Friday Quilt Fun

Nancy's quilt for her daughter

It's been a little busy around here lately. Not just with the quilting but I have become a grandmother for the first time. Right after Thanksgiving my daughter Jen had a baby girl, Aria Karen. She is the cutest thing ever, but aren't they all. Thankfully she lives just 25 minutes away so I get to visit as much as I can find time to.


Now, back to business, I did end up finishing the quilt that I got the t-shirts for in the previous blog. I finished it in just enough time to ship out to be delivered right before Christmas. T-shirt quilts are so great!  What else are you going to do with those old t-shirts that you are not going to wear anymore and don't want to throw away.


 

Friday Quilt Fun

It must have been t-shirt quilt week this week.  Two customers brought in their own t-shirt quilts to quilt, we quilted two for a customer and we also just got a box full of t-shirts to make one.

They make wonderful presents!

This is a picture of the box of t-shirts we just received.

What great colors in these shirts we just got in.  Can't wait to start on it!

Thought you might like seeing some of the quilts that have been quilted by some of our customers.  This was a perfect, quick, baby quilt!

I just loved this disappearing nine patch done with Christmas fabrics.

What a great present for someone!

It is our hope to try and take more pictures of some of the great quilts that come through our studio on a weekly basis. We thought it might be nice to give everyone a little more insight into some of the things that are going on in our studio from week to week.

Free Time To Quilt

Just finished quilting a small holiday wall hanging. It's a UFO no longer!!!

I knew it was a small piece, and figured the quilting wouldn't take very long, especially on our longarm. And, for once I was right! The only tricky part was carving out a block of time to use the Millenium, and what fun I had!

 Love the swirls and bubbles! Even some holly in the red corners, though it's tough to see in these photos. Free to quilt the way I wanted, and it was done in a jiffy!

Keep Quilting!

Dora

Raffle Quilt Is A Beauty!

We belong to several local quilt guilds and volunteered to head up the committee to make the raffle quilt for the Silver City Quilt Guild's next quilt show which is in September, 2015. It's was a bigger time commitment than we expected, but are happy to donate our time to this wonderful group of quilters.

Closeup showing some of the feather quilting motifs done throughout the quilt

The guild has close to 100 members, so we wanted to design a quilt with lots of blocks, so everyone could participate, and have a color scheme and design that appealed to a large audience, so we'd sell lots of tickets!
Guild member participation was great! How'd we get so many involved? Here's the key: we put together kits which included pre-cut strips and squares for the triangles, as well as instructions on how to make the block.

Closeup of light section showing feather quilting

Everyone did a wonderful job making their block; we had very little trouble putting the top together- it fit very well, no real wonky blocks or rows not lining up! I think it's mostly because of the pre-cut kits; by keeping the cutting consistent, there was much less room for variations in size.

Closeup showing free motion filler  motifs  and some feathering

Next we loaded it on our APQS Millie and spent the summer quilting it! That's me doing all the ditch work around the triangles as well as the small filler motifs.

Dora staying cool on the longarm

Here's the completed quilt-it's a big one-measuring 100" x 100"--Wow!!
Tickets anyone???????? 

Pineapple Log Cabin Quilt-2015 Raffle Quilt for Silver City Quilt Guild-Raynham, MA

Love the finished quilt-hope you do too!!

~~Dora~~

Home From Quilt Market!

Our box arrived from Quilt Market on Friday! We did a little buying of this and that, and 45 pounds later, we were shipping it home. Turned out to be so much easier than lugging it through the airport!

Can't wait to play with the fun fabrics we bought. The plan for this trip was to focus on expanding our pattern design business, and we're very excited to get going! I think our new purchases will help!

Got to visit with our friend Linda Baxter Lasco, at the AQS  booth and got a peak at her new book, "Red, White and Quilted".  Perfect timing for the featured Red & White Quilt exhibit at the show, hanging here-she has 5 of her own red & white quilts hanging-fabulous!

