Great things in small projects

I have a few customers who for a number of years, have allowed me to quilt for them.  One is Marge. Marge is an older lady who is working her way through her stash and finishing smaller projects.  So, every so often she calls and I drop by for a visit and pick up a collection of table runners, wall hangings and small quilts.  This last visit resulted in 4 lovely quilting projects.

I just LOVE this wall hanging.  Marge's plan was to finish it and hang it at the cabin....

I used a double batt of cotton/poly blend and a wool on top to give some dimension to the quilting.  I knew I wanted to quilt this heavily when I started. I also find that doubling the batts on a wallhanging help it to hang much better.  I started by stabilizing the quilt and stitching in the ditch in the background pieces.

I outlined each of the shapes with WonderFil DecoBob (an 80wt polyester thread) and some spaces were stitched 2-4 times and they don't show the heavy thread use.

I quilted the background sections with feathers (in the darker strips) and a fern in the lighter background strips.   A little bit of straight line stitching helped to show off the feathers.

Once all the back ground and outlining was stitched, I doubled up some threads to highlight the flowers and leaves.  I combined a dark purple with a variegated purple for some shading effects in the flowers.

 Gotta get a better camera for those close-up shots I want to take.

I always like to quilt a design that will work well with the fabric or piecing design of a quilt.  This little table runner called for simple quilting in the squares (free hand continuous curves) with something special for the centre. 

 I repeated the leaves and curls from the quilt centre in the border.

I quilted this basket quilt after watching a couple of lessons in Angela Walter's latest craftsy class, Borders and backgrounds.  It was a fun little project to try something new.  Love that Marge allows me to play on her quilts.

I stitched continuous curves in the baskets, but the bottom looked empty, so a curl was born!  It also allowed me to stitch this quilt pretty much without any thread cutting.  Very efficient way of quilting.

The border wavy lines were very quick and easy to stitch and I think they are perfect on the printed border fabric.

And last but not least, this table runner was quilted using a curved ruler for all the quilted lines,  

I worked my way back and forth across the quilt and as this table runner was very simply pieced, I felt it needed to be simply quilted.  I have since thought that this would have been a great quilt to try some really funky detailed fill designs.  Maybe on the next one.

So, I've delivered Marge's quilts and she will bind them up and put them to good use.

Another Scrappy Quilt for my FAVOURITE customer!

I never know how my week will shape up.  I am scheduled to work in the WonderFil Threaducation Centre & Longarm Studio on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and the first 2 Saturdays of each month. This past Tuesday was a very quiet day and I was able to get a whole cloth quilt planned out and marked on the fabric.  I've committed to participating in the Calgary Longarm Quilt Group display at Heritage Park Festival of Quilts in May.  

My favourite customer (my mum) brought out another quilt top for me to quilt for her. We had the same backing issue as before....plenty long enough, but not wide enough.  So, I simply did the diagonal seam as per John Flynn instructions.  The backing ended up just wide enough and just long enough for the top.  My Dad helped me load the quilt and we were up and running.

Mum's usual comment is "Just do something simple and quick".  I like working on her quilts because no matter what I do it's always "WONDERFUL!".  So, I get to play and try out new quilting ideas without any worries.

Mum and Dad are visiting and going home tomorrow (Tuesday).  I knew I didn't have a lot of time to work on this quilt, so I did keep it simple.  I quilted large feathers in the border and the pieced blocks and I quilted a large ribbon meander in the background.  

This quilt was fun to stitch.  If I had planned out my stitching path, I may be been able to quilt without cutting the thread, but I was eager to get going and as a result did quilt myself into a few corners.

I love quilting with solid backs.  The quilting really shows and creates an almost reversible quilt.

The binding is machine stitched on and Mum will get the hand stitching finished when she get home.

She is stitching feverishly to finish the borders on another scrap quilt.  We won't get it done before she leaves tomorrow, but I'll quilt it for her and either mail it or hand deliver it when I am next in Winnipeg!

Customer Quilts - Around the Twist

I love getting customer quilts!   I especially like getting quilts from my favourite customer.....my Mummy!  No matter what I do, she always thinks my quilting is spectacular and I couldn't have done a better job.  I find this very good for my ego!  She also lets me do whatever I want to do on her quilts.

(edited April 11, 2016) Here are the finished quilts!  With binding.

I've included a few pictures of the very first of these 3 quilts I quilted for her.  I quilted this one on my Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen.  I did it at one sitting and am very pleased with how it turned out.

 The rings were stitched in the ditch with a circular feather in each centre block.  

I quilted in the background around the rings with simple feathers.

The 2nd and 3rd quilts arrived in the mail recently.  I booked time on my machine (I don't quilt unless I book the time on my calendar!) and loaded the first one.  There is a slight problem when you put blocks on point and use a bias edge on the setting triangles.  I'll post something soon about putting blocks on point and not have bias edges on the outside.

  

The borders were sewn on well and the first quilt was fairly smooth and flat.  I chose to quilt each of the brown and the blue rings with a different feather fill.  

 I quilted simple curls in the inner border and a filled feather in the border.  

I stitched a ribbon meander in the background. 

The 3rd quilt in this series was a bit of a challenge.  The quilt looked square and when I loaded it the borders were nice and even.  The problem became obvious at the bottom left corner of the body of the quilt.  Mum had managed to sew on the two borders to keep the quilt nice and even, but the blocks were quite full at the bottom left corner.  Instead of doing something in each block, I chose to quilt an all over design.  I ended up with lots and lots of pins in the quilt to hold the blocks fairly flat and keep the inner quilt from getting all "wonky".

I started by quilting the inner border to keep the quilt square.  Simple "bumps" along the length.  

I then moved into the centre of the quilt and quilted bump flowers all over.

I finished in the border with a new (to me) bump feather.  

Susan's Quilts of Valour Quilts

I was honored to be asked to quilt 4 quilts for Susan.  She has recently moved and is working through her stash and completing quilts she started many, many years ago.  She will be passing these on to Quilts of Valour when they are bound.

The "Yellow Blocks" quilt.  I stitched continuous curves in all the blocks and surrounded them with a combination of curls and leaves in an all over design.

The border doesn't show very well as blends well with the fabric.  I stitched the leaf design I used in the background for the border.

This is a simple 4 patch block and half square triangles.

 I stitched swiggly lines in the print units only and loops in the print half square triangles.

I stitched 2 sizes of loops in the border to repeat the loops in the half square triangles.  You'll notice the chalk lines.  I started by marking the 4 patch and HST seams to as a guide to the placement of my small and large loops.  After a while, I didn't need the markings any more.

This 3rd quilt was 9 blocks using civil war fabrics.  I Stitched in the ditch on all straight lines around the blocks.  Both sides of the dark block borders and all sides of the 3 quilt borders. 

I quilted the blocks and sashing with an all over curl design.

 This sampler block quilt was a very simple all over design  I did a large meander and when I got to the end, realized it needed more.

I solved my problem by stitching a 2nd meander line and created a ribbon design.