Cathy's Folk Flower

After a week of storms, as well as UPS losing one of my competition pieces, I have finally managed to finish Cathy's Folk Flower quilt.  It is a super cute one!  Sorry, the photos aren't the best, no outside pics -- remember, rain.

Detail pic:

And a peek at the back:

I share the process of this client piece on my Patreon account - if you're curious, here's a little clip of the travel path - just some of the things you can expect when you subscribe:

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!

PSLCQ 2012 Raffle Quilt

"Bed of Roses" our remake of the Moss Rose Quilt (1853 Susan Black Stayman). Hand applique by Marian M., Pat N., and Muriel K., trapunto and machine quilting by me, Karen Marchetti. The original quilt is part of the Spencer Collection at the Spencer Museum of Art (University of Kansas). There is also a wonderful write up on Barbara Brackman's blog. If you get a chance, check out these sites, both full of wonderful information!

Originally I had planned on quilting it very similar to the original... until, yep, you guessed, a 3 am wake up to an awesome idea. Apparently I was quilt dreaming - happens way more than I'd like to admit. But sometimes a great idea and a great quilt come together and voilà... beauty is born.

After two weeks of marking, snipping away trapunto batt, quilting, unmarking, aka *working*, this beauty, the PSLCQ Raffle Quilt is quilted! And, let me tell you, it is a beauty! The bad part, tickets are not yet available... I know, I know! As I've mentioned on facebook, I will let everyone know when tickets are available, and will provide all the information on how to go about purchasing them. Until then, here is a picture of the awesome quilt:

Here are some detail photos:

The raffle isn't until our next show, which is February 2012, for more information on PSLCQ and also information about the show, check out their website: http://www.pslcrazyquilters.com/

Catch up...

I have once again fallen behind on my posts, not far behind, but I forgot to post a few things, so this is going to be a super-quick show and tell (unless you read really slow)....

Mary's "Don't Look Now" (pattern by Lilly Pilly):

Donna's antique quilt -- it was her husbands grandmothers and she thinks it is from the 1920's:

Billy's "Home Tweet Home" (McKenna Ryan pattern), along with some extra blocks:

That sums it up, I think! Anyway, tomorrow is Mother's Day -- wishing you all a wonderful day!

My son thinks I'm amazing...

really, those were his exact words -- "Mom, you are amazing!" No, not because of my awesome parenting skills, not because I handed him money or car keys, but because he finally watched me quilt. No, he didn't stand next to me while at the Gammill, he sat at the computer and watched me quilt on my newly uploaded video. I thought it was grainy so I asked him to watch -- he told me I was amazing and he could not believe how accurate and precise I was. The entire time I'm laughing because he is in the house alot when I'm quilting, he has stood at the end of the machine and watched from afar. It wasn't until he saw the birds-eye-view that he realized I'm a really good machine quilter. Just had to share this!

Anyway, here is the video, it is on my YouTube channel KarMarchetti

MQX East 2011

how I wish I were there!! For those that don't know -- MQX is Machine Quilters Expo. A fantastic show for quilters, one I am hoping to attend soon, possibly next year. MQX East is one of the largest machine quilting shows and is currently held in Providence, RI. Here is a link to the Winners. A super BIG congratulations to all of the winners -- I've seen pictures of some of these quilts and they are truly awesome! Very well-deserved ribbons! Oliver somehow managed to attend (without me). He was part of a Special Exhibit entitled Pretty as a Picture, Quilts Inspired by Photographs. You may remember me talking about that in a previous post, if not, click here. I must thank Linda Thielfoldt (the Quited Goose) for snapping a picture of Oliver for me. To my surprise, there is a ribbon on him. I do not know what the ribbons is for, so I'm patiently (not) waiting for his return home so I can see! Here is the picture:

the Cowboy Quilt

I do believe this is one of those quilts that has been forever in the making!

