Evy's quilt

I have a new one to show today.  This is for my niece Evelyn, who recently graduated high school and is starting college at Appalachian State in August.  I purchased this as a kit.  All of the applique is fused and machine stitched.

  

I used a layer of Mountain Mist cream rose and a half layer of wool to make a thin comfy quilt that still has a little puffiness for the quilting designs.  The thread is Glide.

Those radiating lines were made with a Gadget Gals ruler, Linda Mae's rays.  Love that ruler, I got the 12 inch one.

I used the border fabric as markings for the beadboard quilting.  I quilted a straight line in the center of the loop motif, then one a quarter inch away on each side.  I used my straight line ruler to do this with no marking!

The sashing design is from Kim Stotzenberg's Angel wings tutorial.  I love it!

I marked an inner frame design and filled it with curlicues which looks like lace to me.  I hope she loves it and that it looks good on that dorm bed!

Last week, I took a fun class at a new retreat house in McQueeny Texas, called The Queen's Rustic Retreat.  It was a lovely place and the hostess, Doris Rice is very sweet and we had a lovely time painting a barn quilt.  It is very simple, but will look great on my fence.  

It's about 2 feet wide.  I will spray it with a coat of varnish before I hang it up.  And I plan to make more of these - so fun...

I have a friend who is selling her Innova longarm and I think I want it.  I have tried many longarms, but really didn't think I wanted to go that route.  I have been fine doing my sitdown machine quilting.  However, this is my favorite part of the quiltmaking process - fun and intricate machine quilting.  I don't even make quilts that don't have open space for a quilting design, that doesn't appeal to me.  I love the extra dimension that quilting brings.  Soooo, maybe it's just the thing for me to expand to a longarm.  But it has to be a machine that I can do little tiny quilting designs with.  

So I have tried many different longarms and I had decided that the Innova is the one that will work best FOR ME.  I have watched Gina Perkes, Mary Olson and Renee Haddadin quilt on the Innova and I would love to be as proficient as these ladies.  I tried the Innova at two different quilt shows and decided that is the machine that I will get IF I ever get a longarm.

Last week, I looked at Longarm University to see if there were any used Innovas.  There was one, and it was about 5 miles away and owned by one of my guild acquaintances.  So I checked it out yesterday and after sleeping on it, I think I will get it.  So, I will be transitioning to a longarm in the next few months.  It's going to be a scary journey for me, but hopefully a fun one.  

funky chickens finish

Whew!  I finished another project.  I didn't make this quilt, it was a group quilt made by members at a retreat a few years ago.
The blocks were lost for a couple of years and everyone was looking for them, until they were finally found in the janitor's closet at the church we meet at.
So I was the lucky lady who volunteered to quilt it.  And it seemed like I should do it proud, so that was my goal.  Enjoy looking at close-ups.

If you want to own this quilt, come to our auction in September and bid on it!  There will be many other lovelies there also (almost 100 quilts).

Greater San Antonio Quilt Auction

I thought some funky feathers would outline these funky chickens well.  Each chicken block has chicken wire, a nest (with various fill designs) and a feather motif.

Hope you enjoy and I will post a photo of the whole quilt when I get the binding on.

Have a great day, Karen

wedding siggy quilt

I finished the wedding quilt for my niece.  I had a lot of fun quilting this.  It is about 60 inches square.  I used wool batting to make the quilting pop.  The thread is glide, white in the signature blocks and cloud (the color) in the feathered panels.  That silhouette is fused with Steam a Seam II lite.  

I have made a few of these signature quilts.  I made one for a friend who was dying of cancer.  She was the president of our Newcomers club.  So I took the quilt to all the functions and got so many signatures.  She kept it by her side into her last hours and her daughters draped the quilt over the podium at  her funeral because it meant so much to her.  

I also made one for a friend who was moving and brought blocks to the going-away party.  

I made this wedding quilt for another niece a few years ago:

Her wedding colors were black and white, so I had a lot of fun with those b&w prints.

