Quilting like a madwoman since somewhere around 1984!
I made this quilt on a whim when I saw a pattern that I liked. The original design had each elephant standing separately from the others, each in its own background square. However, I know that most elephants are actually family units, so I made my elephants connect by intertwining their trunks and tails. The quilt was machine appliquéd and machine quilted, using both free motion and ruler work techniques, and it measures 36.5″ x 39.5″. I finished it in February, 2021.
This quilt was designed by Brittany at Lo & Behold Stitchery, and I loved the graphic two-color design. This is the throw size, which measures 57″ x 71″. I began making it in February, 2020, finishing the piecing fairly soon. However, I then took a break during most of March, April and May before quilting it in June and finishing the label in early July. The quilt will be a gift.
I machine pieced the quilt and did free-motion quilting and ruler work to quilt it, placing a different motif in each section.
Blog posts about this quilt: beginning, blocks, quilting, finished.
I designed this little quilt in EQ8, following instructions posted a long time ago on an EQ group and referring to an online class I’d taken from Renae Merrill. My first attempt was a disaster, as the entire top was assembled when the seams began fraying; it was irreparable. Just slightly daunted, I began again, remaking the entire quilt top. I’d planned to quilt swirling feathers in the colored portions, but the bulk of those tiny seams and the changing thickness of the seam allowances made that impractical. I ditch quilted those seams instead and moved the planned feathers to the outer areas that square up the corners. Piano key quilting in the border was the final touch before adding the corded piping and binding.
The quilt measures 19.5″ x 17.5″, and each triangular block has 3″ sides and 19 pieces. I finished it in December, 2019.
Below are photos to show the quilting more closely, as well as the label.
And here is Swirly Whirly with its very pretty blue ribbon from our local quilt show in 2021! 🙂
This is a quilt designed by Ruth Ann Berry, and I couldn’t resist the cool optical illusion created with the colors. The piecing is done with 60° triangles, all of which are then assembled in rows before putting the rows together. I quilted the interlocking chains with straight lines to emphasize their movement and then did some fun motifs in the black background areas. The leftover colored fabrics were perfect for corded piping next to the binding. The quilt measures approximately 65″ x 48″, and I finished it in October, 2019, and sent it to a couple of friends.
Here are a couple of details of the quilting.
This was a very quick project, made from some printed linen motifs and framed with more linen. It’s the second time I’ve worked with linen from this French seller (l’Atelier d’Isabelle), who comes to the Houston Festival. The fabric is so lovely to work with — so soft and smooth!
The piece measures about 14″ square and was finished in December, 2018. I did very simple quilting, since I didn’t want to quilt inside the printed motifs. Instead, I simply stitched in the ditch around them and then added the swags and circles in the outer border before adding the piping and binding.
In May, 2014, I was lucky enough to be able to take a quilting cruise onboard the Oasis of the Seas. Each of the at-sea days was spent in a class, and one of the classes was a Twister class taught by Marsha Bergren. Instead of making the quilt she’d proposed for the group, though, I chose to do another that had caught my eye. This one was designed by Marilyn Foreman. Her version was to be made in any size from baby quilt on up to queen-sized. However, I decided to make mine a miniature — the first mini I’ve made without paper piecing. My finished quilt measures 22″ x 18.5″ and is entirely machine pieced and machine quilted, and I finished it in June, 2014.
I used feathers to quilt the blue and aqua motifs, but then I experimented with curved cross-hatching (another first) for the black background areas.
After happening across a page showing knitted projects that illustrated math concepts and seeing that one of the knits looked like it could easily be made into a quilt using half-square triangles, I drafted the idea into EQ7 to get the effect of pointed spirals around a central “post”.
I used free-motion quilting to create softly curved horizontal lines in the white to make it recede into the background. I left the red unquilted so it would pop out a bit, and I used ruler work to echo a few times inside the almost-black shapes to give them a bit more motion. As a contrast to all of the straight — or almost-straight — lines in the central quilt, I did curves, with more ruler work, in the borders and then added pearls and small groups of feathers. The texture shows up well on the back of the quilt. I made this with 1″ finished squares for the top. The quilt measures about 12.5″ x 15.5″ and was finished in November, 2016.
My quilt buddy, Phyl, came for a visit and to work on an adorable quilt together, each of us making our own version. Neither of us had ever planned to make a quilt using the technique of appliqué in the hoop, but then there was this set of designs …. We couldn’t resist, as both of us are dog lovers. There were ten different puppies to choose from, along with some “filler” blocks, but I was hoping to make this a very narrow quilt to fit a small wall in my sewing room. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way, and the quilt now measures 23″ x 27″, which is just a bit too wide for that wall. Oh well. 😉 The dogs and other motifs were done with appliqué on the embroidery machine, and the paw print border is all embroidered. I free-motion quilted it, trying for a bit of variety in the background motifs.This was finished in September, 2014.
This Drunkard’s Path version is called Moon in the Window, designed by Elisa’s Backporch Designs. I began it in May, 2013, and finally finished it in February, 2015; it sat for quite a while as a finished top before I quilted it. The finished quilt measures about 54″ square.
It is free-motion quilted with feathers and curved cross hatching, as well as a dense background filler in the “L” shapes around the quarter circles. As usual, there is corded piping next to the binding. Here are some details of the quilting:
I saw this pattern at the 2018 Houston Festival and couldn’t resist those sweet faces. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong fusible for the appliqué, which meant that I couldn’t do the type of quilting in the background that I’d originally planned. Still, I had fun playing with ruler work for the simple straight lines I did. The quilt, completed in March, 2019, measures about 26.5″ x 32″.
