Estes Park Whole Cloth Quilt

I am very lucky to be a part of a local quilt group for Longarm Quilters.  We meet on a monthly basis and encourage each other in various ways.  Each year we participate as a group at the Heritage Park Festival of Quilts by displaying our work in a group format.

For 2016, it was decided that we would give members opportunity to participate in 2 groups.  Some of us did Log Cabin Quilts and some of us did Wholecloth quilts.  Right away I knew that I was going to participate in the Wholecloth Group.  I took a class from Barbara Chaney waaaay back in 2003 at the first ever Harriet Hargrave's Machine Quilting Celebration.  My first day of classes was with Barbara and English wholecloth quilts.  This is what I drafted in class.  It's been rolled up in the bin ever since.  So, I pulled it out and re-worked it for our size requirement (40" max per side).

I chose a lovely neutral grey solid fabric and marked out all the outlines with a white marking pencil.  

 I loaded the quilt and started quilting.  My daughter chose this bright neon lime Fabulux thread from WonderFil.  I wasn't sure, but she assured me it would look good.

I thoroughly enjoyed the quilting process on my Handi Quilter Avante.  And I agree with my daughter, the lime looks good against the grey.

You can see below that I got through a good chunk of the quilting.  But as I rolled the quilt, I noticed that the tension was not as perfect as I expected.  Also, there was a rotten "knocking" sound which meant to me that the needle tension was too tight.

I played with the tension, but couldn't get it to be just right.

        

I ended taking my machine off the frame and taking it with me when I went to Edmonton in April to teach at Central Sewing Machines.  The guys cleaned and oiled.  The only thing the technician said was that I was using the "wrong" bobbins.  These were new to me, and I have not used them since and have gotten good tension.

 So, I decided to start over.  When I went back to the store to get more grey, they didn't have it, so I chose this lovely teal instead.  The pictures show blue, but it's a lovely teal.

I marked and loaded the quilt.

 This time I chose WonderFil's DecoBob thread.  It's an 80wt polyester rather than the 40wt Fabulux.

I started by quilting in each section and then went back the quilted the background fill.  Because I had a cotton and a wool batt (to get as much loft as I could) I was afraid of the fabric shifting at the edges. I quilted lines spaced 1-1 1/2" apart to stabilize, then went back and filled in with dense piano keys.

 I spent a lot of time with my nose very close to the quilt.  I outlined as much as I could.

I then filled in with very dense "squiggles".

 Once the marking lines were removed the quilt looks great!

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 It was hanging behind the RCMP building at Heritage Park,

I had my husband hold it up to the light so we could get a better picture.

 I printed the label on fabric with all the details.

Festival of Quilts at Heritage Park - Part 2

This part of the Festival of Quilts shows quilts made by others.  Most of the time I took pictures of the whole quilt and then a close up of the quilting.  I was too busy looking at quilts and pushing a baby in the stroller to take more pictures....sorry.

 

I like this sunflower quilt.  The close-up shows that the curves are created using the fold back method.  Very striking piecing and quilting.

 

I have always wanted to make a Hunter Star quilt.  I have seen two methods of instruction and one method uses half square triangles....I think that method is on my list of up-coming projects.  I took pictures of this quilt because the quilt had been quilted beautifully. 

 

I don't think I need to say anything about the quilting on this quilt, other that WONDERFUL!.

 I recently joined a long arm quilting group.  They had a group submission in the show.  They all stitched the same block pattern and their own choice of fabrics.  Each quilt was quilted to show case the quilters style.

 

 
I took pictures of this quilt because if was stitched on a Sit and Sew machine and is beautifully quilted!

 

 
I am not a fan of Civil War quilts.....fabrics.  My eye always, always goes to the brighter, clearer colors like you would see in batiks and hand dyed fabrics.  But I can admire and appreciate the workmanship and quilt patterns in Civil War quilts.  These quilts were made with 1/2 inch and 1 inch squares!!!!!!

 

And a final piece of eye candy.   A Rail Fence with flying geese!  Perfect.

Festival of Quilts at Heritage Park - part 1.

We couldn't have had a better day to visit the quilts at Heritage Park on May 24.  The day dawned bright and clear.  I was woken with an early morning text message asking me to take the baby for the day.  I said that I would babysit my granddaughter (....what grandmother would say no) as long as I could take her to the Festival of Quilts.  We did a quick car seat exchange and I drove (very carefully) down to HP to meet Brenda and her sister Sharon.     

We had a lovely day.   Lets have a look at some of the quilts on display.  The first 3 are mine.  The applique/flying geese quilt was hanging on the lower railing of the Wainwright Hotel.  I think I still want to add a few more flowers......

The second quilt is my Woven Vine and Roses.  My parents came for Christmas and Mum and I made enough blocks for her to have a large lap quilt and me this 108 inch square quilt.  Hubby is happy that the quilt is now back on the bed.  The quilt is nice and big and neither of us get cold during the night.

The third quilt I had on display was a mystery quilt that I finally finished.  I had used this quilt to practice using the quilting rulers on my HandiQuilter Avante.   I was a bit disappointed that it was draped on a chair in one of the houses and not hung, but that's ok.  I will live with it,  there were so many other wonderful quilts on display.
 

Here is Brenda with her Butterfly quilt.  Her sister knew she likes Butterflies and gave her the kit.  I was privileged to be asked to quilt it for her. 

These final three are by Arla.  Her daughter saw a bandana quilt online and asked her to make one....Once we figured out that the bandanas are not square and we need to trim the up, this quilt went together nicely.  Arla made two (one for her daughter and one for her) and quilted both last summer on my HandiQuilter Avante.
 

This heart table runner was made from a pattern I wrote a number of years ago.  This table runner and the table topper below were both Free Motion Quilted by Arla.  She's  getting quite good.

We started the day with a free breakfast and after a few bites of cut up pancake and sausage, Francesca grabbed the whole sausage and enjoyed that much more!

 

Shortly after breakfast, she fell asleep and was gone for most of the day!

 



Once we got home, she played in her pack and play quietly while she waited for mummy!