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!

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!

Mary's Flower Pots

I should have been working on Mary's Castle quilt.  BUT, Mary shipped me another quilt and requested that I flip her old spot on the schedule for this quilt and her castle quilt would wait until the new spot.  Yep, I could do that!  I wish all requests were that easy!

So, instead of working on the castles, I got to work on flowers -- wild, crazy, beyond beautiful flowers.  The pattern is Flower Pots by Kim McLean.  If you're not familiar with her stuff, just google her name -- she does some interesting, funky, flowery patterns.  I've already been lucky enough to quilt several, but this is the first Flower Pots I have stitched on, and let me tell you, it was fun!

So here is Mary's quilt:

and some detail photos:

 and, the back -- this was some awesome backing fabric!

And, Mary was so excited to get her quilt she opened the box while in the post office.  Her email said that everyone was in awe and loved the quilt.  That's what I like to hear!

What's Old is New

A couple of months ago Sally called me in hopes that I could help her.  She had a quilt that was unfinished, started twenty plus years ago and she did not know how or what to do to finish it.

Usually these calls scare me (not like OMG shark scare, more like oh boy, what have I gotten myself into scare) because deep inside I really want to help, but when the brain hears those words the alarm sounds, DANGER, DANGER....  it knows almost immediately that it is going to be something trying, possibly extremely difficult, and well, unsure.  Well, this is not always the case, as Sally's quilt was almost entirely quilted, all that was required of me was to complete two full borders and two half borders, matching the hand quilting as best I could, and then to remove the basting stitches.  Okay, sounds easy enough.

Here's what was brought to me:

That is some crazy rolled-up binding huh?  I don't know the entire story of this quilt - whether the shop left them hanging instruction-wise on how to finish a quilt, whether they just didn't go back, or if that was just a guess on how to finish the edge.  Anyway, my work on this quilt just grew a bit, because there was no way I could or would leave that edge treatment.  I undid all those stitches and here is how much fabric and batting was rolled up in there, it was about 10-12 inches on all sides!

And there was some critter damaged from being stored so long, that need to be patched up so I appliqued a small piece of the backing to cover it.  Sorry about that, I took a picture of the critter damage, but not of the applique piece covering it (I know, dumb),

So after some careful stitching to match the hand stitches as close as possible and a few days worth of hand binding, here's what I accomplished:

and here is the amount of fabric and batting that is no longer rolled up in the binding -- that's a lot!

Sally came and picked up her "antique" quilt and was super pleased.  And I was pleased that I could help finished her quilt.  It waited a very long time to be born!

So just remember, if you find an old monstrosity of a quilt rolled up in the corner of an attic or way in the back of a closet and think it can't be helped - it most likely can!

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!