My Apologies and the Quincy Crazy Quilters' Raffle Quilt

Five Months! Wow, five months since my last post.  Its not that I don't have quilts to show you, its just that my life has gotten away from me.

Dennis and I started a health challenge in January and by June/July, we'd both lost over 35 pounds each and were avidly riding our bicycles, including attending some events on Lopez and San Juan Islands, as well as participating in the Tour de Lavender here in Sequim. Then we took a trip to Caldwell, ID, to adopt a female Border Collie, because you can't have just two dogs it seems. Of course, this girl has epilepsy, so managing that has been challenging. We also took a trip to Las Vegas recently to pick up a 13' Casita travel trailer and then drove home via California and visited with grand kids, including baby Ethan who was only a week old at that point. Oh, and we purchased a "tiny home" that was supposed to be delivered complete and "move-in" ready (no, we have no plans to live in it). The tiny home company went bankrupt and we barely got our bare-bones structure out of there. Consequently, many summer days were spent at our Lake Crescent property painting siding. Dennis is still our there three-four days a week working on it. He's loving that, so its all good. Hopefully, I'll find some pics and post a bit more about our summer adventures.

Through all this I have been quilting, but I am so far behind.  Today's pics will be of one of my favorite quilts that I just finished.  Its the raffle quilt for Quincy Crazy Quilters.

Isn't it pretty?  Its a Kim Diehl pattern and I just love how country it looks.  It was sent to me with the instruction to "fancy it up." However, I really didn't want to make it fancy with my quilting, I wanted to make the piecing and colors stand out.

First, the border.  I did a pattern that was a combo of some others that I'd seen. It was easy to mark, using the checkerboards in the inner sashing, but it still took three passes to complete. I do love how it turned out though.

For the star blocks, I improvised an Angela Walters design, and because I didn't want the thread to tell the story, there were lots of thread changes for each block. I did "fancy up" the cream background a bit with feathers in the star corners.  Below are a few shots.

I decided to do circles in the cream checkerboard squares, leaving the colored squares to puff up a bit.

And last, but not least, a couple shots of the back.

Thanks for your patience! I hope these pics made it worth the wait a little bit.

Dory

A Beautiful Kaffe Quilt

This is the first quilt I've done for Judy and what an honor. She loves this quilt and I was very pleased she trusted me with it. Isn't it gorgeous???

Unfortunately, my stupid lighting and camera really washes out the colors. However, Judy showed me some new lighting she'd just put in her studio and I'm going to give that a try. The colors in this quilt are truly stunning...I'm so sad about the lack of clarity in the pic.

But...here are some closeups.  They turned out a bit better. In the two below, you can see more of the detail in the 16-patch and the surrounding triangles. I looked through many books for the 16-patch, trying to come up with something more unique than just continuous curve.  The line-work in the triangles is all Angela Walters--I love her designs.

This one shows the detail in the sashing/border squares.  Its such a fun design and I love the spiral effect.

Finally, here's a pic of the center. The quilting doesn't show up as much as I'd hoped, but you can see some detail in the middle of you click on the pic to make it bigger.

Best news was that I delivered this to Judy yesterday and she loved it! That's always the biggest compliment.

Dory

Tevis T-Shirt Wall Hanging

Two years ago, I did a t-shirt quilt for Marci. Shortly after receiving it, she completed the 60th Anniversary of the Tevis ride. She purchased two t-shirts: one to wear and one for me to make into a wall hanging. I have never even attempted to make a wall hanging from one t-shirt, so this was quite the challenge for me.

The only thing I knew when I started, was that I was going to have to build something around the two main parts of the shirt. So after cutting the front and back, I opted for the flying geese.  I knew that I wanted them to sort of lead your eye all the way around, but it wasn't until I had an epiphany in the middle of the night that everything came together.

For those of you that aren't familiar with the ride, its a 24-hour adventure with you and your horse covering 100 miles of some truly exciting trails. The ride starts just north of Lake Tahoe at Robie Park, has its first major vet check at Robinson (appx. 35 miles in); the second major check is at Foresthill (appx. 67 miles in); and then the finish in Auburn.

