Fern Grotto was made by Brenda and is one of those quilts that I can look at for hours, watching the secondary patterns emerge. Clever colour and value placement add so much interest to quilts. For this one, you might even have to take a step back. Looking at the thumbnails of the pictures, the diagonal pattern emerges even more clearly. Those are my favourite kind of quilts! Brenda chose “Wild Wind”, a simple swirly pattern to finish her project.

These cute quilts were made by friends Dorothy and Gerry. They purchased the patterns together some time ago and finished their quilts almost at the same time. Dorothy’s version came to me first, and I was delighted that she chose the design “Wedding Vine” for her quilt, it works so well with the appliqued leaves. Gerry agreed, and when her quilt was ready we didn’t have to think twice which panto to use. These quilts are just too cute!

Dorothy’s Quilt

Gerry’s Quilt

This modern quilt called “Yama to Kawa” was made by Jean. The pattern is by Lorna Shapiro, if you are local you have probably heard of her. She specializes in Japanese fabrics and silk. A few years ago she came to our guild for a trunk show, and her work is amazing. You can find out more about her on her website “Quilter’s Dream Fabrics”. Jean wasn’t sure how she wanted her project quilted and was undecided between custom quilting and a pantograph. I had to admit that this quilt didn’t immediately speak to me, it is a tough one to custom quilt. Looking through my pantograph collection, we found this one called “Time Warp”, and Jean liked it for her quilt. It picks up the rhomboid shapes of the quilt pattern and adds great texture.

“Binding Tool Star” is a very popular Missouri Star Quilt Co. pattern, and this is Sharon’s version. She put the star pieces together pointing outwards instead of inwards, quite an interesting variation of the original pattern. The “Binding Tool Star” is also very versatile when it comes to choosing a pantograph, almost anything goes. Sharon chose “Butterfly Tango” to complement the lovely spring colours in her quilt.

This quilt in beige and brown colours was made by Bonnie. She knew right away that she wanted it quilted with “Diagonal Plaid Bias Cut”. This design is always a good choice when a quilt has lots of squares, and it complements Bonnie’s work nicely.

This quilt was made by Sandra as a gift for her mom. The fabric she used for the sashing has grape leaves, and those inspired the choice of quilting pattern. “Ground Cover” is one of my favourite leaf patterns, the leaves look a bit like ivy but can also pass as grape leaves and were just right for this quilt.

“Over The River And Through The Woods” is a Crabapple Hill design, mixing hand-embroidered panels with classic pieced blocks. This lovely version was made by Sandra, and she chose “White Out”, a snowflake pattern for quilting. I wasn’t always comfortable doing allover designs across beautiful hand embroidery but Sandra’s quilt is a great example of how good it can look. The snowflake meander blends into the background and doesn’t take away from the exquisite handwork.

Sharlene made this cute quilt as a baby gift. What a great way of using up scraps, the more different fabrics, the better! The empty areas between the kites will be filled by their tails, Sharlene wanted to have it quilted first before starting on the embroidery. The pattern we used for quilting is called “Wild Wind” – perfect for flying a kite!

June made this pretty star quilt using linen in solid colours for the stars. The quilt has a modern look, and June wanted a simple, modern design for quilting and picked the pantograph “Taj Mahal” for her project.

This quilt was made by Mary as a gift for a music loving friend. Actually, she made it twice for two different friends. It sure gives a whole new meaning to the term “piano key border”. We didn’t have to think about the quilting very long, I have a music pattern with notes that was perfect for Mary’s quilts.

May made this cute little baby quilt with pinwheels in bright colours. The outer border fabric has dragonflies which would have been a perfect quilting pattern. Unfortunately I don’t have a pantograph with dragonflies, and I couldn’t find one that I liked, so we went with butterflies instead and used “Butterfly Tango”. What a sweet baby gift!

There are lots of ideas out there for selvage quilts but I particularly like this one that Gail made and asked me to quilt for her. The grey and white frames give the illusion of spools and make the quilt three dimensional. I just can’t stop looking at it, if I ever decide to make a selvage quilt, this would be my pattern choice. (Not going to happen anytime soon… I am not even collecting selvages.) The pantograph I used is called “Celtic Scroll”, a simple swirly pattern that stays in the background but adds movement to the design.