feathered star finish

I finished my faux feathered star.  I found this pattern at the Houston Festival last November and just loved it.  It is raw-edge appliqued.  And then you have lots of space for quilting!

I did tiny pebbles in the first white space...  Then a basket weave around the feather vine.

The border has a free-hand drawn feather vine and a quilted feathered star. This quilt is 30" x 30"

And if you cut carefully, you will have extra pieces to make little wallhangings, potholders, whatevers.... Yes, it took a while to cut this, but doesn't everything worthwhile take some time and effort?

Here's the pattern:Linda Everhart patterns

I missed one beautiful quilt from the Dallas Quilt show yesterday.  

This is "Red Roses for Roberta" by Bobbie Ashley of Pittsburg, TX (formerly of San Antonio)

 There are beautiful little cameos in those circles in the border and on the vase.

Look at the innovative edging and binding...  

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."  Vince Lombardi

Hope you get some time to create today, Karen

Dallas Quilt Show Highlights

Hi, I have been so busy this week.  So now I need to show you what I've been up to.  I entered a few quilts in the Dallas Quilt Show that was this last weekend.   There were some amazing quilts in this show as you will soon see.  But first, lookie lookie...

My Aqua Babes quilt took home an honorable mention in the Quilt Show Theme category, which was funny quilts.

This quilt of my grandson, Alex called Swingin' also got an honorable mention.  This is the first outing for this quilt, glad to see it got a ribbon.

Isn't this quilt amazing?  This is "End of the Spin" by Melissa Sobotka of Richardson, TX.  She was inspired by a rack of old spools she saw in NY.  

"Mr T White Gloves at the Quilt Show" by Judy Kriehn.  This really fits the funny theme of the show, I giggled quite a bit while looking at this one.  It had lots of real bling around his neck.  

This wallhanging was my absolute favorite of the whole show.  Called "Spilling Over" by Sharon Schlotzhauer, it is about the help and sympathy she got when she reported a lost quilt.  

And I just ogled over this silk wallhanging for a long time.  Debbie Geistweidt's "Where Adventures Begin" was inspired by her walks in a 100 acre wood.  

This is "Feathered Frenzy" made by my friend Vickie Owen and quilted by another friend, Karen Nanos.  It's a wonderful, perfectly pieced and quilted work. 

Vickie Owen won an honorable mention for "Stormy Weather" which was beautifully quilted by Danielle Wilkes.

Oh my, Jaynette Huff is such a wonderful quilter.  She lives in Conway, AR which is where my little sister also lives.  So I keep hoping this tenuous connection will rub off on me.  It's called "celtic Visions - Celtic Zoomorphs".  

Love the rock beads she sewed all around, and the hand stitched bias everywhere - wow!

Now for some quilts with inspirational quilting designs.  "Circles Around the Squares" made and quilted by Marie Mitchell.  

Don't you just love her quilting designs?  

Lynn McCartney made and quilted "Hummingbirds in My Garden".  The applique was stupendous, but her quilting was over the top.  

Look at the basket weave... and the tiny feather filler around the hummingbirds, whoa!

Really well done...

This is Good Fortune by Sharry Evans and quilted by Jackie Brown. Take a closer look...

I love it when quilters recreate the design in the quilting.  It is so effective!

This quilt is "Geese at Sunset" by Kathy Risinger and quilted by Dot Collins, another good friend of mine.  Sorry, I didn't get a close-up of Dot's wonderful quilting.  

Check out this tiny "Mini Baltimore Album" by Peggy Sympson.  I made my husband put his finger in the photo so you could get a true idea of the size of this amazing wallhanging.

How did she do this??  I think it is ruched silk ribbon.  And look at the hand quilting...  

 "One Cake, Two Cake, Red Cake, Blue Cake" by Linda Neal and quilted by Jackie Brown.  sorry the one above is blurry, but look at Jackie's quilting!! She also quilted "Good Fortune" above.  

The edge treatment is like confetti at a birthday party.  And the applique' is well-done... but the quilting is so creative.  

I love this one too.  

One more that I almost missed.  This is "A Labor of Art" by Sharon Schlotzhauer.  It is about the size of a piece of typing paper.  I've seen photos of this quilt, but I thought it was bed sized.  My husband was taking a break so I couldn't get him to do the finger thing, but you can use the ribbon to get the scope of the tiny quilt.  

It is painted and intricately quilted.  so beautiful...

I hope you enjoyed some of my favorites from this quilt show.  I better buckle down now and get to work on my own stuff.  I have to teach a beginner fmq class tomorrow.  Then next week I will be taking a class from Hollis Chatelain at Asilomar, woo hoo.  I will fill you in on my accomplishments (and failures) there.  

"People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."  Isaac Asimov

Get your butt up and do some quilting today, Karen

Alamo quilt is finished!

Well the Alamo quilt is finished and it is going on the auction block today.  I can't wait to see how much it goes for.  It was made by Linda and her daughters for a local charity auction with the proceeds going to St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

 I quilted it with a layer of cotton batting and a full layer of Dream wool on top of the cotton. Honestly, I probably won't do that again, the full layer of wool made the quilt nice and puffy, but it was wont to pucker.  I had to fight it to make it smooth.  In future, I will use half a layer of wool as that adds the puffiness, but isn't so thick.

 I quilted this on my Bernina 153, an older model that is my workhorse.  The Powerquilter was being repaired after I overtightened the tension knob.

Here is the quilt after it was blocked.  To block it, I put it in the washer on rinse and spin - I know scary!!  But I needed to rinse off the pounce and blue line marker.  Then I pinned it to my design wall (wet) and stretched it using a tape measure to make it square, pinning as I stretched.  I put a fan on it and let it blow overnight.  The next morning I unpinned it and it was flat and square.   

On those black triangles, I couldn't decide on feathers or curved cross-hatching (I mean, I really lost sleep over this decision), so finally I did both!  It is quilted with a variegated thread to really show up.  And I love the cobblestones... I used a technique from this tutorial: The inbox Jaunt

I also used a version of the bricks to make the rounded rocks on the Alamo.

I did make that lasso around the boot; I drew it freehand and did some rope quilting on the lasso. 

 And then I used my new ruler Linda Mae's rays to make the spiral rays.  This same ruler made the straight rays on the Alamo.  I love this ruler.  I had to use it for marking, but I have a ruler foot on order for my Powerquilter that will allow me to use this ruler like a longarm quilter would.  Hopefully....

Here is a photo of the barb wire fence along the border using a stencil that I have had forever and never used.  It was tricky, lots of backtracking, but I love the look.  

Here I am on the left with my shortie friend Linda (just kidding Linda :)

I think she was very pleased, especially since I bound it for her too.  

I hope you get to do some quilting this weekend.  Remember, 

"A day patched with quilting seldom unravels."  Karen