Summertime 2012

The great thing about having a quilt show is that you get a chance to take nicer photos of work that you've done.  They're hanging up on standards, and this particular show had wide aisles so you could stand way back and get some good photos.  A few of these may be repeats from earlier posts, but they look much nicer hanging up with great lighting!

I finally have a great photo of my scrappy Pineapple Blossom quilt.  It's 88" square...although I thought it was much bigger than that.  Weird.  When I hung it in my sewing room, it went floor to ceiling, which would have indicated to me that it would be 96".  So either I measured wrong or I have short ceilings.  Maybe I need to measure again.

Here is a better photo of Michele's baby quilt for her nephew.  Much better lighting this time, and look!  The whole thing is in the frame!  With a binding!

Judy J. made this quilt and now uses it as a backdrop for her display at her booth.  She was also a vendor at our show as the owner of Thread Mongers.  This was a fun quilt to work on!  I love these oceanic colors and the rich royal blue.  Also includes a binding this time, unlike the last time I photographed it on my floor.

Michele had me do this Christmas tablerunner for her several months ago.  Again, better lighting, a binding, and a straight-on shot...fabulous!

This is the quilt that our online friends and guild members made for our friend, Sharon after she lost her mother.  She really needed a big hug after losing her mother, as difficult as her mother had been all those years, and the day I presented it to her, she had just lost her job a day or two before.  It was truly a labor of love for a very dear friend who was having a very rough time.

This is another quilt that was made by our online quilt group...Heart in Hand for Sharon.  I forget what the occasion was...perhaps it was another sympathy quilt.  Maybe it was when she lost her father.  I'll have to ask her.  

Other more recent projects fresh from the quilting frame include this quilt for Joy, whose church held an auction last weekend.  I haven't heard how much it sold for, but I hope it was a bunch--the quilt top was an original design by Joy!  She said she's not a big fan of following patterns, except for block directions.  After that, she makes her own designs using random blocks on a design wall.  And most of the quilts she makes uses scraps, so clearly she is a talented and creative lady!

Here is another quilt that I made for Judy J., a round robin that she made with a group of friends.  Apparently it won Best in Class at the Skagit County fair!  I'm pretty excited about that!  I quilted it all over with leaves, except in the center block where I echo quilted around the star.

Sharon took a class at the local quilt shop which uses 2 1/2" strips from a Jelly Roll and makes this "lasagna" quilt top.  I love the bright batiks she chose!  I quilted this top with long bamboo leaves.  I was inspired by another quilt that I just finished for Michele, a Mt. Fuji wall panel.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of that one.

This is another "lasagna" quilt top that was made in the class by Donna.  Funny thing is, Donna signed up to take the class and the teacher called in sick, so she ended up TEACHING the class!  It's made from some really fun modern fabrics by Amy Butler, Kaffe Fassett and others.  I did a very quick overall pattern of swirls and loops for this top.  I used the Warm Company batting as an experiment for her to see if she can tolerate the weight.

Kind of a blurry picture of Donna's Waterfall quilt. This was a really cool technique that she did that creates this quilt, and then the scraps creates another quilt with a completely different design.  The batting was wonderful, too--a silk blend that is soft as...I don't know...something really soft!  Donna has foot issues, so she needs a very light-weight batting on her bed quilts.  The Warm Company batting is a little heavy, especially if it's paired with beefy cotton fabrics.  

This is a close-up of the waterfall quilt, which I covered with a river over the top.  I even included rocks in the river.  On the edge, the border is covered with a calm lake surface of rippling water. Although the quilting was done, it wasn't ready for the quilt show; she didn't have time enough to bind it before the show.  Hopefully I'll get a photo of the quilt once the binding is on!

That's about it for now...I have a couple of quilts ready for the frame and more that are on the way.  Christmas is just around the corner...

A few more projects from recent weeks

As I was going through the old photos, I found a few that I didn't post.  Here are a few from as far back as January that I worked on.  Of course, not everything that I've worked on was photographed--chronic problems with a camera or simply forgetting has resulted in a few missed works.

This is actually just a bunch of blocks pinned to the "design wall" (aka a quilt hanging in my dining room) that I later sewed into a quilt top.  It still needs a border and then it will be quilted up and given to the guild for its community service committee.  

This is a quilt that I finished for a school auction for a friend.  Sharon did the top with the kids in the class who drew self-portraits with fabric markers.  She then pieced up the top, handed it to me, and I quilted in the blue areas.  We both agreed that we shouldn't quilt over the kids' faces, so I filled the blue areas with loose curly-cues that I call "Dr. Seuss Feathers".  Sorry it's upside down.  

This quilt was a love gift for a guild member who lost a family member.  We made these log cabin blocks and Donna arranged them, put the border on, and handed it to me to quilt up.  It turned out beautifully!  I quilted loops and hearts all over the top.

This was a quilt made for Lauri's brand-new niece!  I love the brights and the contrast with the black and whites, like those early visual stimulus toys but with pink instead of red.  It's big enough and mature enough to grow into it.  I'm sure she'll treasure it for years!