A Community Quilt

This quilt was made by a member of the Sun Bonnet Sue Quilt Club, the guild I belong to in Sequim. The ladies are very talented and very dedicated to giving back to the Community. This quilt was made for that purpose and I provided the quilting at no charge.  Have a look...

As you can see from the photos, its a nice-sized log cabin quilt perfect for a young boy. I had fun quilting it, doing a different motif in each "log."

Quincy Crazy Quilters Opportunity Quilt

I've been working on this quilt for several days and just sent it on its way home. (I'm sorry the quilting doesn't show in this picture, but I wanted you to see the whole quilt.)

This is the Quincy Crazy Quilters Opportunity Quilt. Each year, the guild members make a quilt and then raffle it off. The money is used to buy fabric for their "cuddle" quilts, which are then given to children in need of some comfort and love. For the last several years, I've been given the honor of quilting these quilts and I feel very privileged to have been asked to quilt this one.

Here are some close-ups. If you click on the pics, they get bigger and the quilting is easier to see. My goal with this quilt was not to "over quilt" it. Its such a simple design that I wanted the quilting to be simple to correspond with the theme.

I did swirls, pebbles and leaves in the background of the applique and then used Lava variegated thread for the veins in the leaves and the design in the center of the flowers.

Another shot, showing some of the detail:

This is the design I put in the "flower" blocks. If you look at the overall photo of the quilt, you can see that the piecing creates a flower-like block starting in the top, left corner. I wanted to quilt those separately and came up with the design below. I quilted a continuous curve design in the rest of the cream colored blocks. There is no quilting in the colored fabrics as I wanted them to stand out.

Another shot of the back just to show a bit more of the detail.

And here's one of them "fancy pictures" that shows the top and the back in one shot!! *smile*

Thanks for stopping by!!  If you're interested in raffle tickets, let me know. They'll be the usual $1 for one and six for $5.

Return from Asilomar

I'm back...have been since 2 a.m. on Thursday morning. Then the laundry and the time change and unpacking and putting things away and the two quilts I've finished and the next one loaded have all taken time. I cannot get used to the time change this year. We keep having dinner at 8:30--not good. Especially since we still get up at 6. I need to watch the clock and not the daylight to figure out when to eat.

But...here goes! Judy Niemeyer's class was phenomenal! We had 25 (or so) students in the class, all working on various stages of their own projects. Several had begun projects and were finishing up and even more had never done a Judy quilt and were newbies, like Cindy and myself. I was the only one doing Agave Cactus, several were doing the Bali Wedding Star (more about that later), another started Judy's fun log cabin pattern and others were working on still different projects. We probably had about 12 different patterns going at the same time. I was a bit concerned that I'd be lost in the shuffle, but Judy's teaching method left no one needing attention or instruction. She's very down-to-earth and an excellent teacher.

Because I was the only one working on this project, Judy got me started with the outside border to keep me busy until she could help with the center star. The top left is a piece in the picture below shows one of the border sections. There are four of each of those in that configuration; then four more in the opposite configuration. By the time I had been there for two days, I was strip piecing those as if I'd been doing Judy's quilts forever!

Joyce was right; my center star probably would have looked better with batiks that read more as solids, but I'm okay with it. There is one mistake that took us a bit to figure out; bet you can't see it. We'll see if you can tell when I post the finished project (notice I said "when," and not "if.")

Judy's quilts are done in components. This shows all the border pieces, the center star, the "lone star" piece as well as the outer star bits. I have almost all my components done and plan to put them together soon! 

The last day at Empty Spools is a "walkabout." At 4 on the last full day (when class is supposed to be over for the day), everyone tours the other classrooms. A great idea to get you motivated and inspired for next year's project. Before folks started touring, Judy was at my design board and attempted to put the quilt together in some semblance of order. The darn thing is huge! She ran out of room rather quickly.

Other than the "lonestar" segments and a few border bits, I am ready to put this baby together. Its a bit intimidating, but I think I can do it. Then I have to applique on the little curved bits at the ends of the blue/purple/green sections. Of course, that means fusing...I don't applique.

While I was busy in Pacific Grove building a quilt, Dennis was busy in Port Townsend. He built this Greenland Kayak in 7 days! They built them using the stitch and glue method, so he was doing some sewing of his own.

PS...thanks for the nudge, Joyce--got me to post!!!