In January, 2012, some friends and I attended a retreat in Lake Havasu City, AZ; it was such fun! There, I took a class from Susan Cleveland, who developed the technique I so often use in putting corded piping next to my quilt bindings. This time, though, we used the corded piping within the blocks to go around curves — a really fun effect! Check out her book, called Piping Hot Curves for this pattern and technique. I used fabric I already had in my stash; it was pretty dated, but it’s made a cute little quilt I’m planning to use in my car when our little dog takes a ride; it will save the upholstery from getting road oil (we have a lot of road oil!) all over it from her paws.
I finished the quilt, which measures 28 1/2″ square, in February, 2012, and it has very little quilting in it, for a change. 😉 That’s because the piping in the blocks would begin to bulge if I’d quilted a lot. So I’ve quilted in the ditch and a couple of curved lines in the background of the blocks and borders. I also added piping next to the binding — of course. <g> Here’s a closer shot of one of the blocks:
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This is the first large quilt I made. It is a Grandmother’s Fan pattern set in love rings, or rings radiating out from the center.It is in shades of lavender, because my husband’s favorite color is purple. Each machine-pieced fan block is hand quilted with hearts, and the whole thing was lap quilted, following Georgia Bonesteel’s ideas. The quilt was finished in early 1988, over two years after I began it, and is big enough to drop to the floor on a queen-sized bed, measuring 95″ x 114″. Unfortunately, it’s seen some hard use in the past few years and is now in pretty bad condition — it didn’t help that the fabrics weren’t the best quality! Lesson learned: always get the best fabrics possible.
This was the first piece I’ve made for which the quilting was done in the hoop — that is, it was all done with the embroidery module for my Bernina. Since I really enjoy free-motion quilting, though, I doubt that I’ll do much more of this type. The design came from Janine Babich Designs, and the finished hanging measures approximately 8.5″ x 24.5″. It will be nice for Valentine’s Day. I finished it in September, 2017.
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I finally finished quilting this project at the end of December, 1999. This is the first somewhat larger (51 1/2″ x 65 1/2″) quilt that I’d designed and laid out using QuiltPro. What a difference in ease of drafting and figuring! The blue and white color scheme is a cool, refreshing look. I used blocks from the QP library, but I designed the border myself, basing it on one in an Eleanor Burns book. It’s machine pieced and hand quilted. There’s a sort of visual trick in this sampler, as it appears that there is a sashing between the blocks. However, the dark blue “sashing” is really a cross in the center of each block.
In July, 2009, I took a class from Rose Hughes on making landscape quilts. It was a fun class, but it’s not a technique I think I’ll be using again; it’s just not something that appealed to me. Because I wasn’t that excited about it, the unfinished quilt sat around until the end of October, 2010, before I finally finished it. It was supposed to have quite a bit of beading and embroidery to embellish it, but that just wasn’t going to happen. It’s machine appliquéed, using yarn zigzagged around all pieces and extra stuffing under some of the saguaro arms. It’s also machine quilted very simply, and I used a facing to finish it, rather than binding. This piece measures approximately 17″ x 23″.
This is the result of an online swap in 1997. I put the blocks together right away, but I didn’t get the machine quilting finished until November, 2000. It measures approximately 29 1/2″ x 27 1/2″, and it’s great in my sewing room!
Here are a couple of details of some of the blocks:
I saw this quilt at the Houston show in 2017 and fell in love with it. I finished adding the crystals (the final step) in June, 2018. The quilt was designed by Jacqueline DeJonge and is paper pieced.
I quilted it with free-motion feathers and fillers, as well as some ruler work around the New York Beauty blocks and for the feather spines. The quilt measures 60″ x 60″.
In April, 2019, our local guild hosted its annual quilt show, and La Vie Est Belle earned an Honorable Mention!
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This is a quilt I made for a very special former student’s first baby. It’s paper pieced from a pattern in Carol Doak’s book Easy Paper-Pieced Baby Quilts. It is completely machine pieced and quilted, and it measures approximately 36″ square. I finished it in December, 2008, just in time for the baby’s January birth.
This isn’t a baby quilt, but it is for my grandchildren. After I made it, my daughters and I decided that it would live at my house for the children to play with when they visit. This pattern is taken from Ami Simms’ book, Picture Play Quilts, and measures approximately 45″ x 60″. The quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted in loopy swirls that just miss the dimensional green and white diamond shapes between each block. Each block is, of course, different so that the children can play I Spy games with the quilt.
Here we go again. 😉 I went to Quilt Camp in the Pines in July, 2005, and took classes, as usual. One of them was Jan Krentz’s Hunter’s Star. I chose a slightly different layout than the one featured in the class, with the border that “finished” the stars at the edges of the main portion. The quilt was made from Jan’s strip piecing method. Her book and sample showed 8″ blocks, but I chose to make 4″ blocks and a 3″ border, so my project, finished in August, 2005, measures approximately 30″ x 38″. I laid this quilt out in Quilt Pro software.
I used oriental-style prints in indigos, blues and purples; some of the fabrics had been in my stash for years. <G> The quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted, using navy silk thread in the body of the quilt and a blue/purple variegated thread in the outer border. There is a corded piping between the outer border and the binding; it is in the same fabric as the inner border. Here is a detail where you may be able to see the quilting a bit better:
Update: In March, 2006, this quilt won third place in its category at our local quilt show! Here it is at the show with its white ribbon:
