Crossroads Harvest Of Quilts 2011 Raffle Quilt

I finished this one up earlier this week!

We have a great guild, and once again Sue W. was in charge of the raffle quilt for our next show. Sue has been in charge of the raffle quilt for the past few years, and has a great group to help her out when it comes to making the quilt top. This year they chose a Burgoyne Surrounded pattern. The fabrics were purchased (i believe) at our local quilt shop Angie’s Nine Patch in Effingham IL, and Quilters Dream Poly batting was used with a white on cream backing fabric. I used a Dyed natural thread as it matched very well with the all the colors of the fabric, saving some time not having to change colors of thread!

i have quilted this particular pattern only once before, but i wanted to do something “more” quilting wise for the raffle quilt. What a great time to get quilt block huh?! i ended up taking a few photos of the quilt, printed them out and used them to sketch the quilting designs on until i found a set of designs that i liked. I was also a bit leery with this years quilt as a couple of guild members were overheard at last years show saying that the quilt had to much quilting on it. I wanted to have that WOW factor but i didn’t want to do to much to take away from the quilt pattern itself. This made it harder to come up with the designs for the quilting! Feathers,of course, (in the background area) had to be included as they always draws attention to the quilt, and i decided to go with a simple piano key border, simple yes but every quilter in my area loves the treatment so i went with it! i did some simple lines in the actual design portion of the quilt block to keep the flow going, then add in a few swirls and it done! I am concerned that the quilting is not consistent over the entire quilt. The feathers are more close together than the lines and swirls but i think with the batting used it will be OK, i think!

 

 

See how the feathers swirls around in the same direction? I had to watch this lick a hawk! I had to frog a section as i quilted the feathers the wrong way. 20 minutes to quilt its, five hours to take it out!

 

 

This is the back of the quilt, see how the feathers are closer together than the lines and swirls? i am hoping this will be OK but the more i look at it the more i think i should have added something more in that area to fill it in some.

 

Raffle tickets will be available soon from any Crossroads Quilters Guild member as well as at the show!
I will be sure to post more info on the show soon, lots of changes this year most importantly being a new venue!
Thanks for taking a look!

Photos Updated!

Just to let you all know i have finally updated my Webshots album for December 2011′s Customer quilting!

I’m not going to post them all here but if you want to see them just click the photo below and it will take you to the album!

Lots of photos… and boy do i mean lots!

OK, so i have not been keeping up my new years resolution to post about quilting once every week. But hopefully this will make up for the lack of updates!

First off are two quilts made by Georgia B. The first is a embroidery block quilt. i used a white thread to quilt a double ribbon on the borders and sashing and to outline the embroidery using most the pre-printed quilting lines on the blocks and improvising in a couple of spots. Next is a Calla Lilly wall quilt. Sorry there is no close up of this one, but the quilting did not show up on any of the photos. I use a matching green thread to quilt feathers in the outer area and a cream thread to quilt a small stipple around the applique.

Next are quilts made by Mary H. The first she calls this one Baby Hearts I use a white thread for the quilting that includes a lot of continuous curve quilting. The second is a Tennessee Waltz quilt.

Here are two quilts made by Martha S. I am not sure of the names of these patterns so i made some up, forgive me if they are wrong! First off is the Asian Squares, The quilting is very simple, using a cream thread I quilted a bamboo design on the border and simple X’s in the Squares The second one i call Asian Screen as it reminds me of a room divider screen! The quilting is again fairly simple Jist a spider web design and some X’s in the blocks along with a swirl border, all using Black thread.

Next is a green star made by Ann S. Quilted using a lot of Continuous Curves and a Variegated Green thread

Now we have a Jacob’s ladder quilt made by Theresa N. Lots of stitch in the ditch quilting as well as some feathers in the background using a white thread

Here is a Irish Chain quilt made by Sue G.

This quilt called First monday was made for a church raffle, lots of swirls quilted in white thread are quilting over this quilt.

Here are two embroidery quilts made by Norma S. Both were quilted using white thread. The Green quilt has some feathering and the deer quilt is more simply quilted with stipple and swirls

And last but not least are two quilts made by Gerry T. The first is a small Log Cabin wall hanging, quilted using cream thread, ruler work x’s cover the border and some feathers hide in the cream areas. Gery’s second quilt, Marrakesh Chain is quilted with a dark Tan thread, with feathers in the background, some curves in the small squares and a Double Ribbon design int he border and large print squares that are in the main body of the quilt. The fabric in this quilt is from Blank Quilting’s Marrakesh fabric collection.

Hope this makes up for everything!

Finaly, First Customer Quilts Of The Year!

Well, after a very long wait i finally got some customer quilting done this week! It feels like forever from the last time i quilted one, it was really beginning to get to me. I wish i would have gotten a few more done but luck just wasn’t in my cards this week!

First off is a Embroidery Block Quilt with 9 Patch Sashing, made by Diane D. Quilting for this one was pretty simple, nothing to fancy. I used white thread on both top and bottom and it has a puffy polyester batting. The outer border has some feather quilting, the sashing is just a simple swirl (that i use a lot!) and the White inner border was quilted with a Double Ribbon Design. The customer did not want any quilting on the embroidery so in these blocks i just used the pre printed quilting lines as my guide and quilted around all her hand work.

Next are two quilt made by Linda W. I hate to say it, but i have to… I really like these quilts! The colors are so “BAM!” in your face, just like i love! The first quilt, a Eight Pointed Pinwheel pattern that is offen used to make Stack N Wack quilts has Quilter’s Dream Cotton Batting with Orange Variegated thread. You will see there is no close up of this one, the quilting did not show up at all so i decided not to post the close up! The outer border has some very simple Stipple quilting, with a simple wave on the two inner borders / sashing. The blocks were Stitched In The Ditch (SID)

Linda’s Second Quilt is a Card Trick Pattern, with Quilters Dream Cotton Batting and a Green Variegated Thread. Once again some pretty simple quilting was used, a swirl on the outer border, loops on the small black inner border, a simple wave on the sashing and some C.C. in the card trick blocks

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Ok, that was it for this week, i was really hoping to get more done but life got in the way once again. I have the next week planed out so i can get much more done and i am going to stick to that schedule one way or another!

Talk to you all again next week!

More Work!

Well this past week was not as productive as I had hoped it would be. I was hoping to get at least one more quilt finished than I did but all things considered it wasn’t a bad week. I have a number of photos to post today so i am going to post smaller photos than normal, so if you want to see a larger view, just click on the photo!

First off a “comforter” style quilt made by Anita S. Now I am not going to post all the close up photos here so if you want to see more they are in my November WebShots Album, and trust me there are a lot of photos of this one!

Not sure of the name of this quilt so I have been calling it Scrappy Stars. It was made by Jean D of nearly all floral prints.

This cute little table runner is also made by Jean D. The Quilting doesn’t show up all that well on the photo of the front of the runner so I have included a photo of the back in my November WebShots Album.

The last quilt this week is a Blue, White, and Cream Grandmother’s Walk Quilt made by Jean M. Some of you may now this pattern as a Star and Four Patch, same pattern, just different names!

One final photo! I am always talking to my friends and customers about all the lint my quilting machine collects when quilting a quilt and about how I have a air compressor that sets under my machine that I use to dust it out when it starts to get bad. Last weekend I was looking at some other Quilting Blogs and I came across a photo showing all the lint stuck to the underside of the machine and thought, I can do that! Granted I can not remember who’s Blog showed the photo so if anyone out there knows please tell me so I gave them credit for the ideal!
Anyway here is a photo taking only half way threw quilting the Grandmothers Walk quilt I was talking about above! This quilt has cotton batting so the lint was a bit worse than with Poly batting but you can get the ideal! This photo goes out to all of you that tell me, “Oh it can’t be that bad!”

Another productive week!

Well here it is, Friday night and I am once again setting in front of the TV watching reruns of Iron Chef, typing up the post for my blog, and waiting for the rain to stop so i can even get online! ( satellite internet doesn’t work very well in rain like this!) The rain has been a nearly constant downpour this afternoon and throughout the night causing flooding all around. I have heard that a number of funnel cloud rotations were also spotted but luckily nothing touched down, at least not that I know of. My aunt and I were out in the first rush of the storm this afternoon, on the way home from taking the dog to the vet we were oh so lucky to get caught in the rain and wind. It was odd really, we could see what looked like from a distance possible dust flying across the road ahead of us and a tractor rushing to get out of the field but it didn’t look anything like rain. It was so heavy and thick, then combined with he rain it was like driving directly into a white out snow storm. It hit so fast we really didn’t have anyplace to go so there we set, in her SUV, in rain so heavy we couldn’t see two inches beyond the window, really it was that bad. In-between rushes we inched forward, we knew there was a private drive very close by but finding it took some time but at least we were off the road. We were stuck there for nearly 20 minutes, we waited a bit longer than we needed to but decided we really should make sure it was al over before we headed back out. The country road we were one was flooded in a few places and was getting worse as the water that was pouring off the fields and was no longer being held in the ditches. We got home without a problem and decided we were staying there! It has rained most all night, simple showers, to more downpours. And some major wind. Reports have come across the radio and the local phone gossip line of some nasty wind damage. Some hail was reported but we never saw any at home. It’s been a long night and its still not over!

