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!

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!

Mary's Death by Half Square

A lot has happened in a week.  A lot of quilting that is!

Here is Mary's quilt, she is calling it Death by Half Square.  I love that name, when you see how many little pieces are in this quilt you'll understand a little better.  Also, I know what happened the day Mary was rushing to finish this quilt to bring to me.  She almost sliced off her finger.  Almost... whew!

So here is the quilt before any quilting... wow right?  This was the 2009 Block of the Month for the Quilt Show, called Stars for a New Day, designed by Sue Garman.  I did not know this, a wonderful facebook friend let me know all the details, including the fact that the pattern is available at Quakertown Quilts.

So... that's a lot of pieces right?  And in all that piecing one of the borders had a tiny little booboo.  No worries, after a couple of quick emails with Mary I fixed it.  I couldn't possibly leave a little mistake, especially since it only took less than a hour to fix.

Then came the ditch work... ehhh... not my favorite thing, but totally necessary on this quilt.

Two days later ditch work was done and I was ready to quilt!  Not sure if it was two full days, or two ADD days, but it was two calendar days, that's for sure!

And about a week later it was finally finished!  What a beautiful quilt.  Thank you Mary for allowing me to stitch on this beauty!  Here's the full view, some details (look at that fabulous Glide thread), and of course, a peek at the back!

 

See... I told you a whole lot of stitching was going on last week!

Pink and Circles

Two quilts to share, and they are both pink and they both have circles -- crazy weird!

First is Kathy's circle quilt.  This is for her newly adopted grand daughter -- isn't is just the cutest!

 

And then Rosemarie's Circle of Life quilt, also for her grand daughter - super cute!

Til next time, happy quilting!

A couple weeks late and several brain cells shy!

Wow, I thought I had only missed a week of quilts to post... wrong!  I have almost three weeks of work to catch up on.  Yep, guess I'm a slacker or lacking brain cells - not sure, either way gotta take the good with the bad!

So, lets go back in time to Pat's applique quilt.  Super, super, cute.  I don't know the name/maker of the pattern, sorry guys.

Then I worked on this enormous t-shirt quilt with huge borders, but it sure turned out cute!

Then on to Joan's ironwork quilt -- again, I am lacking for the pattern name/maker, sorry.

Betty made a fantastic rail fence - great colors!

And then Jan (one of my favorite snowbirds) had left me three of her quilts before she heard up North.
The scarecrow quilt (I just love this one):

She had inherited some antique stars.  She appliqued them to muslin and added some borders.  All I had to do was keep it somewhat traditional:

And then, one of her super cute Peter Rabbit quilts:

 And that's it until next time!  Happy Quilting peeps!