Our morning view is in Hinckley MN today. We arrived settled in, had supper and went to bed early with a full day planned ending with being home!
It’s been a little over six weeks that we have been on our adventure… it is so nice waking up to sunshine this morning after a full day of driving in the rain. I am not complaining as we had almost perfect weather on this trip.
I brought my travel machine and some little projects just in case however our days were full and the only sewing I did was to stitch the binding on our camper quilt…even that isn’t finished but it’s close and I will share more about this quilt soon.
This is the third scrappy quilt of Marilyn’s that I quilted before our big adventure!
It’s so much fun to see how she utilizes her stash and makes wonderful scrappy quilts…also so inspiring!
I used the pantograph Tickle Two to bring the three layers of her quilt together.
I especially love the way the design shows on the backing that reads as a solid along with the beautiful stitches.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post we have been on a bit of an adventure!
We left home in our Motorhome on March 20th and have put on 9140 kilometres so far…we are in Clear Lake Iowa this morning, after visiting the Surf Ballroom yesterday.
Today we head to Hinckley MN and then home on Friday. It’s been an amazing trip, which I will start blogging about once we are settled in again.
I will also be back to full time Longarm Quilting for all of my wonderful, encouraging and patient customers!
I love to hear the story behind a quilts creation. When I met Jessica she told me that she would spend summers with her Grandma as a child and that is where she learnt to sew and how to quilt.
Together they began a sampler quilt…time moved on and life took over, school friends teen activities etc.
During her final years of University she inherited her Grandma’s sewing machine and decided to complete the sampler quilt and gave me the privilege of quilting it for her.
There are so many beautiful blocks in this quilt and the colours are amazing.
Finding a backing for this large queen size quilt that she liked for her quilt was difficult and so she chose solid black yardage which I pieced for her. She chose the pantograph Here and There for its heart like design linking the love between her and her Grandmother.
She also chose white bobbin thread which would create more interest to the solid black backing.
Her quilt is trimmed and ready for binding and will be completed just as she graduates from University.
I love the beauty of the stitches on both the front and back of her quilt!
In reading the news this morning I realized that it was for some yesterday was a big day football wise!
Betty’s Football quilt was on my machine over the weekend.
We chose the pantograph new wave playing on the curve of the ball. isn’t it amazing how just the right straight angle teases the eye to see curves when they don’t actually exist?
Choosing a thread colour on a quilt like this isn’t always easy, in a case like this I chose a silver grey so that the stitching wouldn’t jump off of the lighter areas of the quilt showing only fragments of the design. Of course is takes a bit of braveness to quilt light thread on navy!
Welcome December 21! The first official day of winter…I may come to regret saying this but where is the snow? The weather forecast for Christmas Eve and day are for above 0 Celsius. This might just be my first not white Christmas in Thunder Bay.
I am finishing up my Christmas projects this week. This little pouch along with another were my fun task last night. I love making these little projects and they make fun gifts.
This picture of a customer quilt from 2014 always makes me smile. I love the look of freehand quilting. There are many sources for learning freehand quilting now and at the time I quilted this quilt Angela Walters of Quilting is My Therapy was promoting her early books and inspiring many quilters.
This particular quilt was a lot of fun to put to use some of the techniques that I had recently learnt.
For the most part my quilting is done on my APQS Millennium Longarm which truly is such a wonderful machine .
However, I have always admired people who also quilt on their domestic machines and in the last couple of years have set goals for myself to work on that.
Another quilter who has inspired me is Cindy Needham and I have taken some of her classes over the years. She has some on Craftsy that I really enjoyed.
Lately after I finish working on customer quilts I will spend some time quilting using my Juki Haruka playing and practicing freehand quilting. I have been playing with small squares with 3” grids and loving the texture. These are some earlier examples of playing.
Just like when I was learning to quilt with my Longarm it takes what we used to call PPP practice practice practice!
My friend Ana Paula teaches so many amazing classes and one of them is freehand quilting if you want to learn and want a fantastic teacher I highly recommend her! She has also inspired me to spend time playing and growing in my freehand quilting fun.
The days are feeling a little longer lately even though the winter weather still seems to have a firm grip.
I’ve been busy in my studio both in piecing
And of course Machine Quilting
This was a fun freehand job, that I added some “modern style” quilting to a traditional quilt. (Unfortunately the back was too busy to really show the quilting) the first picture is the top before quilting the second is a close up to show how I quilted it.
Next up the Anniversary Quilt, it was quilted with a Panto called Here and There, I chose it as it has both a heart looking shape as well as a feathery look without being overly feminine as it is a gift for a couple on their fiftieth Anniversary.
When my customer first approached me about having this quilt made, he had the collection of patches and wanted a quilt made with them. With some great suggestions from my friend Alva this is what we came up with. Do you have a collection of patches that you are interested in having made into a quilt? For more information email me @ wendysquilting@gmail.com
Wendy’s Quilting and Life 