Bandana Quilts

What to do when you are given a pile of bandanas and asked to make a quilt?   You do just that!

 

Arla was asked by her daughter to make her a quilt that she saw on the internet.  Did you know that bandanas are not square?  Arla had so much trouble trying to get this sucker together, that we finally decided to trim each bandana to a square and then sew together.

 

The original plan was to have bandanas on the front and back of the quilt.  Arla decided to use a "grass" fabric for the back of this picnic quilt and then she used AVA to help her quilt it.

 
Since Arla added her own fabric for the back of the quilt, she had enough bandanas to make two quilts...one for her and one for her daughter!

 

I love it when I can help friends accomplish great things!!!!!

Brenda's Baby Quilts

It is a real privilege to help others work on quilts and celebrate their accomplishments.   I have become friends with a lovely lady who tracked me down and asked for some help last year.  We have been getting together on a regular basis (with some other sewing gals) and sewing and quilting.

Last night Brenda came over and she finished a lovely baby quilt for a new little one.  She has gone home to finish the 2nd one with binding.  Here are some pictures.

 

Brenda was given a kit for a larger quilt.  She is a real beginner, so we decided to go small and make the two baby quilts.  We started by learning how to make half square triangles.  Brenda laid out the light stars on dark backgrounds (pink quilt above ) and dark stars on light background (blue quilt below).

 

 

We decided on light sashing for the pink quilt and dark sashing for the blue quilt.  It's a pretty effective way use some scraps and make two completely different quilts.  

 

Brenda asked me to quilt these for her with AVA.  We had a couple of evenings work on these little lovelies. Because both quilts had lots of straight lines, I softened them a bit with lots of curvy lines.  For the little girl's quilt I chose an all over swirly flower design and simple loops for the boy's quilt.



Up and Runnning

Well, it's time.   Time to put away the old things.  Time to look to the future.  Time to start something new.......

Introducing Meadow Rose Quilting.  I have decided, after much thought, prayer  and practice to start custom quilting again.   I used to custom quilt under the name Needleworks, but that part of my life is over and like many good things, they come to an end.

After much thought and prayer, I purchased a new quilting machine.  I was a die-hard, sit and sew quilter.  I "poo-pooed" the long arm quilting concept.  I thought that was cheating....well, arthritis in the thumbs makes dragging, pushing and pulling quilts under a machine much more difficult and way less enjoyable.  I bought myself a HandiQuilter Avante on a 12 foot frame in July from Chris at Central Sewing in Edmonton.

 

AVA came home and was set up as a 4 footer in my front bedroom (the Studio).  I practiced and practiced.  I fed AVA with all my scraps and smaller quilt tops.  As my confidence and competence increased, so did AVA's demand for more!   Within weeks, she grew to an 8 footer.   Again, I quilted and quilted and fed and fed, and AVA still required more room.  She outgrew the 8 foot length.  

This weekend we moved AVA downstairs to the basement, AKA my new studio.  She has grown to become a (not so bouncing) 12 foot co-worker!   12 feet  will easily handle a 120" quilt with some room to spare on the frame!

I have a few personal quilts that I would like to work on, then I will be taking in quilts and custom quilting them.  A few words about my quilting.

• I always have, and always will free hand quilt.  I don't plan to use pantograms, groovy boards or computer guided quilting.  All the quilt patterns will be guided by my own hands.
• I will continue to quilt what I want.  I will of course confer with customers as to their desires but I won't be restricted to "just an all over pattern".  I love to quilt.  I love to make quilts come alive!   I always want to do more than "just an all over pattern".
• I give quotes and stick to them.   If I don't quote correctly, its my fault!
• Like always, customers are asked to make sure everything is ready for me to quilt.  The quilt back is sewn to the appropriate size and squared.  The quilt top is pressed flat and threads trimmed.  The batting (if in a package) has been opened and any fold stretches allowed to relax.
• I will do my best to complete the quilt by the quoted date.

I will add quilt pictures as they are available of my quilts and customer quilts.   A full size picture and a close up of the details will give you a good idea of the work.