Before going to Germany, I made another set of preemiequilts, using my tested and tried layouts. Simple patterns, not too many seams, only light quilting, those are the requirements of the German group that makes them and donates them to the hospitals. They are quick and easy to make, use up leftovers and are for a good cause. I am happy to take some with me whenever I go over to visit.
Brenda made this pretty quilt using the Moda fabric collection “Pepper & Flax” by Corey Yoder. The pantograph we chose is called “Lapis”, and I even remembered to take some pictures with the quilt still on the frame.
Carol loves Civil War Reproduction Fabrics and made this Double Four Patch Quilt using up leftovers from her stash. The allover quilting design we chose for her project is called “Lapis”.
Lisa pieced this “Panama Pyramids” quilt using leftovers from her stash and asked if it could be quilted with a Baptist Fan pattern. The original Baptist Fan would have to be done with rulers which would take a lot of time but luckily there are clever pantograph designers around who came up with several allover versions of this pattern. The one I used is simply called “Continuous Baptist Fan”, and it looks really nice on Lisa’s quilt.
This is another one of Penny’s projects, she made this quilt as a wedding gift for her son. She had seen a similar quilt on Pinterest and liked the quilting on it. The pattern wasn’t exactly the same, and I had to make some adjustments but it is still pretty close to the original. I even remembered to take a detail picture while the quilt was still on the frame.
Penny made this quilt from batik fabrics, and the colours reminded me of northern lights. I quilted it with a combination of swirls and feathers and a few leaves in the purple border.
I have been really slow in posting here lately, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. In the meantime I managed to finish another one of my personal projects. In 2016 the 365 Challenge Quilt was a big hit, and I started making the blocks in January, not knowing if I really wanted to make the whole quilt. But it sounded like fun, and I made a block a day for the first two months of the year. Then the blocks went into a box because we moved to a different house, and I unpacked them again a year later. I managed to make another month’s worth of blocks and then decided that I didn’t like the project. I was getting increasingly frustrated with the instructions, it was very obvious that the designer had just drawn up the quilt in EQ but never actually sewn it, and I ended up unpicking several blocks and redoing them my way. I gave up, and the blocks went back into a drawer.
Last November I signed up with this project for my guild’s UFO challenge. Giving myself this deadline was the only way I was ever going to finish this quilt, I was very close to just putting the blocks on the giveaway table at the next guild meeting. I put them together in a way that is close to the original design, and I still don’t like the quilt. Considering how long it took to assemble all those 3″ blocks and how small many of the pieces are, the layout just doesn’t do it justice in my opinion. The individual blocks just get lost in that dark border. Quilting the centre block was fun but I didn’t put too much effort into the pieced borders, the quilting wasn’t going to be very visible anyway. I picked a floral pantograph design and then just echoed around it. I actually prefer the back, I pieced leftover fabrics because I didn’t have enough of the floral batik and couldn’t get more. But it is finished, so I will stop complaining, and I will donate it to the guild’s We Care program next month.
Wendy made this quilt using the fabric line “Coney Island” by Fig Tree & Co. The bright summer colours and fabrics seemed to ask for a floral quilting pattern, and we chose the pantograph “Ginger Flower” for this quilt.
This beautiful quilt was made by Norma, isn’t it just stunning? Norma usually quilts all her projects on her domestic machine but she thought this one was too big for her to handle, and after spending hours and hours piecing it, she figured it deserved proper quilting, and I was delighted that she chose to ask me. She had already drafted most of the feather design for the background, I just added the centre part as it was too much space to be left unquilted and chose the design for the circles. We are both very happy with the way it turned out, and I also love how the quilting looks on the back.
Sharon made this row quilt as a wedding gift, and I was delighted when she asked me for custom quilting. These are my favourite projects, I love the process of figuring out how to quilt and when it all comes together eventually. I wasn’t even planning on a star theme for this quilt but stars felt like an obvious choice to fill the centres of the Evening Stars in the top row, and I added arcs to the background, forming the Orange Peel/Cathedral Window design, and then it all fell into the place. I added a little free motion quilting and crosshatching, and I am very pleased with the result.