Here are some close-ups of the side panels with the bride and grooms names, and surname on top.

and darn it, they all imported upside down again!!  But you get the picture I bet...

The center silhouette was found on a wedding cake site.  So cute.

I thought the subtle quilting of their names would draw in the quilt admirer.  

This bottom panel uses a quilting design that I saw on krista withers blog.  She is amazing, see how the feathers go through the wreath of feathers.  That was fun to do.  

Want to try a siggy quilt?:  Rachel at psiquilt has a great tutorial.  

I premarked my blocks with blue water erasable pen so that people would sign inside my quilted lines, and for the most part they did that.  I stood near the guest book at the reception and gave instructions.  But still.... some of them got away from me and signed outside the lines (what're you gonna do?)...  

I marked my blocks with a blue water erasable marker which gave me a little grief when I had to sew the blocks together and press.  I had to be very careful not to press the blue pen because it can heat set and not come out.  I have not ever had this happen, but I have heard of it happening to others.  

I used pigma pens - the .05 micron ones.  They made for a clear enough signature, but not too dark, and not too light (like the .01 micron).  They were green and blue pigma pens to match the quilt colors.  

I discouraged guests from writing anything but their names.  Just my pet peave, but in the b&w quilt above, some people got so carried away.  And what they wrote is on there permanently and can be quite inappropriate.  So I asked them to just put their names - mean huh?  They can write that stuff on a card....  this is a quilt, right?  

I hope you enjoyed this, maybe you would like to make a signature quilt for a gift?  

Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. Leo Buscaglia

Karen

Patience

I just got back from Paducah, KY where I attended the AQS show and many other exhibits and shops.  It was so inspiring.  I decided to reevaluate my quilt, "Christina", since it was not accepted into the Paducah show.  I hope to try again in other shows.  

Here is the background quilting that just never felt right.  I looked and looked for a better design and finally found one at Hobby Lobby in the wall stencil area.  

So with much "patience", I started ripping out those background designs.  It takes a long time...

Got one part done and couldn't wait to try my new motif...

Ahhhh, so much better!!   I will continue this design throughout the quilt.  I know I will be a lot happier with it.

Now to figure out how to make my borders better, hmmmm

Meanwhile, I have been fmq-ing my niece's wedding siggy quilt.  Almost finished. Here's a teaser:

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” 
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Metro rings finished!

I have been quilting this 100 x 106 inch monster for months!  Finally finished yesterday.  Wool batting and quilted on my Pfaff Powerquilter.  Whew, now I can start a new project, right?

Lots of feathers and curved cross-hatching.

The back fabric is that same dark turquoise for the front background.  My camera changed the color for some reason.  But here is the stitching on the back.

I used Glide thread on the front and Magna glide on the back.  I think in retrospect, I might use bottom line in the bobbin in the future on projects like this.  

Tutorial on how to make an embroidered binding

Hi, I am binding a quilt today and I took photos so I can share how I make an embroidered binding.

See what a nice touch this is on my quilt.  Totally adds another layer of bling and so easy to do!  It is not sewn through the binding afterwards - I embroidered the binding fabric before applying it to the quilt.

Embroidered Binding tutorial:

1.  Get your binding fabric and measure to see how many strips you will need to bind YOUR quilt.  

I use a 2 1/4 inch strips to make a double fold binding.  If you use a larger or smaller strip, adjust accordingly (it will be easy, you'll see).

2.  Mark a line 1 inch from the edge of the fabric.  This will allow you some room to embroider, so you won't be trying to embroider right on the edge of the fabric.  

3.  Next mark a line at 1/4 inch to the right of the first line. This 1/4 inch section will be in the seam allowance of your binding.  I use chalk or blue pen because these lines must go away later.

      I next marked another line 1/4 inch in. I later found this not to be necessary, but it gave me a barrier for my embroidery.  So really you just need one 1/4 inch line.  