We took tons of classes during the Schoolhouse Series-the day was filled with information in all areas of the business. Here's a a shot of a class with Angela Walters talking about quilts by various designers in a new book:

Had a great business meeting with our new friend Morna McEver Golletz from ICAP. Her VIP Marketing Session was insightful, and inspiring! Our time flew by, but was packed with great information to help us focus and get moving.

Look at this! We even met some quilting celebrities-Mark Lipinski, looking wonderful and funny as ever, and Jenny Doan, from Missouri Star Quilt Co, who was just passing by!

And got a Sneak Peek of the quilts in the show, including my own Mint Chocolate Chip quilt hanging in the "In the American Tradition" exhibit. A thrilling moment for me!

Exhausting trip, but we are energized!

Cool quilting this week

Look what I get to work on! It may be close to 90 degrees outside, but I'm keeping cool at the studio-A/C's cranking and I get to do some custom quilting on this gorgeous, frosty looking quilt. The quilt top was made by one of our Longarm Renters, Sarah, who wanted more of a custom job than she was ready to do herself, so she brought it to us. She made it from the Judy Niemeyer paper piecing pattern called " Mariner's Compass".

What a great job she did on the top-LOVE the cool colors-stunning!

It's gonna take a bit of time to quilt this beauty, mostly because of all the points-so much ditching to do!

All loaded on the Millie and ready to go! Starting on the ditch-work, but definitely a slow process.

This curly filler should do nicely in these light blue background areas. Like it so far! Will post more pictures when I make more progress. Stay cool everyone!

Grand Central Terminal Quilts on display in NYC

Honorable Mention, "Mercury's Concourse", by Fran VanEnron, Fort Collins, CO

I have the pleasure of traveling to New York City several times a year. It's always interesting with so many sites, restaurants, shopping, etc. but this past weekend I had a quite a treat because I was able to see a special quilt exhibit. I know- quits in NYC- who knew?

Well right in Grand Central Terminal, there is a special exhibit of 30 quilts celebrating the centennial of the train station, which was last year, 2013. The City Quilter, a wonderful quilt shop in Manhattan partnered with American Patchwork Quilting to sponsor a national quilt challenge to celebrate this centennial and the quilts on display were the winners and finalists. What fun! 

For more information on the exhibit, as well as details of the contest and challenge, here's a link to their website: http://www.grandcentralterminal.com/event/grand-central-centennial-quilts/2145433659.

If you're planning on going to NYC, the exhibit is there till 7/6. Not to be missed!

Here are some of the quilts on display; congratulations to all the quilters! So glad I got to get a quilt fix even in the city!

Grand Prize, "Time Flies But We Take The Train" by Amy Krasnansky, Baltimore, MD 

First Prize, "Grand Central Terminal Mandala" by Ligaya Siachongco, Woodside, NY

Second Prize, "Chasms 16: Under the Stars" by Beth Carney, Yonkers, NY

Honorable Mention, "Frank's Daily Commute" by Julie Quigley, Brookfield, WI

Finalist, "Happy Birthday" by Sheva Farkas, Silver Spring, MD

You Can Quilt It

Our machines have been humming lately with our local quilters coming in to rent time and quilt up their quilts. Fall is usually pretty busy in the studio as people get back in to their quilting projects and try to finish them up for the holidays. Because of our Longarm Rental Program, and all the renters who come in, it's like a quilt show every week, so we thought we'd share some of them with you. Enjoy!



Diana having fun using our saddle stool to quilt a Pantograph

Anne's Rainbow Quilt-Love the bright colors!

Ann's Earthtone Quilt-So Soothing!

Mary Ellen's Bold Quilt

Sally's Wonderful Landscape Quilt

Marine's quilt

Dora and I have been fortunate to have been asked to make some very different and meaningful t-shirt quilts over the past few years.  One of our latest quilts was for a Marine. He asked us to make a wall hanging out of a few of his shirts.

