If this quilt looks familiar to you and you are wondering if I posted these pictures before, you are not entirely mistaken. Last year I posted pictures of Cynthia’s version, and a few months later, her friend Lisa had her version of the top ready to quilt. Both ladies love stitching by hand, and they often choose the same patterns and work on them together. For quilting, I went with the basic plan I used for the first version but changed a few things for Lisa’s quilt. A huge amount of work went into this quilt, and I feel honoured that both ladies asked me to quilt their masterpieces.
This gorgeous quilt called “Blooms” is a design by Jason Yenter of In The Beginning and was made by Debra. These are the original fabrics for the quilt, and I thought at first they were batiks but they turned out to be digital prints. Debra asked for custom quilting. While the white background seemed to ask for swirls and pebbles, any ambitious quilting would have been lost in the colourful strippy parts, and we went with a Tropical Leaves panto for these areas instead. This is such a beautiful quilt, and I am quite happy with the way it turned out.
This quilt was also made by the very talented Brenda. These are not Brenda’s usual colours, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about the quilt but I think it turned out great. It is a gift for a little girl who loves pink and purple, so it should be perfect for her. Brenda asked for custom quilting, and I had a lot of fun with it.
After quilting all day long for others, it is sometimes not so easy to find the motivation to work on my own projects at night, especially when they require paying attention. Mindless chain piecing on the other hand can be quite relaxing, and I always have scraps at hand to turn into donation quilts. I started this quilt using my favourite scrappy pattern last summer and was surprised how fast I finished the top. Sneaking it into the quilt line up on the other hand is sometimes a bit tricky. I managed to squeeze it in at some point, and this quilt has already been donated to our guild’s We Care program. This morning, when I put the border on the next scrappy donation top, I realized that I had never posted pictures of this one, so here they are.
And here it finally is: the finished Penguin Promenade quilt. I hope you had as much fun with the little guys as I did. I have sent the finishing instructions to everyone who has emailed me a picture of their finished blocks, and I will post the gallery of penguins in my next post, sometime this week. I enjoy looking at all this creativity and the different fabrics everyone picked and how it all comes alive. For those who have only collected the patterns and know they are not going to make the deadline for sending in their finished block pictures, the finishing instructions are now available as a separate pattern in the store section. And for those who missed most or all of the free blocks, the pattern for the full quilt with all nine blocks and finishing instructions is now available for purchase as well in both English/Imperial and German/metric.
Für die deutsche Version mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem Kauflink unten für die englische Version folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung in der gewünschten Sprache.
I don’t know how popular Eric Carle and his books are in North America but I can tell you that especially “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” is a huge deal in Europe. I remember growing up with it in the 70s, and we bought it (and several other of his books) again for our son. Andover Fabrics created a fabric line with his quirky illustrations, and Jane made this adorable quilt for her grandchild. She wanted a bit of custom quilting, and I did a mix of pantograph and free motion quilting. Detailed quilting would be lost in the colourful fabrics but the caterpillar panel had a lot of empty space. I immediately thought of “Champagne Bubbles” as a background filler. I used the regular size panto version for the rest of the quilt and a much smaller version to fill the white background and added a bit of free motion texture to the caterpillar. I love how this quilt turned out, one of the cutest projects I have quilted so far.
Yes, I know that Halloween is over and Christmas is coming 🙂 But I am months behind in posting pictures, and I am not going to wait for October to come around again before showing this gorgeous quilt that I quilted in July. “Vintage Trick Or Treat” is a Crabapple Hill design, and this version was made by Maryanne. I was delighted to custom quilt it for her. I find Crabapple Hill quilts much more difficult to quilt than for example Judy Niemeyer designs. It feels much more natural to me to come up with designs for geometric shapes than trying to figure out what to do with the beautiful hand embroidery that only needs stabilizing but not really any quilting. If you are wondering about the border, the quilt is supposed to have scalloped edges which will be cut after quilting. Maryanne had already marked where she was planning to cut, and after stitching the piano keys, I stitched around outside her markings to make sure the threads were secure after trimming. This quilt is truly a labour of love!
Last year when I published my Pansies, Snowdrops and Sunflower patterns, I mentioned that someone at the Chilliwack quilt show had asked if I had a poinsettia pattern. I didn’t have one but I thought that maybe I would like to come up with a few more of those flower wall hangings. A year has come and gone, and Christmas is around the corner, so it was time for me to get to work or postpone it to next year. I am happy to announce that I did not procrastinate this time and am ready to publish my Poinsettia pattern. There is plenty of time to get this done before Christmas. I am really enjoying this flower series and have already received another request, this time for violets. Inspiration hasn’t struck yet but I will definitely give it some thought.
Für die deutsche Version mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem Kauflink unten für die englische Version folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung in der gewünschten Sprache.
It seemed to take forever but the Happy Hippo Hop pattern is finally ready to be published! It took a bit longer because I decided to make a matching pillow as well for those who don’t want to make a whole hippo quilt. The pillow has a 10″ hippo block while the hippos in the quilt are only 8″ in size. I just love this quilt, the smiling baby hippos are so cute, and they make me laugh every time I see them.
I wanted to incorporate the major elements of the quilt when I drafted the pillow design and put the colourful Flying Geese into the border. The hearts were separated and form the cornerstones.
Die Anleitung für den Happy Hippo Hop Quilt ist auf deutsch nicht verfügbar. Für die deutsche Version des Kissens mit metrischen Maßen bitte dem Kauflink unten für die englische Version folgen und beim Checkout angeben, dass die deutsche Version gewünscht ist. Ich verschicke dann per email die Anleitung in der gewünschten Sprache.
This beautiful row quilt was made by Bonnie and is based on a pattern by Bonnie & Camille who design for Moda. I was delighted when Bonnie asked for custom quilting, this was such a fun project to quilt, and I am very happy with the way it turned out.
