Quilting like a madwoman since somewhere around 1984!
This table runner was the result of playing with paint sticks at our local group in November, 2009. I made three painted blocks and then decided to set them into a table runner.
It measures 43.5″ x 15″ and was machine pieced (what little piecing was necessary!) and machine quilted with lots of my favorite motif: feathers. Here are some details of the quilting, finished in January, 2010.
This is another quilt that came to be as a result of our guild’s challenge. We were to use an identifiable piece of a certain beautiful red batik (no problem there!), as well as a heart on the front of the quilt. The theme was to be heart’s desire. I had an idea for my entry in July, 2011, though the challenge wasn’t to be until January, 2012, so I went ahead and made it while my idea was fresh. I used a pattern from Carol Doak’s 300 Paper-Pieced Quilt Blocks (block #126), resizing the blocks to 3″. Then I transferred tiny photos of the faces of our family members to the center of eight of the nine hearts that would make up my quilt. The ninth heart has a plain center, on which I wrote Family in white. The sashing and cornerstones are 1/2″ wide, and the borders are 1.5″ wide, as are the corner blocks.
The quilting motifs, which I did by machine, were tiny white hearts on each side of the heart points, with red loops in the heart “bumps”, and the feathers I like so much in the borders.
The quilt measures 14″ x 14″, and I finished it in July, 2011. Update: The challenge competition was in January, 2012, and my quilt placed second in the paper-pieced category! 🙂
This is the second quilt I’ve made specifically for Mike. It started in a class with Jackie Robinson at Quilt Camp in the Pines in 2003; that’s where she taught the pattern for the top. I’ve made this one in what she calls a lap quilt size, though it’s the biggest lap quilt I’ve ever seen. 😉 It measures approximately 70″ x 87″! After I’d finished the top, it sat around for a long time while I debated how I was going to quilt it; I knew I wanted curves and that the curves would probably have to be feathers; but I was put off by the prospect of having to mark all of those feathers for quilting. However, Kathy Sandbach then taught a class (the Infinite Feather) at Quilt Camp in 2004, and that was what I needed. I now knew how to do feathers without all of the painful pre-marking. I quilted feathers in matching threads in almost every section of the quilt except for the parts that look like trees; those were quilted with a tree motif — sort of. 😉 I also did different motifs in two of the teal/turquoise sections. The cream log cabins have feathers in undulating rows; the aqua stars have feathered wreaths; the purple log cabins have rows of single feathers; the cream feathered star points have feathered sprays. The quilt was machine pieced and quilted, and I finished it in October, 2004. Here is the front:
And here are a couple of details of the back so you can see some of the quilting:
After a machine appliqué class from Sharon Schamber, I used her technique to make this small quilt. It’s a gift intended for my eye doctor, who has gone above and beyond for the past few years to get my eyes to work in a more normal fashion. The dragon on the quilt came from a pattern by Carol Bruce, and I added double corded piping between the quilt and the binding. I machine quilted the piece using a variegated thread in shades of lavender and raspberry to do feathers, small pebbles and flowing lines.
Here is a close-up shot of some of the quilting:
The quilt measures approximately 23 1/2″ x 16 1/2″ and was finished in February, 2009.
This was one of our monthly projects at Green Valley Quilters in September, 2012. The layers of the tree are attached at the top of each and then tacked down at the outer corners, giving a dimensional effect.
All of the fabrics came from my stash, including the backing and batting. It is completely machine pieced, appliquéed and quilted. The quilting behind the tree includes simple feathers behind the tree branches and wavy lines beside the trunk. There are straight lines in the border.
The quilt measures 21.5″ x 27.5″ and was finished in October, 2012.
I really like Philippa Naylor’s classes! I took another one in November, 2011, this time on techniques of curved piecing. As so often happens, though, I only finished the center portion in class and let it languish in my pile of “to-dos” until April, 2012. At that point, I decided to add the borders, quilt it and finish it up. So I did! 🙂
This one is about 21″ square, though “square” is obviously not a consideration here. 😉 This was only the second time I’d done double corded piping next to the binding, and I think it turned out rather well. It’s entirely machine pieced and quilted. Below is a detail of the piping. Because of the curved edges, all of the piping and the binding were done with bias cuts.
Update! This quilt won third place in the quilt show sponsored by our local guild in April, 2013. Ummm … it’s hanging sideways here. 😉
I took a class on precision piecing from Philippa Naylor at the Houston Quilt Festival in 2008, but the top of this little piece sat in my pile of “things to finish” for about a year. I finally machine quilted it, finishing it in November, 2009. It measures approximately 20 1/2″ x 21″ (so much for precision piecing. 🙁 Actually, I think I messed up when I sandwiched it for quilting.) and was entirely machine pieced and quilted.
And here are a couple of close-ups of the feathers I so love to do. The color in these is a bit “off”, since I had to avoid using flash in order to see the quilting in the photos. The first is the center on-point block:
And here is part of the border:
I saw a pattern called Confetti Cake and really liked it, except for the size. The blocks were over 11″, and I’m on a “smaller-is-better” kick. <G> I decided to cut the strips necessary for making it at half the required size, and my blocks ended up being 3.75″ — much better! I only had enough of my fabrics to make ten blocks, so I set them on point into a table runner that measures 29.5″ x 15.75″. I used corded piping on either side of the border and machine quilted more of the feathers I like so much. It was finished in June, 2009.
Here you can see a bit of the quilting in the border and one of the setting triangles:
I fell in love with a pattern in Melinda Bula’s Cutting Garden Quilts and knew I had to make it. As luck would have it, she ended up teaching the class for that very pattern in Lake Havasu City in January, 2012, so I signed up. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy the class at all for various reasons, but I came home and made the quilt anyway, following the directions — more or less — in the book. It’s made with fusible appliqué, and then it was supposed to be thread painted to make sure all of the pieces were permanently attached, but my thread painting ability isn’t so great, so I simply did lots and lots of echo quilting inside each piece.
After doing the echo quilting, there was a lot of negative space to fill. The directions said to do echo quilting there, but I’d had enough echo quilting by then, so I put in some large, flowing sprays of the machine-quilted feathers I love so much instead. Then I added some piping for added interest before binding the quilt. I didn’t think this one needed any borders at all.
I finished the quilt in May, 2012, and it measures 26″ x 21″.
Update! This quilt won second place in its category at our local guild’s quilt show in April, 2013.
This was a project my local group decided to do together; we each made this in our own choice of colors. As for me, I raided my stash and was able to finish the runner without buying anything at all! 🙂 It measures 55″ x 22″, and I finished in in February, 2011.
And here is a detail of the feathered quilting I did on it:
