County Fair Quilt

This is Sandra’s County Fair quilt and the pattern is by Fig Tree & Co.  The fabrics are Moda Farmhouse also by Fig Tree & Co.   Sandra asked for custom quilting and I know I can never over quilt a quilt for Sandra as she loves to wash them right away to see the wonderful texture in the quilting.   


This quilt has four borders so I quilted simple feathers in the outer border, then swirls, loops and a feather curl in the inner most border.  The sashing is all stitched in the ditch and I added CCs in the Nine Patches and loops in the white sashing.  I left the black with white polka dot fabric unquilted as that fabric needs to stand on its own!  I stitched in the ditch around the flower blocks and added feathers in each petal.  Then I added a feather motif in the white triangle background and CC’d the corners to tie in with the CCs in the Nine Patches.

I used white So Fine thread on top and white Bottom Line on the back, with Quilters Dream Blend for batting.

The backing is a white on white tiny grid print and shows off the quilting beautifully!

Since the quilt is called County Fair I had to take it to the Emo Fairgrounds to take a few pictures.

Fat Quarter Fizz Quilt

This is Coleen’s Fat Quarter Fizz quilt and the pattern is a free download from Fat Quarter Shop. Here is a link to the pattern.  As you have probably guessed it is a fat quarter friendly pattern and with the rectangles being 6” x 12”.   This would be a fast project and a great one for digging into your stash.

I chose the Fascination panto as it is my larges scale design and to my surprise the repeat in the piecing matched the repeat in the panto.  So the large swirl quilted out down the center of each row perfectly.  I used beige So Fine thread and Quilters Dream blend batting.

So things have been a little wonky with Blogger these past two weeks. It seems they can no longer email notifications when a comment is left on a blog.  This was an extremely handy feature and how I replied to any questions in the comments.  So now if there is a question I will have to answer it in the comment section.  I really hope they can fix this problem as I now have no way to know if there are comment being left on older post!

Batik Tablecloth

This is Diane’s Batik Tablecloth and she created the pattern herself.  She was having fun playing around with triangles and came up with this design to cover one of her tables.   Since it was for a table I had to try it on one of mine!  I really like how nicely it drapes!  She asked for custom quilting and I made sure that the quilting designs had even density so that it laid flat knowing it was going to be used on a table.

I stitched in the ditch around the colourful batik triangles and used a ruler to create the arrow design in the triangles.  Free hand swirls added a contrasting texture in the light background.  I used white So Fine thread and Quilters Dream Blend batting.

We had a lot of rain over the weekend and everything is so green right now.  I’m hoping this coming weekend will be sunny so we can take our kayaks out for a paddle.

Daydream

This is Ellen’s Daydream quilt and it is a pattern by Swirly Girls Designs.  Ellen made this quilt for her granddaughter and I love the fabrics she used!  The sashing in this designs is very unique as well.  I quilted it with a new pantograph called Poplar and I really like how it looks and stitches out.

Ellen brought Warm and Plush batting which I have never tried and it quilted up nicely.  Its a bit loftier than their regular Warm and Natural batt and paired well with the Cuddle/Minkie backing.

Suitable for Framing Quilt

This is Stacey’s quilt, the pattern is called Suitable for Framing and designed by Cheryl Wittmayer.  She used Japanese fabrics with different textures and a Black Cuddle backing.   It is a gift for a guy so she asked for a masculine quilting pattern.  I showed her a few of my favorites for guys and Plush was the winner!  I used grey So Fine thread.

I like to suggest clients use Quilters Dream Puff batting when a quilt has Cuddle for the backing and is going to be used as a couch lap quilt.   The Puff has more loft and is lighter than the regular Blend so give the quilt a very soft feel.   So that is what we used on this quilt and it worked wonderfully!

The Farmers Wife 1930’s Sampler Quilt

This is Sonja’s Farmers Wife 1930’s Sampler quilt and it contains One Hundred and Eleven 6” sampler blocks!  Sonja said she worked on it, off and on, for one and a half years and used Kansas Troubles fabrics from her stash.   Some blocks were more intricate than others and took a whole day to piece while others were assembled in less than an hour. She will be hanging this quilt in her homes two story foyer. I’m sure it will look stunning there!

Sonja asked for traditional custom quilting and at that each block be quilted with a unique pattern.  So I used different combinations of CC’s, loops, swirls, feathers and straight lines in the blocks. Some are completely stitched in the ditch, some have a bit and some have none just depending on the designs in each block.   I quilted a feather motif in the setting triangles and a flowing feather in the outer border.

I used three colours of So Fine thread on top and a beige Bottom Line on the back.   Batting is Quilters Dream Blend.

This quilt measures 84” x 104” so I a bit to big for my family to hold up for me in a farmers field…yes I asked and they said I was crazy! LOL!  So thankful for my large deck!

We have been busy around here with a new garage build…well actually we hired someone so more like busy watching it go up!  So excited to have a warm place to store my car next winter and for my husband to have a work area for all this tools. 

Interview with APQS

A few weeks ago I was approached by APQS to do an interview on ‘Running a Longarm Business’.  I quilt on a 2008 APQS Millennium so was happy to contribute to this series of articles.  They published the article on their blog here last week so thought some of you might be interested in reading it, especially  if you are considering starting a longarm business in the future.  I share a lot of information on how I got started and what my business has grown into over 9 years.  I took a few pictures of my studio which is still a work in progress.  The walls are still a bit bare so I taped up a few quilts on the wall, shhhh that’s our secret! LOL!

I haven’t done any quilting this past week as I had a trip to Winnipeg and then a weekend trip to the States with Tim for our 23nd Anniversary. I did discover a few new quilt shops to me and even picked up this colourful collection of modern fabrics for a new project.   I can’t believe how I am really starting to like these modern and bright fabrics, I’m usually so drawn to batiks but sometimes a change is good!

And now that the weather is feeling more like summer I have been enjoying riding my new bike around the area.  Love the big seat on my Verza Cruz and I even have matching shoes when I go riding! LOL!