay but the snow is so deep and there is so much slush underneath that it made it very hard to walk. So I gave up on that idea.
I wanted to get a good straight on shot and use my outdoor hanging system but the only way to get a picture was to dig a path to the bench I stand on when I take these pictures. Here is my bench back in November after our first snow fall and here is it now, completely buried under snow!
November 2013
January 2014
Definitely earned another bag of Mars Pods for that shovel task! But here are the pictures that made all the work worthwhile.
The colors in this quilt remind me of Fire and Ice!
I received two lovely packages in the mail yesterday! The first one is this collection of Little Black Dress 2 that Lori and I plan on using for your next pattern design. We are busy working on our fourth pattern so I’ll be cutting into this stack of fabrics soon. Just had to tease you with that photo!
The second package came all the way from Australia. Desley and I did another goodie exchange and as you can see she spoilt me again!
She sent my son a Formula One hat as he loves racing and unfortunately can’t eat most of the goodies as he has severe food allergies. Desley also sent me more Under the Australian Sun fabric so I can add the final border to my Perfect Ten quilt. The Sunburst pattern is another acrylic template pattern that she is tempting me with as she plans on making at quilt one day. She also included a whack of pantos that she no longer uses. :)
It’s a good thing I plan on doing more snow shovelling today as I have a few calories to work off from eating a whole bag of Mars Pods yesterday. :)
Every January since I started blogging I like to print out my blog into book form so I have a hard copy. I use a company called Blog2Print and if you decide to use this company to make your own blog book I recommend you create your book but save it in draft form for a day or two as they will send you a 15% coupon after signing up!
Here are all 5 of my books and they are a great reference to have in my Shack when I want to show a client a quilting idea that I have done in the past.
Yesterday I finally got a glimpse of the rabbit that has been making tracks in my yard and he even sat still long enough for me to grab my camera and take a few pictures. He is very well camouflaged in the snow and I’m sure I have walked past him many times without seeing him! They are brownish grey in the summer and turn white in the winter.
This is Kerri’s Misty Pines quilt and is a pattern found in McCalls Quilting magazine, Jan/Feb 2013 issue. The fabric is the Stonehenge Woodlands collection. Kerri wondered about vertical wavy lines for the quilting. That gave me the idea to load the quilt sideway on my machine and she left the final design up to me. This one was a bit tricky as the fabrics blend so well into each other that the quilting needed to add texture but also depth to the piecing. I wanted to add some swirls and wavy lines but was unsure how to mesh this all today. While talking to Lori she suggested I take the Angela Walters approach and start with one design, add a second element and the end with just that second design. Brilliant! So I started with the swirls at the bottom, then swirls with wavy lines ( dwirling basically) and the just wavy lines at the top. I really like the transition of this design and how it plays well with the piecing.
I used Dream Blend batting and medium Grey So Fine thread. I have to tell you that I felt like I was quilting blind as the thread blend into the fabrics so well that I had to quilt with my overhead lights out so the light on my longarm would cast a shadow. That way I could see the previous quilting and not cross my stitching lines. Though I did have to stop and pick a few time, overall it worked well. :)
This is Sheri’s Perfect Ten quilt and it is nice to see she is off her Hopscotch and Bali Love Song kick and is now whipping out Perfect Ten quilts like a mad woman! :) I find I am getting a bit bored with pantos so thought it was time to get back to the front of the machine and play with free hand designs. I think that will be one of my goal for this year, to work on more free hand designs as I use to do a few nice ones when I was quilting on my domestic machine. I might revisit a few old favourites and see how they look using the longarm.
I guess I’ll call this one Floral Curl as I start with a curl and then echo two or three rows of petals.
It’s pretty grey and dismal outside today but I wanted to share a few more pictures of the crazy amount of snow we have. It just won’t stop snowing!!
This is Michele’s flannel quilt and I used the Snazzy Snowflake panto on it to keep with the winter theme. Usually these quilts are ragged on one side but she had a different plan. She pieced the top and then used long strips of the same fabric for the backing.
It’s hard to see the quilting in my pictures so here is the panto I used.
