Nancy's Quilt

Thought I would start the New Year off right by getting back to my blog! I was able to finish this little beauty today. 

It is comprised of all Stonehenge fabrics from Northcott and belongs to my friend Nancy from Quilters Crossing!

Since it is a simple block layout my idea was to disguise the blocks with an interesting quilting design in the negative space.  

Here is the before shot:

 Here is the after shot:

I think the quilting design makes your eye move over the quilt and enhances it. Making it look more intricate than a the straight grid setting that it is.  The straight grid setting is very clean and simple allowing for a lot of interesting combinations and quilt spaces. 

I played with several designs on paper before settling on this one.

 Close up details:

 Backside:

 backside details:

 Angled to see the texture created:

 Border designs on corners:

 Border design on front:

 Patchwork block details:

I used a layer of 80/20 underneath a layer of wool batting throughout the quilt. I thought the overall effect made it look like a fancy tiled floor. The stone design on the fabric enhances this too!

Thanks to Nancy for allowing me to quilt this for her!

 I really enjoyed it!

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.