The weather here has changed with much cooler nights and the leaves are quickly changing colour. With Fall definitely upon us it’s time to finish Christmas Quilts.
I have been quilting for Millie for several years and often pick up and deliver her quilts. It’s always fun to visit in her quilting room and see all the projects that she has going … and her stash too!
Yesterday I delivered her Christmas Quilt.
I had initially considered adding more snowflakes with my quilting however I decided that adding movement with the panto windswept would add some movement without distracting from the snowflakes on the fabric.
Another consideration was thread, when there is a lot of contrast in the fabrics choosing a thread that blends is often best and a design that won’t be partially cut off on some portions of the quilt is favourable. I used a 60wt thread in white.
I pieced the backing, the stripes worked really well.
My quilting life continues…of course. The summer has been busy and I have taken a little break from posting my work…I like to wait for quilts to be picked up before I share pictures but thought I might give a glimpse of a few…
This is the fourth scrappy queen that I have quilted, it’s been such a privilege to work on these quilts!
This one I was asked to buy the backing for, which I did and bought from Donna of Fuelled by Fabric. She really has a fantastic shop and is so friendly and helpful.
I found it hard to capture the true backing colour, it’s a beautiful cream.
A fun camper quilt…
A bright fun quilt with one of my favourite fun colours for the border…
This one is now finished…
I haven’t had as much piecing time as I would like but have been working away on my Longtime Gone quilt…I have completed another section since taking this picture. I have two log cabin blocks to make and then the border.
I love how this quilt has so much variety in it. It’s been a good project that has taken time to make, a fun quilty journey!
This was purchased as a kit and perfectly pieced. One of the frustrations that it’s maker, my friend shared was that there wasn’t enough fabric to mitre the final border. She did a great job making it work.
She chose the pantograph Shasta Daisy which was a perfect fit and really danced on the beautiful backing fabric!
Am so thankful to be able to share my love of quilting with others and to have the gift of helping them to bring their projects to completion!
While I enjoy my coffee, I love looking at quilting posts on blogs and Instagram. This morning I may have found my next scrappy project…though I am determined to finish up Longtime Gone before I can start another!
Joan, is a longtime customer of mine and I love all of her quilts. This last year she began piecing her scraps and had a lot of fun doing so and I think delighted with the results.
Mixing and matching and using low volume prints as background to showcase the fun prints is always a great idea! Half square triangles are pretty easy to make and can be configured into all kinds of designs!
How much fun is her backing choice, which will also be used for the binding.
Rhapsody was the chosen pantograph and it really brought this quilt together with both a perfect density and fun design.
A quilt that I made in 2013 has been on my mind lately. I remember my friend Alva showing me the technique and she was determined that I should try it out.
I started out making only some coloured blocks.
Which grew to more blocks…
They lived on my design wall for a while until I decided on a final layout. I added the gray blocks, the gray fabric was the same gray only different dye lots. This was fabric purchased from Fabricland so I don’t recall the brand.
I still love everything about this quilt!
Today this tutorial was blogged about on Teresa Down Unders blog and it came up on different feeds as well.
This block took a little time to play with. My quilt will have a whimsical tone to it. I have tried to tuck fun fabrics here and there that a child may delight in finding. Well maybe an adult as well.
I have 3 log cabin blocks to make and have begun sashing the blocks. There is still a fair amount of piecing left to finish this quilt as there are additions of rows of four patches and flying geese and then the border.
This quilt for all of the piecing involved only finishes around 65”s so I began to contemplate growing it. There is a quilt on Pinterest that was grown to be a queen. After mulling that over for a while I have decided to finish it at 65”. I hope to finish piecing it and maybe even quilting it this summer.
Do you ever find a fabric that you just fall in love with and really can’t bring yourself to cut up?
Well these two quilts are fun examples of what to do. Clare originally thought that she might like to make a quilted jacket with the fabrics however after living with the idea for awhile her mind changed.
Still loving the fabric she added borders and brought them to me with yardage for the backings.
I chose the pantograph Bayside, to add just a hint of movement but not distract from the fabric itself.
The backing fabric was a perfect choice for these quilts and as I do love a challenge I was able to piece the backs for both quilts with one piece of about 6”x18”’s left over! Many of my customer like to have me piece their backs as it’s a complementary add on.
The second quilt was a little busier so I chose the pantograph Star Swirl to add to the movement of the night sky that spoke to me in this fabric.
I have mentioned before that I have an almost lifelong love of fabric and sewing, as a child I loved nothing more than being given bits of fabric to play with add to that scissors and a needle and thread!
My early sewing years involved dolls and Barbie’s, later moving on to clothing for myself and a little later on for children. Discovering quilting changed my sewing world completely!
Being left handed, the rotary cutter made so much of a difference, as left handed scissors never really seemed to do the job well. My brain adjusted to the rulers designed for right hand people. Of course now there are rulers coming out for us lefties!
Could it be that a lot of lefties are quilters?
So having been a collector of quilting cotton for much of my life and having followed Bonnie Hunter from way back in her early blogging days….I recall her pointing out that we paid just as much per yard for scraps as full yardage. This is partially the reason that my studio holds a few special areas for storing scraps.
My LongtimeGone Quilt project is a scrappy quilt so one would expect the scrap pile would be shrinking…not so…it seems when the day is done and the lights are out the scraps get together and multiply!
Of course I still have some piecing to do to complete this project Longtime Gone and more scraps will be added to the top…still I keep anything that might fit into something else.
There are so many ideas online about how to deal with scraps, the one that’s pulling me in these days is Crumb Piecing and this morning a blog that I follow and have shared before on this blog posted a tutorial on her method.
Anne has many tutorials and shares so much information her site is well worth visiting.
I am sharing this picture of what I made one evening while listening to a zoom meeting…it started out as a small baggie of scraps that a dear friend shared with me. For someone who just loves playing with her sewing tools sometimes, crumb piecing really fits the bill.
Do you find piecing is a little like eating potato chips? once you start it’s hard to stop? I do and as a bonus it’s so much healthier. I rarely allow myself to have my ironing station beside my sewing machine. It’s so important to get up from your chair and move. In my opinion anyways.
So after finishing up the Square in a Square Star block I moved on to the Jacobs Ladder block. I have always enjoyed working with small pieces and this quilt certainly gives me joy.
It’s fun to play with the layout. Can you guess which one I chose?
I am really looking forward to seeing this quilt come together and am mulling over the quilting design as I work on it. Often I choose a quilt to make knowing beforehand how I will quilt it.
As I was falling asleep last night I was wondering what will become of this quilt. I think a child might have fun with it as there are many little surprises in it.
Currently on the design wall is the Plus a Star block…more on that soon.
This pretty baby quilt was quilted with the pantograph hearts and bloom and the only thing sweeter than the top of this quilt is the adorable and soft flannel backing.
Wendy’s Quilting and Life 