Goings on...

By the looks of my blog you'd think I fell off the earth.  No, still here, still breathing, just ignoring my responsibilities and not posting pictures!

Rita's Lovers Knot quilt - super cuteness!  Rita wanted lots of feathers... one of my favorite things to quilt!

Marilyn's baby quilt - more cuteness!  Just a simple whimsy feather really set off the quilt pattern.

Dianne's Bali Wedding Star  - beautiful!  Dianne also requested a feather or two - she used some fantastic fabrics.

Sally's "Stayin' Alive" quilt - a special quilt for Sally and lots of fun to stitch on!

Mary's Castle Quilt - super cute and loads of fun!

Overdue once again!

I feel like that is my norm anymore -- the day late-dollar short, continual catch-up routine.
Anyway, here is what's been happening in my world...

Carol V. had a couple of beauties that needed some quilting.  The first one is a super cute, super bright dresden:

Then a beautiful double wedding ring:

 

Then on to Carol G. -- she also had two quilts.

First a super cute hearts, hugs, and kisses quilt:

And then she had some fused applique flowers that needed some edging:

 

And then Lynn needed some thread play on a super cute panel:

And last, but certainly not least, another cutie by Ellen  for her grand daughter:

Don't forget to check my other blog for updates and posts about my personal stuff -- loads of things happening over there!

Celtic Knots and Autumn Leaves

Sometimes things happen for a reason...
well, more times than not!

A while back my friend and fellow longarmer, Natalie, called me telling me she had a quilt that I needed to do!  Okay, intrigued.... she texted me a picture.  Wow... my brain was already buzzing with ideas.  Then... it hit me, the due date.  Oh, I will squeeze it in, it was much too beautiful of a quilt to let slip through my fingers.  I don't have the original texted picture, but here's the first one I took of this beautiful quilt.  Oh, and it belongs to Kathy.  That's all her hand applique work, and it was stunning to say the least!

So real quick, before any ditch work and stabilizing stitching, let me play with at least one of these big open borders.

FUN, this quilt is going to be FUN!
Okay, getting ready to share a secret.  Here is my super-duper, fool-proof, you'd think I'm a rocket scientist border layout.  Mark the center of the quilt, then mark the center of each half, then mark the center of each quarter, and so on, and so on, until you have divided up the border space into however many sections you need.  Because no matter how good I am, I can't guess it to fit!

So then the stabilizing and ditch work begins... around every leaf, in all those ditches, and around all that beautiful celtic knot work -- and days went by.

 

Oh, and the best part of all this stabilizing... being able to see what's going on in the quilt and correct any wonkiness in borders before any quilting -- because no matter how well you piece, every now and then a wonky sneaks in and tries to ruffle your borders!

a little wonkiness

a pin or two to suck it up and balance it out

and voila, fixed that border!

And that's the magic of a good longarm quilter!  Yes, I know, tooting my own horn, but hey, it's my horn!

Okay, back to the beauty that is Kathy's quilt.

outer green border

inner green border

large yellow border

 center knot work

back detail

full photo of finished quilt

Well, I was thrilled with how this quilt turned out.  Kathy really seemed quite pleased as well when she picked it up.  I'm glad that Natalie thought this quilt was better suited toward my style of quilting.  Thanks Nat!  Thanks Kathy!

A week+ in review...

I just now realized that I haven't shared with you since Cathy's embroidered beauty.  That seems like forever ago, but in reality it was only just shy of two weeks!

Mary Lou's Embroidered wall hanging -- this was really before Cathy's quilt, it just never made it to the blog until now.

And the flash on the camera was having a moment... I don't know why it looks like this, but it does?!!  I have accepted that the camera is strange and moved on!

Then there was Lynn's table runner -- or so called two-sided wall hanging -- she wasn't sure.  It turned out amazingly awesome!

I tried to make the back look just as amazing as the front!  It always helps to have solid fabric for the backing, then the stitches just sing!

And then there was Paula's wall hanging - another great quilt!

Again, see how amazing solid backs look -- its almost like another quilt!

Super Secret #1

I'm sharing this here as well as my personal blog... just too much goodness to keep over there!
If you follow the other blog and/or facebook, you know I've been talking about Super Secret #1 and also Super Secret #2 -- well....

I can now share Super Secret #1
Back in the end of June I received an interesting email.  It was from Machine Quilting Unlimited, you know, the super-awesome machine quilting magazine!  If you don't know about this fantastic magazine, just click the link and go check them out.  It seems that while Clouds in My Latte was hanging at American Quilters Society's show in Paducah back in April, a couple of super nice ladies from MQU were checking it out -- the words "stopped us in our tracks" were used.

Holy crapola, gives me goosebumps just thinking about it!  To think that something I created had the ability to do that.  So I've been teasing and wanting to share with all of you, but didn't want to blurt it out until it actually happened, so.... now that the September/October issue has been printed, I can officially share!  Clouds in My Latte can be found on page 78 under the Noteworthy section.

Make sure you get your copy!

Cathy's Embroidery Quilt

It's been about two weeks since I loaded Cathy's quilt.  So let's rewind to the unquilted top... beautiful colors (purple Fairy Frost), beautiful embroideries (Hatched in Africa, I believe), all just waiting for my stitches!

This quilt was what I call a monsta' -- king size, 111 inches by 111 inches.  The original plan for this quilt had the sashing in a different color/fabric.  I am sooooooo glad that Cathy couldn't find a color that didn't detract from the embroideries.  Why?  Because once you change the sashing colors it kind of limits the quilting space -- at least this is how I feel.

So here come some awesome pictures of the quilting process:

And finally, the finished quilt:

And it is a crappy picture -- it does not do the quilt justice.  The quilt is longer than my ceilings are high, so this is the best I could do.  Cathy's Mom sure is a lucky lady, she can't wait to get the quilt... well, in between some shows!