We not only made the front out of his shirts but we used a sleeve as the hanging sleeve and also put a couple of his pockets on the back.  This may not have been the largest quilt we ever made but it was one of the most meaningful.

Mint Chocolate Chip Quilt Is A Winner!

Wow! I guess all the hard work was worth it! My Mint Chocolate Chip Quilt won three ribbons at the Silver City Quilt Guild Show this past weekend! 1st Place Ribbon in the Large Bed Category, Judge's Choice, and Best of Show-Guild Choice.
I am gushing for sure, because I really wasn't going for a ribbon at all and look what happened! Just wanted to quilt this quilt for myself and use some designs I had been aching to try.
Although I was under a deadline to be done for the judging, I really enjoyed doing the quilting and love how it looks, now that it's done. The full size picture doesn't really show off all the quilting unfortunately.

So here are some more closeups that show the texture and quilting better. Enjoy!

Probably my favorite blocks are these light squares. Each one is a little different, but love the effect!

This shot shows some of the texture of the quilting. Love the circular swirls!

Each block was quilted with a specific design.

The sashing was quilted using a piano key type motif accented with pebbles.

The dark green border was done using a ruler from Deloa Jones-Rope- A-Dope. Fun to use!

Fun feathers in the dark brown squares, with more pebbling in the centers, plus a closeup of some of the border and sashing quilting.

Great closeup of the border quilting. Love how this came out!

Summer Quilting Project is Done!

Completed Grasshopper Quilt draped over my couch after surviving a long day at the judging for the SCQG quilt show

Finally finished the Grasshopper Quilt!! Progress seemed to be slow at first, and I wasn't sure I'd have the quilt finished for the upcoming show on 9/21, never mind the judging which just took place on 9/14.  But after an exhausting 6 weeks, the quilt is finished and we survived the judging!

So when you ask "What did you do this past summer?" For me, it's basically been this one thing for the last 6 weeks: Quilting the Grasshopper Quilt with a deadline fast approaching. So the lesson I've learned, finally, is not to enter a quilt in to a show unless it is totally completed. I've really got it now!! Not doing that ever again!! I really didn't know what I was getting myself into! Doing such detail quilting REALLY takes a lot of time!

Lots of things have been put on hold, and my very understanding business partner, Mary Ann, has been picking up the slack big-time! So a huge thank you to her, and of course, I will return the favor whenever she needs me! We have a very close and wonderful friendship, and it makes going to our studio such fun every day! My wonderful husband has also been very understanding and supportive and I love him the more for it!

Okay, venting over, here are some pictures-enjoy!

For the large brown center squares, I chose a funky feather motif with pebbles in the spine (kinda reminds me of a caterpillar a little bit, but no worries!). The feather is diagonal in the square, so the orientation of the feathers changes depending on which side of the quilt the block is on. Together, the feathers in these large brown squares form a  secondary diamond in the center of the quilt due to this tilting.

Funky feather design in large brown block on left side of quilt

For the large light green centers, I chose to do a variety of background fills separated by curved lines. Each block on the quilt is a little different, but these were the most fun to do!

 

 You can also see the marking I had to do to get the piano key lines in the sashing spaced correctly. Probably the most tedious quilting on this quilt because every seam had to be ditched first, then marked, then stitched before I got to the fun quilting in the block centers.

 As you can see, all the blocks with the small brown and light green centers were quilted with a swirl design in the dark green area. This looks so cool-better than I expected again!

All the light green centers have pebbles, and the dark brown centers have curved crosshatching. 

 In both cases, the thread highly contrasts with the fabric-it's much lighter than the dark brown, and much darker than the light green--still the same thread though! And, it's basically the same color as the dark green, so it's shows up as tone-on tone quilting in the swirls. Awesome effect!

Will post more pictures of the entire quilt after I get it back to the studio this week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dora