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.
Blog post
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.
I made the first two stockings in September, 2001, for two of our grandsons. Both use machine appliqué and machine quilting. The appliqué motifs were fused onto the fabric and then blanket stitched in place. Each stocking measures approximately 16 1/2″ tall and 11″ wide from heel to toe. The first one is for Benjamin.
And this one is for his younger brother, Dominic.
And now I’ve had to add a third stocking, since these boys now have a little sister. 🙂 I made this one, which is the same size as the other two, in September, 2007.
Here’s yet a fourth stocking! Our son-in-law had noted that his stocking was the only one hanging in their home that wasn’t handmade; it was one of those generic ones from a discount-type store. He had definite ideas on what he wanted his to look like, and he finally sketched those out for me so I wouldn’t be guessing. Yesterday I spent the day making his stocking, so it’s ready in plenty of time for next Christmas, since it’s only April (2012) now. 😉 Can you tell what his favorite sport and team are?
And here are the latest Christmas stockings. Since my husband and I had never had stockings, I decided to make us some decorative ones to hang on the fireplace. These were done with the embroidery module of my Bernina 790+ from a design from Embroidery Online, and I made them during Thanksgiving weekend, 2020, and they’re about 18″ tall and 7″ wide.
Blog post
Have you noticed yet that I seemed to spend a lot of time at Quilt Camp in the Pines? 😉 Sadly, it has closed. This is the result of yet another class there. I’ve always been intimidated by hand appliqué. I tried it a couple of times with less than wonderful results, so it was with great trepidation that I signed up for a class in Celtic hand appliqué, taught by Nancy Chong at camp in 2004. However, I think I’ve finally found a version of hand appliqué that I like and that I can do at least passably well!
This is hand appliquéed and the hand quilting echoes the appliqué motifs both in the “ditch” and 1/4″ away. Here’s a close-up of the quilting:
It measures 13.25″ x 47″ (tip to tip) and was finished in June, 2005.
This is not only appliqué; it’s also drappliqué! I took a class from Pam Holland at Quilt Camp in the Pines in July, 2005, and her technique combines machine appliqué with drawing on the fabric with special pens to make the fabric look the way we need it to look. The quilt is entirely machine appliquéed and quilted, measuring 19″ x 23″. I finished it in September, 2005. I didn’t actually do that much quilting, since the appliqué was combined with the quilting in the main part of the piece. The wide border is quilted in a stylized wave pattern.
And here is the photo that inspired the quilt:
My quilting buddy bought a kit from Stacy Michell. The kit included two identical images, one positive and one negative, of laser-cut Hawaiian appliqué motifs. She did one of the blocks and gave me the other to finish, and so I did. The motifs arrived with fusible already in place, so all I had to do was to fuse them to the background fabric, layer everything with my own batting and backing, and then do some machine appliqué that also became the quilting. I used blanket stitch, and it was fun to do. I didn’t have anything suitable for the binding, so I used a facing instead. The piece ended up 17.5″ square (it really is square, but it’s hanging on a curved chair back!), and I finished it in December, 2012.
Blog post
This quilt was made for our younger daughter’s first baby, Andrew Michael. He was born on February 24, 2001, and was 7 lbs., 6 oz. and 19″ long. The quilt was partially complete before his birth, but I had to wait to finish it until we knew whether he was a “he” or a “she” and his other vital statistics. The pattern came from the book P.S. I Love You Two!, and it’s about 30″ x 36″.
This is a detail of some of the fun free-motion machine quilting I did on the quilt.
And here is Andrew with his quilt!