When I realized I had enough t-shirt material left for Dennis to embroider the names of the four major points of the ride, I knew I had something. 

Below are a couple close-ups of the quilting. The photos didn't turn out great, but since this is a quilting blog and not an endurance blog, I figured I'd share them anyway.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dory

Carolyn's Baskets All Around

This is Carolyn's "Baskets all Around" quilt.  Not quite sure where they came up with the name, but I really liked the blocks in this one. Lots of room to play!

As you can see, I had fun with lots of quilting motifs. Below are a couple of close-ups so you can see what I did more clearly. The first shows more of an overall, with feathers, back and forth lines and loops, curved cross-hatch, and some linework in the sort of Dresden Plate area.

Here's a better view

The backing of this quilt was a beautiful green fabric and some of the quilting on the top was in pink. The pink actually showed up quite well on the back, but I used a taupe in the bobbin with the variegated thread, so its a bit harder to see. You can almost see how I duplicated the quilting in the border and the "sashing squares."

Thanks for looking!!

Dory

Oriental Triangles

Isn't this quilt stunning? Patti put this one together at our retreat last summer in Bellingham and sent it home with me. I've had it for awhile, but I just couldn't decide what to do with it!

I struggled with which way to hang it and finally decided I liked this way best, although I'm not sure it matters! I did line work in the black triangles and a fun CC design in the print. Feathers and geometric squares were in the border.

And then there was the big, open triangle at the bottom.  I filled that with feathers and some matchstick lines to tie everything together. A bit hard to see here, but wait til you see the back!

And, here it is...the back: (If you click on this one, you'll get a better idea of the overall quiling.

But in case you don't, below are some close-ups.

This was a fun one to quilt--I love large open spaces!

Dory

Quilt of Valor

Quilts of Valor is such a worthy cause. I was asked to quilt this one a few months ago. It took me a while to work it into my rotation, but they were pleased when they got it back. I wanted to do some fancier quilting on it, but the pattern and colors just didn't lend themselves to that. Instead, I quilted with my usual allover Heatwave pattern.

And a close-up of the Betty Boop block! I love her!!

Thank for looking,

Dory

Easter is Here

This is the cutest bunny quilt EVER!!  Barbara is a new customer and from her response to my quilting, she'll be back. I was so impressed with her buttonhole stitch by hand on this quilt, that I couldn't bring myself to do any quilting in the areas she'd stitched.  Have a look.  There are lots of pics!

Every place you think the quilt needs some detail, like an eye on the bunny perhaps, imagine a button. Barb had sewn on all the buttons so she wouldn't lose them during her move and then had to take them all back off before giving it to me to quilt.
 

These flowers will have a button in the middle as well. Then the petals will puff and give the quilt great dimension.

I love how the applique is combined with the piecing--its one of my favorite looks. I had a lot of fun quilting this one!

This bunny will be adorable with his button eye!

And many shots of the back--it was a plain lilac fabric so the quilting really showed up.

Thanks for looking!!

Dory

2017 Cabin Fever Raffle Quilt

The Raffle Quilt Committee named this quilt "Coming Home." The name is based on the "porthole" that depicts what you see crossing the Hood Canal Bridge heading toward the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, and home.

The porthole is the most stunning feature of this Storm at Sea quilt. Below are a couple of close-ups of that quilting.

I have to "toot my own horn" here; this is the first time I've quilted clouds that I liked. They couldn't be whimsical and I had a heck of a time deciding how to do it. After searching YouTube and Pinterest, these are what I came up with. I love the texture they added.

And a shot of the back:

When you stand back and look at the quilt, the redish blocks really stand out. I quilted them all with their own design. Here's a shot of the front and back.

Finally, the border blocks that matched the above blocks also got special treatment.

I hope my quilting helps to sell a lot of tickets for the Cabin Fever Quilt Club!

Dory