Ok enough about the weather! It was a very productive week, quilting wise. I actually feellike i got some work done!

First we have a burgundy Brick ( rail fence? ) quilt made by Loretta T. Quilting wise i just used some swirls and some C.C. in the bricks with a cream thread

Then we have a Boston Commons Quilt owned by Diane D. She actually purchased this quilt top at a garage sale for only $5.00! Can you believe that! Someone really didn’t know what they had! The quilt top itself was pretty well put together, Boston commons are know to be a bit wonky with all that bias to deal with but this one was pretty darn good. The quilt had been marked already but the marks are all in chalk so she said to go ahead and quilt it however. Bostons normally have a lot of C.C., Stitch in the Ditch, and or a lot of Ruler work. Oh and a lot of feathers. I wanted to be able to get the quilt done in a timely manner so using white thread, i went with wavy lines instead of straight lines (the would take me way longer as i have to use a ruler to help guide the machine!) and feathers in the white common area.

And now we have the Dolores M. quilt show! Yap she’s been at it again!….
A Kaleidoscope quilt, quilted with swirls, loops, and C.C. I used a puffy batt to help hid a bit of fullness that some of the pieces had

A Bear Paw in Blue & Yellow quilted with Swirls, leaves and such

A Sampler with some feather as well as some Stipple and Swirls

And last but not least, a T-shirt Quilt… Gotta love The White Squirrel!

More Quilts!

Not much to report this week, Quilting is going slow, I am still having problems with being dizzy but it does seem to be getting better. I have started another Ami and it would Be finished if I could find my darn Brown yarn! I only need a small amount of it and I know I have more than enough here if I could just find the darn stuff! I’ll probably just pick up a new skein tomorrow, which means I will find the one I already know I have, as soon as I get home!
On to the quilts!The first is a Blue Star Made by Sue G. Nothing to fancy on the quilting for this one personally I didn’t think it need it but I must say the fern on the outer border took more time and way more thread than I expected! I used a continuous curve (CC) in the star, a single wavy in the sashing and a swirl in the second print border. I used a dark blue thread that matched the darker color of the quilt and the backing.

Second we have a Drunkards Path made by PJ C. This time I went with a light blue thread to match the light fabric as that was were the quilting was going to be. A simple stipple in the blue and some piano keys for the border.PJ did a great job on this quilt, nice and straight and all the rounds were stitched down, yes I did have one of these quilts were the quilt maker decided that the applique parts didn;t needed stitched after all they were iron in place with that sticky stuff, that will hold just fine right?! Well when I saw that quilt a few weeks later the maker was try to find a way to salvage it as the rounds were coming undone, go figure huh?!

Oh the Drunkards Path… such style, such grace, beautiful lines, and the one quilt I hate to have to quilt! Why? I don’t know why but darn it it always seems like it takes me forever to get one finished! It doesn’t but I feels like it does! I have such a hard time deciding how to quilt the main body and then when it comes to the borders I am almost always at a loss. If any one out there has any suggestions or tips about this quilt please let me know!

And finally we have a Shoo Fly quilt made by Theresa N. She used a cute Humming Bird border print and I didn’t want to mess with that fabric to much so I used the lines in the print to do some faux Stitch in the Ditch, this held everything in place and didn’t interrupt with the print of the fabric print. Some C.C. in the block with a little bit of a loop to stitch it up a bit and a single wave in the sashing.I used a cream thread on this one, as it went best with every color in the fabrics.

Please remember if you would like to see some larger views just click on the photo to go to my WebShots Album

Tuesday’s Work

Only one quilt to share with you today! This wool quilt was made by Dotty K, another one for the local doctor! Nothing fancy quilting wise but look at this quilt top!

I had never quilted wool on this scale before but it wasn’t as difficult to quilt as I thought it might be. I was worried about it wanting to stretch and move, and it did but not enough to cause any problems. It does not have anything fancy quilting wise. A swirl outer border and a leaf inner border. The main body of the quilt has a pretty large stipple, this was to help go around some rather bulky areas that the foot of the machine wanted to catch on. I think Dr. K will love it!

Tonight I was asked to be a speaker at a good friends sewing class/group. I gave them some quilting tips & Suggestions. We talked about batting do’s and don’ts and the different fiber types on the market today. I figure if they can take just one think I said and use it to help them improve on there quilting, then it was a good night!

Well I need to go get some sleep. I have another quilt made by Dotty to get done tomorrow! Stay tuned for some more photos!

Friday to Monday!

