Working on Many Things.....

When I start getting inquiries asking if I have dropped off the face of the earth, I know it's time to leave the sewing machine and get back to the computer! Here's some notes on what I've been working on; fortunately, I did use the camera throughout so I can show you that my time has not been misspent!

Most of February was consumed by the machine quilting of two quilts, both of which were quite involved and took a lot of time.


Without giving away any spoilers, these pictures are of a quilt for Alex Anderson which will be featured in an upcoming issue of The Quilt Life.

Some detail quilting on the left and the pretty Sulky rayon #1117 Mauve used to stitch it.

The feather quilting was done with Pastel Peach #1017. The thread showed up beautifully on the white background fabric and really highlighted the quilting.

At left is the pale peach rayon top thread and the Mettler 100% cotton silk finish in #608 that I used in the bobbin throughout the quilt.

The cables in the border were quilted with Sulky rayon in Peach #1019.

The rest of February and a bit of early March were spent in front of my machine, quilting Dawna Harrison's Floral Visions quilt.

All safety pinned and ready to go....nine machine embroidered blocks plus the piecing that framed them. I hadn't worked on a machine embroidered quilt before and it is an interesting process working with the extra weight and definition. Learned a lot on the journey...

Each bit of embroidery was stitched just off the edge with clear monofilament thread. This defines the embroidery and provides the stitch density to help the quilt hang straight when it is finished.


The threads used for various parts of the quilt: I used Mettler 100% cotton Silk Finish thread in a soft white #887 in the bobbin throughout. For the feather work within the blocks, Sulky rayon Soft White #1002 worked well; the pink Isacord was supplied by Dawna for the cables and feathers in the border.


Two of the blocks; I used the same feather design in all of the blocks except the center.

The center block had embroidery "spilling out" into neighboring areas. After defining the embroidery, a feather wreath was stitched into the center block and then it was background stitched with a chevron design radiating from the center to the edges of the expanded block.

Here's a peek at the quilting on the back....Dawna showed the quilt in the Ridgecrest show last weekend and also had it appraised; we are waiting for the valuation. It took me 25 hours to do the quilting on this.

Last week, I finally got back to my JAM projects for February that I never finished. The pink roses quilt is all pinned up and ready to quilt and here's a progress report on the Heart Squares quilt:


Top is pieced and appliqued except for the borders.

Here's a closeup of one of the appliqued blocks...

...and here are my chosen border fabrics. I'm going to make a border unit of a 2" finished inner border in the gold fabric and then the border stripe, which measures 8-3/8" finished. My goal is to get the borders on and mitered this weekend. Then I can pin this one along with a quilt that I want to get done for my friend Vicki Tymczyszyn, known to us spelling challenged individuals as Vicki T!

I'll keep you posted on those as well as sharing pictures from the Las Vegas Quilt Guild show that I attended last weekend....