Lisa loves English Paper Piecing and made this fabulous quilt called “Emma Mary”, pattern by Judy Newman. There is a bit of custom quilting in the centre medallion to enhance all those lovely hexies. For the pieced blocks around the centre we decided that they were busy enough and detailed quilting would only get lost, so I used a pantograph in this area. The design is called ” Paisley Curls”.
Cynthia enjoys needlework by hand and pieced and appliquéd this lovely quilt called “Rosa Biddlecombe”, designed by Margaret Mew. The variety of fabrics used for the blocks makes the quilting almost disappear, and we decided on an allover design called “Wild Wind” for this part of the quilt. The centre part is lightly custom quilted, the way Cynthia likes it, with just one echo around the appliqué and a few free-motion feathers in the background.
Carla put this quilt together from blocks that her friend Joanne had made and didn’t like. I am not sure why she didn’t like them but I am glad Carla rescued them. Isn’t this a gorgeous quilt? This was a really fun project to custom quilt. Symmetrical layouts and geometric shapes really speak to my brain, and I have no trouble coming up with designs for the different areas. Carla’s only request was feathers in the white on-point squares, and the rest fell into place pretty much by itself.
“Hook, Line & Sinker” is a pattern by Crabapple Hill Studios. If you are not familiar with Meg Hawkey’s designs, they usually involve hand-embroidered blocks and some crayon tinting. Many of them are offered as block of the month programs. “Hook, Line & Sinker” is a perfect gift for an avid fisherman in your family. This is Joni’s version, and I was delighted at the idea to custom quilt it. I had never quilted a Crabapple Hill design before, and I found it much more intimidating than Judy Niemeyer quilts, for example. I finally settled on filling the background and staying away from the embroidery as much as possible. Of course those areas needed to be stabilized as well, and I tried to just give them texture and echo the embroidered lines. I didn’t spend much time on the border, the dark pattern of the fabric made the quilting pretty much invisible, a simple design to stabilize it was all it needed.
I had to drop everything else and make time for this cute project, a quilt I need as a baby shower gift. Baby showers are like Christmas, they sneak up on you, and suddenly they are looming just around the corner, and you haven’t finished your project yet. I miscalculated because of a cultural difference. Baby showers are not a thing in Germany, and no one would ever think of giving a gift before the baby was actually born. I always had late March in my head as the due date, and when I received the invitation to the baby shower for next week, a whole month was suddenly taken out of my mental timeline, and that is an eternity in quilting. Anyway, I got my act together, I had the design and fabrics ready, and I spent the holiday weekend making the quilt top and quilting it. Here is a little preview, this little guy makes me laugh every time I see him. The quilt is done and just needs the binding, but I still have one more weekend before the shower, so it should be finished right on time. There will be a pattern for this but I haven’t even started writing it yet. I also have to make a sample quilt that won’t be given away. I had planned on making the blocks all at the same time but of course that plan went out the window as well.
This is the second Elephant Abstractions quilt I have quilted for a customer, and this one was pieced by Monette. She liked the idea of quilting different parts of the elephant with different designs which is what I did for the other one. I didn’t quilt it exactly the same though – that would have been boring – but left some things untouched that I really liked with the first version like the ribbon candy for the tusks or the escargot/pebble filler for the tail. I came up with a completely different design for the trunk and used a different leaf design for the background. Monette’s quilt also has borders which the first one didn’t. The very wide outer border is a busy batik fabric, and while the quilting is visible in reality, it doesn’t really show up in the pictures.
I managed to sneak my own quilt top into the queue, and it is almost done, just the last border needs to be quilted now. Here is a quick peek for you, I am quite happy with the way this is turning out.
This Poinsettia Table Topper is a Judy Niemeyer design and was pieced by Monette. Her fabric choices make it look very elegant but unfortunately the quilting doesn’t show very well. The backing was a gorgeous white, silver and grey poinsettia print, just perfect for this project, but the quilting didn’t show at all in the pictures I took. Monette asked for custom quilting, and although I wouldn’t want to piece one of these, I enjoy quilting them very much.
Marleen made this quilt as a gift for her first great-granddaughter. I free-motion quilted a continuous flower design with loops. Although it is technically custom quilting, free motion allover designs don’t take much longer than pantographs, and once in a while it is really fun to just quilt without having to follow a commercial design.
I am back! And I chose the right day to fly back, there was snow here last Friday, and it snowed again yesterday but when I landed in Vancouver on Saturday, the roads (and runways) were clear. We are currently under an Artic Outflow Warning, schools are closed today, and traffic is a mess. It was a bit too warm yesterday before the artic air moved in, and there is a layer of ice underneath the snow which makes driving a nightmare. The highway is in really bad shape, lots of cars in the ditch, and there are still people driving like maniacs. Do they think winter tires alone make them invincible?
With temperatures around -12°C (approx. 11F) the weather is perfect for staying inside, drinking hot tea and sewing. Or writing patterns. I finally uploaded the full Tuxedo Cat pattern, both in English/Imperial and German/Metric and also updated all the direct links in the previous posts. I am not really happy with the picture of the quilt since it isn’t straight at all but there is no way I am going outside to take another one. Finished is better than perfect (says the perfectionist without really believing it… ), I will fix it when the weather cooperates. For those who missed most or all of the blocks and have been waiting to purchase the full pattern, it will be available with a discount until January 20, 2020. Enter the code TC2020 during checkout for 10% off.
Edit: Seven months later, and I finally managed to take a new picture…
I would also like to thank all of you for your comments of comfort and sympathy. I usually try to reply to every comment individually but in this case I just didn’t have the time. The internet can be such an ugly place sometimes, even the quilting community can be quite nasty once in a while, which makes me appreciate the kindness and thoughtfulness of those who left a comment on the passing of my Dad even more.
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.
