A Holiday Project

As I tend not to quilt during January while the kids are home on summer holidays, I decided I needed a summer project.  I have decided to see how I go with crocheting a throw and was lucky enough to be given the book "200 Crochet Blocks" by Jan Eaton for Christmas.  I have bought some organic cotton from Ecoyarns in lovely muted colours of cream, browns and greens.

I have completed four blocks so far and am pleased with the results.  The blocks I have finished are:

No. 189 Willow

No. 94 Gothic Square

No. 47 Queen Anne's Lace

and No. 209 Marigold

With that, I am going to be signing off for a while to enjoy our summer break with family.   I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and that 2010 may bring health and happiness.

I will see you back in 2010 to hopefully share many more beautiful quilts.

Best wishes,

Karen

A Rouenneries Wedding Quilt

My friend Penny has just made a beautiful quilt to be gifted as a wedding quilt early in the new year.  The quilt has been made mainly from the Moda Rouenneries by French General range of fabrics.  The Rouenneries range is a lovely collection of printed cottons and woven stripes.  Rouenneries were the cotton prints printed in Rouen, France during the mid-18th Century.  The inspiration for these designs were based on a collection of old prints and stripes from this era in shades of reds, naturals and chocolate browns.  Penny has certainly managed to put these fabrics together to make a stunning quilt - I particularly love the reds in this quilt.

As Penny wanted a quilting design which was not too feminine and floral, I have again used the Gothic Vine design which draws your eye around the quilt.

The Rouenneries range has some beautiful solid fabrics in the range and I love the way the quilting stands out on these fabrics.

This was the last quilt I had to complete before Christmas - I am sure it will be well received by the bride and groom.

I will be taking a break from quilting for customers over the holidays but will hopefully get to do some of my own quilting.

A Birthday Quilt

I love the stories behind quilts - every quilt seems to have a lovely story either about the maker, the recipient or the reason the quilt is made.  The story behind Liz's quilt appeals to me in particular.  Liz has just celebrated her own 40th Birthday - to celebrate her 40th Birthday and to honour and thank her mother on having reached this significant birthday, she has made a special quilt for her mum.

Liz's mother loves green - this beautiful quilt should therefore appeal to her.  While many of the fabrics in the quilt were new, some fabrics which have been in the family for a long time have also been incorporated in the quilt.  This quilt was rather large and I could not manage to get a photo of the whole quilt.

I quilted Liz's quilt with an all-over design called plumage.  Here are some close-ups of some of the lovely fabrics included and the quilting detail which has added great texture to the quilt.

I hope you have celebrated a wonderful 40th Birthday Liz and that your Mum loves her new quilt.

Hand Pieced Inchie Quilt

Being more of a machine piecer myself, I am always impressed by the skill and amazed at the patience of hand piecers.  As the name of the quilt suggests, this quilt is made up of 1 inch squares all of which have been hand pieced by my customer Charmaine.

This little quilt was a delight to quilt.  To make the printed squares pop up, I have quilted continuous curves around the cream background squares.  I love the circular effect this has created around the printed squares.

Here is a close-up of the sashing and the border.

I believe Charmaine has made a beautiful little quilt.  She picked it up today and tells me she has another just like it under way - hand piecing must be rather addictive!

Blue Daze Quilt

I have just had the pleasure of quilting this beautiful Blue Daze Quilt for Kate from One Flew Over.  The quilt is for her son, Alfie and is a result of the Around The Block quilting bee - both Kate and all the girls involved have done a fantastic job.  Kate has kindly allowed me to blog about her quilt before she has even seen it - I hope you like it Kate.

Kate chose the Waterworld quilting design, having seen it on this little quilt.  The quilting design has added great texture and movement through the quilt.  Here are some close-ups of the quilting and the fabulous blocks.

There is so much little detail in each of the blocks - they really are lots of fun.

As there were more blocks than Kate was able to use in the front, some of the blocks have been used to make a great quilt back.  As a machine quilter, I must admit I love the quilting on that expanse of white fabric on the back.

 

I hope Alfie gets many years of use out of his new quilt - enjoy!

Quilt Whisperer 101

I have been taking part in an online machine quilting course called "Quilt Whisperer 101" which is organised through MQ Resource with the teacher being Carla Barrett of Feathered Fibers.  Carla is an amazing quilter and I had been following her blog for quite a while.  The class taught the technique of "quilt whispering" or reading a quilt.  It is a design class, taught over three weeks, which gives you an understanding of how a quilt needs to be quilted.  The class also taught a large number of quilting designs.  Part of the class involved uploading photos of your creative exercises which were then shared through a forum - it was amazing and very inspirational to see everyone's work.  Also included were a number of videos which were great to watch.

The class included a number of fabulous creative exercises.  I learned the joy of drawing quilting designs with a white gel pen on black paper.  The result is beautiful and is a great reference to show customers.  Here is one of my samples:-

The next creative exercise was to quilt out some of the drawn designs onto black fabric with a contrasting thread.  Quilting with contrasting thread is usually out of my comfort zone but I was very excited with the results.

If I were to quilt these designs onto a quilt I would probably just choose a couple of different elements.  However, I had a great time quilting this little sample and practicing a wide range of designs.

I would highly recommend the Quilt Whisperer 101 Class to all quilters - it is a design class not specifically for longarm machine quilters.  Quilt Whisperer 101 is being run again in January 2010 - I loved it!