On My Machine

On my machine today... this super bright sampler quilt made by one of my long time customers. Nice cheery colors to brighten my day!

 
I almost always do piano keys in a busy border. They add texture without distracting from the print. The second border is like my favorite design to quilt!

I've off set these Enchanted feather wreaths by not quilting into the solid white strip of the log cabin blocks... I have a plan! LOL!

 

 

 

 

On The Machine Today (Faux Traputo)

On the machine today is a nice Storm at Sea...

 

My customer and I decided on a little Heavy Metal....  Some how I go my camera on some kind of filter when I took this pic.  I kind of like it.

 

My customer used some wonderful batik squares that we decided needed a little faux traputno.

So I thought I'd give you a little how to...  This is a great technique for areas that you want to stand out without adding any extra stitching.  Works especially well for photo transfer quilts.  

This method of faux trapunto uses a second layer of batting in the area that you want to have a little extra loft.

 The first thing I do is measure the square I want to trapunto.  These measured 4 and 1/4", so I decided to cut my batting squares at 4 and 1/2".  This assures that the batting will be stitched down when I do my stitch in the ditch...

 

 I use 505 spray adhesive to position my batting squares behind the batik squares...

 

I do all this before I load the quilt top on my machine.  Now all that is left to do is the quilting.  Depending on the batting you use, you may want a dense background fill around the trapunto to make it POP even more.  For this quilt I simply stitched in the ditch around the batik square.

 

You can see the extra loft a little better in this pic...

On the machine

I'm having fun with this quilt...  It's hard to tell which category of quilting it falls into.  Dense edge to edge with separate border or light custom.

Swirls feather border...

Feathered swirls in the body...

Plus...  a few sea shells hidden here and there!

 

 

Next up...  one for Mom

 

Custom???  Maybe.

Design Wall Monday (NOT)

Today is not a design wall Monday for me...  because the quilt that has been on the wall is now on the machine!  YES!  I'm quilting something for ME!!!  (that doesn't happen very often and when it does I get excited...  VBG)

 

I'm using a few of the designs that I will be teaching in my new class Heavy Metal Quilting....

A Little Bit of Quilting

Or should I say a lot!!!  This quilt is 104" x 127".

 

I quilting it with a fancy meander...

 

Hard to get a good picture when it's so overcast and no light coming through the windows...

On the Machine Today

Looks like I've been a bad, bad blogger once again...  I promise that I've been busy!  Really!

Last week I worked with my good friends in the A-1 Quilting Machines booth at MQX West...

We had way too much fun...  Always a great time with the A-1 crew!

So, your asking...  what's on my machine?

A really fun Stack-n-Whack quilt...

For the last month or so all the quilts that I've been doing for customers have been easy edge to edge meanders...  nothing wrong with meanders!  Sometimes that's all a quilt really needs to be used and loved by the maker and their family.

A little bit of quilting...

I love this color combo!!!

I'm using designs from my popular class Starting with a Swirl...

 

Flowers and Swirls...

Feather Swirl Border...

On the Machine Today...

I feel like I've been busy, busy, busy... but don't have much to show for it.  Been working extra hours at Quilt Harbor...  and have taught a few small workshops here in my studio.  Life just hasn't left much time to quilt.

But...  I did get this one the machine today.  It's from one of my best customers.  Her quilts are always so fun!

This black and white beauty has some fun fabrics in it...

 

So I thought it would be fun to add some quilted cats...

I'm using black thread so it's a little hard to see some of the quilting...

 

Fun freehand edge to edge quilting...

 

On The Machine

On the machine today.....

I'm having fun with flowers....

On the Machine Today

It must be my turn for vintage quilts...  This one is made with Vintage Sunbonnet Sues & Sams.  Really cute and a little bit quirky!

Sam is not wear overalls....

 

10 down...  20 to go....

Yesterday's Quilting

I'm working on a Crazy Quilt for a customer.  I believe the blocks were made by a family member in years past...

She sashed the blocks with black velvet...

Stitching in the ditch around all the patches with Superior MonoPoly. 

I'm doing a feather design in the border and sashing...

Every piece of lint clings to the velvet!!!

I also made a couple more thread catchers...  This time I started with a 12" triangle instead of a 9 1/2".  Like this size much better! :-)

Now I need to find some buttons to sew on these...

On the machine today...

I finally found some time to quilt...  A simple edge to edge treatment for this wonderfully bright quilt.  I'm calling this design Butterfly Wings & Mistletoe Leaves....

 

Have I ever told you how much I love bright green!!!  LOVE...

 

I've  also got some more done on my Hearts Desire...  appliqued my block onto a black background.

 

Now I need to decide what to do next....

On the Machine Today... 9/12/11

Every so often I get a quilt that just doesn't speak to me....  Just doesn't tell me how it wants to be quilted.  When this happens I spend a lot of time doing the S&S or what longarm quilters refer to as Standing & Staring.  After Standing & Staring for awhile there are a few of those quilts that just will not talk!

When a quilt is refusing to talk, a lot of times I just go for it...  start stitching and see what happens.  That is exactly what I'm doing today.  Going for it.  Making things up as I go along...

 

So far so good....