4.  Next mark a line 2 1/4 inches away from the first line.  This will be your cutting line for your binding strip.  

5  Continue marking, first a 1/4 inch line from the cutting line (for seam allowance), then a 2 1/4 inch line from the cutting line.  Do this until you have the right amount of strips for your binding.  I needed 6 strips.  

 from the first line to the 4th line the measurement is your binding width - mine is 2 1/4 inches.  

6.  Now find a nice contrasting thread and choose a pretty embroidery design off of your machine.  I used my Viking Designer II and tried out several designs on a scrap of the binding fabric.  

These are pretty, but took too long and weren't the right feel for my quilt.  They also bunched up the fabric with all that back and forth on the design.  

Bunched up

Here is the design I went for, it was faster and delicate-looking for my quilt.

7.  Now I pinned some light stabilizer on the back, I used Stitch-and-Ditch-Paper-Stabilizer.   Later, this product ripped off easily although there were little pieces in the stitching that I left in.  So shoot me, there are lots of little bits of paper in my binding...

That is a picture of the paper on the back.

8.  Now be careful and stitch in the right place (otherwise you just wasted a bunch of time marking all this).  Stitch just to the right of the second line.  Your first line is your cutting line, the second line is for the seam allowance, and if you stitch to the right of that line it will be perfect.  

I put my foot right on the line.  I don't want to get any of my design in the seam allowance accidentally.  So stay right.  

9.  Now comes the monotonous part, stitching the design down the length of fabric 6 times (for my wallhanging).  I was at an exciting part of my audiobook, so it wasn't so bad. 

10.  Cut on the cutting line.  At first I used scissors thinking it would be hard to use a rotary cutter.  But after cutting two, I went to the rotary cutting mat and did just fine.  Remember the cutting line is the first line on the left, then there is another 1/4 inch line before your embroidery for a seam allowance.  Remove the bulk of your stabilizer now.  

11.  Stitch the binding strips on the diagonal into one long strip.

 Look how nicely they fit together.  

12.  Press the seams open and fold the whole binding in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, you know- how you always make a double fold binding...

13.  Stitch it to the front of your quilt with a 1/4 inch seam.  I like to use my walking foot, it is a quilt (right?) and sometimes you need an even feed when binding so you don't get uneven pulling on the layers of the quilt.  

Flip it over and press and VOILA!  Here is your embroidered binding, all pretty and looking like you took forever making that!!  

Bummer, now I have to hand stitch it to the back.  Maybe there's something good on TV, :)

have fun with this, Karen

post-retreat update

Just got back from a small quilting retreat.  7 of us in a lovely house in Wimberly, TX.  So much fun and so many projects!

I made this graffiti quilt for Melanie for her birthday.  These are fun to do!

I used variegated thread and a double batt of wool and cotton.

Sideways view of the cat portrait that I am working on.  This is my daughter's cat, Cosmo.  This piece is about 25 inches square.  I wanted to try a snippet technique similar to Danny Amazonas.

Here is the original photo of Cosmo.  I'm not sure why that other photo turned sideways, but I will put more photos on it when I finish it, maybe they will be right side up :)

  How about a fun portrait quilt called "Generations". It's made from the new book by Flora Joy, Trispective.  It was a little tricky to do, but it worked and her book is full of very good information!

So my portrait is in the middle, you can see it when looking straight at the quilt.  When you are on the left side you see my Mom, and when you look at it from the right, you see my daughter.

The trispective quilt had a some time-consuming photoshop work, then I sent it to spoonflower to print.  Then a lot of folding and tucking ensued.  But I love how it turned out.

This is a 14 inch block, paper-pieced, for our guild raffle quilt.  This took me a day and a half to make.  Whew!  That's precious retreat time.  But it turned out pretty.  

I got lots of inspiration from my friends at the retreat.  I was inspired to do better work, like taking the time to hand applique my Jinny Beyer Craftsy flower blocks.  Also, to be more precise while piecing - honestly some people are so picky!!  I was also inspired to do more projects for others.  I did make two more dog beds out of scraps though...  those go to the Humane Society.  

The way to stay inspired and motivated is by doing what you like, doing what you love.

Raphael Saadiq

Hope to get back to you sooner than later, Karen