Megan's Crab Apple Hill Quilt

Megan took over a year and half to complete this quilt. She put so much time and effort into it that I wanted to make sure I did the same when quilting it for her. This will be a photo heavy blog post, and one worth checking out a few of the pics close up (just click on them to enlarge). Her workmanship is so incredible! This quilt is for her son's bed, thus the reason for the extra borders.

Crab Apple Hill offers this Gardner's Alphabet Quilt as a Block of the Month. Have a look: (As you can tell, this quilt is HUGE. It was hard to photograph properly!)

Below are shots of some of the individual blocks. Hopefully, you don't get too bored. Its just such a pretty quilt, I want to share.

Okay, if I haven't lost you yet, here are a couple pics of the border detail:

And a couple shots of the back:

I know its been awhile since I posted, and it will be awhile again. I'm off to Quincy for the annual retreat and to visit my sister! Hope your summer was fun and wonderful!!

Dory

Deb's McCammas Beauty

Deb is just one of those people with excellent color sense--something I envy! Everything she does goes together so perfectly, and this quilt is no exception. McCommas Beauty is a pattern by Karen Stone, one which it doesn't seem many have had the courage to tackle. That didn't stop Deb though.

Unfortunately, the pattern made for some very fabric-intense intersections, which Deb did her best to eliminate. With that in mind, the quilting was kept relatively simple in the hopes that I wouldn't break any needles (I didn't!).

You can see from the pics that I chose a CC pattern in the  (purple/blue portions of the HSTs.  If you look closely enough (or click the pic to enlarge it) you may be able to see the squiggle I did following the star shapes.

I chose to quilt the cream bits last as I just couldn't decide what to do. I finally decided to frame the blocks with a 1/4 inch outline (inline???) to set off the rest of the quilt. I think it gave it a nice, finished look.  What are your thoughts?

Dory

Quincy Crazy Quilter's Rangely Stars Raffle Quilt

Next month, the Quincy Crazy Quilters will draw the winning ticket for the 2014 Opportunity Quilt (click HERE for pics). Next year at this time, they will be drawing the winning ticket for the quilt pictured below. After obtaining permission from the designer to use this as the raffle quilt, the women in charge set about purchasing fabric. Then the guild contributed their workmanship and this beautiful quilt emerged. My photo does not do it justice.  It is huge and, unfortunately, my ceilings aren't high enough to really showcase it.

My goal with this quilt was to keep the quilting simple, while showing off the beautiful stars.  I wanted nothing to take away from them as they are what makes this quilt so special.  I started off with SID around the stars and the feather pattern in the rectangles on the outside. I did the feathers in such a manner that it looks as if they are surrounding the quilt.

After thinking long and hard on what design would best fit the inside of this quilt, I chose meandering feathers. I considered SID around all the stars and/or a special design in each one--but I didn't want to clutter the quilt with my quilting. The meandering feathers just seemed to be the right choice.

I wish I had been able to get better shots of the back. But since my ceiling didn't grow after photographing the front, this is what your'e stuck with!

You get the general idea with the pic above and below are a few more with a bit more detail.  

This quilt is stunning person and I hope it brings the guild lots of $$$$$

Dory

Judy's Stack & Whack

Judy came to me early in the spring to get quilting ideas on her Stack & Whack, which wasn't quite finished.  Karen of Karen's Quilt Shop had referred her to me.  She's new to quilting and new to having quilts quilted for her.

Judy had already decided that she didn't love this quilt and didn't want any special quilting. On these types of quilts I will often do some design work in the border and sometimes just a squiggly line around the hexagons to make them stand out. This one also had blocks in it that look great when quilted with some depth to them.

As per Judy's request, I did an allover pattern on the main body of the quilt. However, when she brought it back to me it had that lovely red piping that surrounded the black inner border and made it really look finished. I just couldn't ignore that lovely design, so with her permission, I took a little poetic license with "allover."  Could you have ignored that??

This shot of the back shows the quilting, using Marine Gold from Fil-Tec. I love that stuff. It looks almost metallic, yet it sews perfectly with NO breakage.  

The allover turned out fine on this quilt with the added border designs and the gold thread didn't take away from the design elements. Below is a closer shot of the quilting.

Hope everyone is enjoying what's left of summer.  Its hard to be in the studio when its so lovely outside!!

Dory

Betty's Stars and Pinwheels

I'm always amazed and humbled when people whom I haven't spoken to personally walk up to me and say, "I want you to quilt my quilt." Its such an honor to be trusted with their masterpiece. New customers are a blessing and a curse--its the first quilt: what if <gasp> they don't like what I do???  Luckily (knocking on wood) this hasn't happened to me and I hope it never does!

Betty walked up to me at the Cabin Fever Quilters meeting and said just that: "I want you to quilt my quilt." She didn't mind that my schedule is such that there would be a couple of months before she saw it again. So I took it home and drooled over it. For some reason, I just love this quilt--I'm thinking its because stars and pinwheels are my favorite blocks and red is one of my favorite colors--might have had something to do with it!

There were so many options for this quilt. I always give my customers three to choose from with different price points so that they feel their money is well spent. I could see feathers all over this quilt, but Betty wanted me to keep it simple. A closer look (below) and you can see the continuous curve in the stars and pinwheels. A simple smallish meander in the background rounded out the simple quilting.

Me, being me, I couldn't leave well enough alone.  I had to sneak some feathers in so I feathered the border (rather pointless, since it only shows if your face is right next to the quilt) and did a little feather/loopy thing (ala Deloa Jones, I think) on the inner border.  That one did show and it framed the quilt nicely, I think.

What would you have done had this been your quilt. Feathers or something simple, as Betty chose?

Thanks for dropping by!

Dory