Jan has been one of my customers for many years. Every year she tells me she's found more cowboy fabrics and she's "working" on the quilt. I'm sure she has been collecting for at least all of those years, if not more because I've been hearing about this famous cowboy quilt since the day I met her. She finally finished it, and I had a great time quilting it.

Jan is just so talented and she never ceases to amaze me with her layouts, here are some pictures:

The quilt turned out super cute, and guess what?... Jan had enough fabric that she made a second cowboy quilt! It's amazing what you can make when you stop collecting fabric long enough to sew some of it together! LOL

Cold, Comfort, Dolls, and African Women ???

What a week (um, or more like week-and-a-half)-- still trying to conquer this lingering cold which won't give up - my voice is stuck in scratchy-crackle world, but I'm managing and shouldn't be complaining. On top of the never-ending cold, I finished a quick but super special appliqued quilt. My sister called me and told me that her best friend was just diagnosed with breast cancer and would need chemo. I immediately thought she would need a comfort quilt and got busy...

Needless to say, Linda was thrilled, crying, wordless, but full of heartfelt thanks. Here is Linda opening her quilt...

Okay, now back to work (the customer/bill-paying kind). I managed to finish up two quilts for Jan -- first her super-adorable paper dolls quilt:

And also, her African women quilt:

Junk in my Trunk... Quilts that is!

Saturday, March 19, 2011 is National Quilting Day and to celebrate this, the JaM Patch is featuring Quilting Stars in Our Backyard. Apparently I'm a star and I just happen to live in their backyard -- isn't that so cool!

Make sure that you're there at 2:00pm as I'll be giving a trunk show featuring none other than "Oliver", "Clouds in My Latte" (my latest competition quilt), and many more of my quilts - both show and everyday. I'll even be bringing a couple of customer quilts that are just absolutely amazing. On top of all that I'll be bringing multiple samples, just small pieces of fabric that I use to play with new stitches and try out new threads. The best part is that it will be an open forum -- questions and talking are not only welcomed, but are appreciated -- we all learn from each other!

Don't forget to save the date -- Saturday, March 19, 2011 - 2:00 pm at the JaM Patch, 932 SE Central Parkway, Stuart, FL 34997

HOPE TO SEE YOU!!!

Oliver's travels...

Oliver is once again going to be travelling. For those of you who will be attending MQX (Machine Quilters Expo) in Providence, Rhode Island, make sure you take a peek at the Special Exhibit entitled Pretty as a Picture, Quilts Inspired by Photographs. Because while you're walking around and looking you'll be able to see Oliver, along with his classmate Park Ling. Park Ling is owned by Pat Parker, a very dear friend who was also in the week-long retreat with Sharon Schamber, he was painted and appliqued in the same manner as Oliver. It was my honor to do the thread play and quilting on Park Ling.

OLIVER - inspiration photo and quilt:

PARK LING - inspiration photo and quilt:

So make sure you visit MQX in April and send pics if you can as I will be unable to attend {pouting}. You can visit the MQX website here, the show is April 11-16, 2011. Hopefully the boys (Oliver & Park Ling) won't be getting into too much trouble while they're away!

the name... FINALLY!

Quilt with no name has been quilted and finally has a name! Yes, those that follow on facebook already know all about it, but for all my wonderful blogger fans -- quilt with no name is now "Clouds in My Latte".

It was sort of an aha moment. I had been going back and forth with all the suggestions you guys came up with. I had it narrowed down to a strange combination of a few of them, but it was working for me (in case you don't know, I'm sort of strange too). Well, I was standing there cutting my binding, ipod playing in my ears, when Carly Simon's "You're so Vain" came on. I'm cutting away, singing along and BAM... it hit me. Yep, just like that! The fabrics were called Vanilla Latte and as I was singing "...clouds in my coffee" it just seemed to fit; and no, I do not sing nearly as well as I quilt so don't ever ask me to reenact the moment!

Here she is, in all her beauty:

I would once again like to thank everyone for all the name suggestions -- you are some really good namers! I am sure I'll be tapping into those naming abilities again one day - THANKS!