Graduation Quilt

This quilt was made for one of my daughter's best friends, Kathleen, as a high school graduation gift.

Of course, I didn't have it done for her graduation party.....

but I promised it before she left for college.

 And I did complete it in time to keep my promise!

 She gave me several color palates that she liked and several quilt designs she liked and I got to pick and choose what I wanted to work with.

 So the end result would be a surprise for her

 And she seems to like it!

I was so glad she was pleased! 

She is one of the *sweetest* teenagers I have ever met! 

I hope she has an amazing first year of college! 

Iconic Texas Quilt

Again this year I got to receive the Quilt Across Texas shop hop fabric collection early and design and make our shop's quilt with it. It is sort of fun to have 10 bolts of fabric in your sewing room knowing people are impatiently waiting for it to hit the stores!

The quilt I made used the Stamp panel, each of the "houndstooth" Texas' and the postmark tan fabric from the collection. 

I call it the Iconic Texas quilt as it shows all the Texas icons I could think of somewhere on the fabrics. 

 I enjoyed playing with the quilting and I think it really enhanced the general look of the quilt quite a bit, "Quilting makes the quilt" was in evidence, to some degree, here.

 The challenging part about working with a panel is that everything you design has to revolve around the panel dimensions. I cut up the panel- putting the large section in the center,

and the smaller city stamps so they formed a frame around the center. I think it was pretty effective. Hopefully it will be well received at the shop!

Up at the lake

So we are enjoying a couple of weeks up at the lake:

Catching a peek at some local wildlife living under our dock,

and on our deck, this is Colonel Cheeks the Chipmunk and Cheyenne has no less than 30 pictures of him and all his cuteness.

Visiting with friends we rarely get to see because we live on different coasts

Trying new adventurous modes of transportation.

and overall, enjoying a cooler version of summer in the Adirondacks

And always on the look out for,

 the Loch Ness Monster of Lake Champlain

or any other oddities....

A deep commitment

This is the before picture for a customers quilt made to celebrate her 50th Wedding Anniversary:

Its a Judy Niemeyer pattern with its expansion pack making it queen size or better. Lots of paper piecing and the customer did a great job- it layed flat and was very well constructed!

Here is the after quilting picture:

Here are some detail shots:

Shot of the back: 

 Center medallion:

So I called this post "deep commitment" because the maker of course was celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary which is a deep commitment and it took me nearly 4 months of work to finish this quilt- another deep commitment! Lots of details to bring out in a quilt this intricate.

So that was why there was such a blogging dryspell!

More to come- soon!

Judy's Row-a-Month Quilt

Judy gave this lovely quilt top to me to quilt many months ago and patiently (oh so patiently!) waited for me to get it done! Thank you Judy for your patience and the opportunity to quilt it in whatever way moved me. It was lots of fun!

Here are all the rows in overall:

Snowmen for January- these will get little black gems for eyes:

Hearts for February ( you can see a peek of the kites for March below- I quilted that row to look like wind):

 

Kites were March and April had Bunnies with dimensional ears!

May flowers:

June Sailboats ( for some reason this row was my favorite):

 Judy is very active in making quilts for soldiers and their families so I went all out for the July blocks and did faux trapunto-- you can see the USA written in the white parts:

 August Watermelons:

 September Apples:

 October-Pumpkins:

 Turkeys and corn for November:

 Santas for December- I am sure these guys will get some embellishment too!

Here is a shot of the borders: 

This one was fun- at least 10 colors of thread, wool batting and something different to do in every row- It will be hard to top in the fun department! Thanks Judy! I hope you and your family really enjoy it. 

Noteworthy Day

Today was "noteworthy" because I played with three mini-charm packs from Moda's Noteworthy line and made a Midi Bag.  

These bags really whip together quick and easy. 

This one will be an adorable Easter basket for *someone* in our house this Easter!

AND... when I got home from work I had a package full of fat quarters from an online swap I participated in called "TEXT ME". Participants had to put in fat quarters that had words on them- You got back as many as you put in.

I got back a great variety as you can see- many I hadn't even seen before-- which is saying something since I kinda scope out fabric lines regularly while planning what we'll want to carry at the shop!

Thank you to Jessica for organizing the swap.

Now back to quilting.... 

Chocolate, Celery & Cream

No I am not pregnant! Chocolate, Celery and Cream are the colors in this beautiful quilt I had the pleasure of quilting for Mike.

It is a simple "hatchet" block but her setting and color choices make it really fantastic looking!

 Mike wanted something custom in the green areas of the quilt. This is what I came up with. 

It is a large quilt and will be a lovely gift!

Sorry I haven't been posting pics lately- 2013 got off to a racing start and I can't believe it is already the second half of February!