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

Quilt Club Challenge Finished

It took me awhile, but I finally made a decision about which product and fabrics to use for my challenge.  The Oatmeal won!

I decided I really wanted to make a wonky house block with the Oatmeal package colors. Oatmeal is one of my very most favorite comfort foods. My mom used to make it for me and add brown sugar and butter (yes, very healthy <snicker>) and I loved it. What kid wouldn't?? This was my first attempt...not very wonky!

Second attempt...much wonkier!! In case you're wondering, that is "corn" fabric that I'm using for the ground.  Worked well, considering the colors I had to choose from.

This is where I had to do some thinking. Originally, I just put red and orange strips on the outside and then was going to bind it. However, it was just too boring. So then I thought of a checkerboard and came up with this.

It worked well, but I didn't have enough to go all the way around.  Back to the drawing board--or design wall. I played around with it a bit and thought about the fact that the house was wonky, so why shouldn't the border be a bit off as well?

From that came this. Having run out of the orange, I decided to play a bit.

Worked for me! From there it went onto my longarm. Yes, I know...overkill.  However, since I've started longarming, I have not been able to quilt on my domestic machine. I don't know how people switch back and forth. Everything, no matter the size, goes on the longarm to be quilted.

A few pics of the finished product:

And the back...

We turned them in just the other day. There were 31 entries, I believe. Mine does not stand a chance of winning, but I did win my own challenge. I came up with fabrics, the design idea, finished the top, quilted and bound it and turned it in. For me, that's a huge win. I will often come up with ideas, but that's where I fail. I never seem to get things put together, or if I do, I don't get them finished in time. This time I did it. 

We will vote on the winner at the next business meeting of our guild and then they will all be hung at the quilt show. I will show pics of the entries next. Including the super cute ribbons we all get just for entering!

Thanks for putting up with my convoluted design process!

Dory

Maryann's BQ4

I hope you are all familiar with the Maple Island BQ patterns. They're really very simple and still manage to be visibly stunning. This is Maryann's BQ4. She fell in love with these fabrics and then discovered the BQ patterns.

I just love her color combinations. This was a fun quilt for me to work on as I got to decide on designs in all the many areas. 

In the gray that she used as a neutral to tie everything together, I did the sort of "wishbone" design throughout. In the rectangular squares, it was two inch continuous curves. Hard to tell, but in the outer border, I did a "wiggly" crosshatch following the design in the fabric--no measuring!! 

Most of the small squares also had continuous curve, only on a one-inch grid. 

I didn't want to hide these cool flowers behind a bunch of quilting, so I just outlined them. The added benefit here is the loft it gave them. 

This is her pieced back. She has already figured out that she doesn't want a bunch of scraps lying about, so she puts them all in her backing. (My studio would be so much neater had I thought of this when I started quilting!) 

This is some of the back quilting which shows the design I did in the black/white polka dot blocks. Its sort of a square/spiral. 

Thanks for stopping by to have a look!

Dory

Carolyn's Stars

Carolyn pieced this top and sent it home with me when we were at Asilomar last year. I loved it!!  However, when I went to quilt it, I had a dilemma...what to put in those stars???

I played around with the body of the quilt, keeping it simple since the quilting wasn't really obvious. But I wanted something special in those stars.  I first tried this:  

It didn't work. I didn't like the gray thread or the way the design turned out. So...five minutes to quilt the design; over two hours to pick it out <sigh>  I quilted the majority of the quilt in gray and was hoping it would look okay on the cream.  Can you say, "Not!"???

I quilted the entire top before tackling those stars again. I finally ended up with this design in a very light purple thread. Better, eh?? Its kinda hard to see, but its just some nice loopy swirls to offset the sharp points. (Try clicking on it if you want a better view)

The quilt wasn't really all that large, but Carolyn made sure I had more than enough backing fabric. It was beautiful fabric--I may have to institute a new policy whereby I get to keep all the extra!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!!

Dory

Happy 4th!!

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday!!

Dory