Well it been a rather productive weekend! I was able to get some quilting done! I’m trying to get as much ready to go before I leave for Paducah next week. ) I know, I know… lucky me!!! remember you can also see my photos over at WebShots!

Pink Squares was made by Janice H. She wanted some feather but said to “do what you want” this modern looking quilt didn’t scream feathers but I did get feathers on the quilt. Classy feathers were not in store but I think the ones I used worked pretty good! Now how did my cat get in the picture?!

 

The two Embroidery block quilts were made by Barb B. nothing fancy on these two just a simple all over on everything but the embroidery squares. Se wanted the quilting to go around the embroidery, so I just outlined everything. These were not easy quilts for me. For some reason my machine did not care for the fabrics in these two quilts one of them caused a tone of thread breaks and one needle break the second one had a odd man made fiber for the backing that caused some issues. but I got them done!

 

And last but not least are the quilts by Dotty K. the small wall quilt also has some matching pillows that I didn’t take photos off. You will see that I “removed” the photos and names from the quilt to give the owner a bit of privacy. I know this makes the photo of the finished quilt look odd, sorry but you’ll just have to deal!The second quilt by Dotty is a Irish chain quilt made for a local doctor from fabrics that once belonged to his mother. The machine embroidery flowers are on Linen fabric, same as the border. Dotty has made a several quilts for this doctor and the next one going in is a wool quilt also with machine embroidery what tell you see this one!

Yes!!! Jury Duty Is So Over!

(ok for some reason I can not post photo links to my web shots album. Darn WordPress upgrade has some bugs or they have blocked users from posting photos this way who really knows for sure! I do not have time to rewrite my post right now so I will post photos via WordPress and I will change everything tomorrow, if it’s working! if you want to see the larger views of my photos go here: WEBSHOTS they are in the March2008 Album and start on page 2!)

Yes! Jury Duty is so over!
I will not go into details but let just say that the lawyer for the defense was a idiot if he thought he had a chance of getting his client out of the charges that were against him. I mean he had a blood alcohol of .120 (legal limit is .08!) This trial was so riveting the prosecuting attorney was showing signs of sleeping!
Let just say that when the judge thanked us for serving a long and busy three months of duty and that we were free to go home we all ran to our cars as fast as we could, just in case they changed there minds! Oh well maybe my life can get back to normal now!
The weeks I have spent on jury duty have really put my farther behind on work than I wanted to be right now. not only on my quilting but on my bloging as well!

Also on the home front this week my cat Yuffie had her kittens Thursday! Four adorable little boys and one cut little girl. Sorry no photos yet, I want to give her a few days before I try moving them around, all new mothers need some bonding time! Finding homes for kittens can sometimes be a real bear. luckily four of them are boys, always easy to find homes for than the girls! I always stress having your pet spayed or neutered, there are way to many unwanted pets out there that do not get the care that they need and the love they deserve. In the area tat I live I see numbers of animals being “dumped” by uncaring and un unrespectful so call owners. Okay enough I wont go into this now but I think you can all see the way that I feel on this subject!

Ok now on to some photos!

I will just be posting a few work photos. I did do more than I am showing but I have a customer that has requested that I not post photos of her quilts on my blog. She does not think her quilting is good enough! Well just to let you know her sewing skills are darn near perfect much better than some that I have quilted, my own included! But I will respect her wishes and will not be posting the photos of her quilts on my blog or over in my WebShots album. Please enjoy the other photos I’m posting!

(remember if you want to see a larger view of the photo just click on the photo below and it will take you to my WebShots album were you can view the photo you clicked and all the others!)

the first two were made by J.B. the way she talked she didn’t care for the green one, it didn’t turn out the way she expected. I am not a fan of green but I do really like this quilt! All the shades of green just make me change my mind about green! The little baby quilt has some machine embroidery blocks, so cute!

These two are made by the Aunt of the customer. only problem is I can not remember her name right now! I know, that’s very bad, but to try and make this look better for me please understand that I have never met the customer face to face. A friend of hers and of mine always bring the quilts to me and I can only think of the friends name right now! Anyway they were made by the customers Aunt ( I think aunt! )

These following were made by a good customer and a greater friend Mary H. A Jacobs ladder quilt and a snowball variation that Mary’s Granddaughter likes to call the Life Saver Quilt, wonder how she came up with that one?!

 

 

 

J.B.’s Green Quilt #1

J.B.’s Green Emb. #2

J.B’s Baby Quilt #1

J.B’s Baby Quilt #2

Dahlia #1

Irish Chain

Mary’s Jacobs Ladder

Mary Jacobs ladder #2

Back of the Jacobs ladder quilt

Marys Life Savers Quilt

MArys Life Savers Quilt Close Up

Dahlie Quilt large view