Silence - in photos!

There has been silence here as I've been relocating my studio for a few months.

It was a labor of love from my dear husband as he re-configured space above our detached garage for me.  He added TONS of new LED lighting, built custom furniture for my needs and purchased me a beautiful new APQS long-arm quilting machine.

Now I'm organizing, folding fabric, learning how to use Lenni and considering what projects to begin in my new space!

A new journey begins!

Be Attitude Gift

I found this book quite a few months back and had it on my 'wishlist' at Amazon.  Finally I decided to splurge and buy it.
It's a pattern book of 12 blocks - all applique (meaning shapes cut out and layered onto a background, fused/stitched down) these also have some embellishment of buttons and embroidery on some of the designs.  The entire pattern is for a quilt but I chose a few to create a wall-hanging as a house-warming gift for a friend.
First I played with shapes and placement.

Once I had fused the shapes down I decided that I needed to make a practice block to try out some machine applique stitches and even played with a bit of embroidery (which I've not tried before).

After this little side-trip, I went back to my project and pulled it all together from my stash fabrics.  I quilted it - some pattern, some freehand.  I've never done a project like this before so I was really going with whatever seemed to work as I went along.

in process of quilting

back of part of a block

I've only done a very small amount of applique before now and this was so much fun that I've decided I'm going to make the entire quilt for myself at some point.  I think that there will most likely be more wall-hangings from this pattern as well.  The individual blocks lend themselves to that sort of thing very well and there is lots of room to personalize and even re-word (as I did on the owl block) to suit individuals.

All cotton fabrics, warm & natural batting, quilted by my on my Janome 1600P & New Joy Gold frame with various King Tut variegated threads from Superior Threads.

Summer Kaleidoscope Quilt

My daughter wanted a summer-weight quilt for her bed and I'd been playing around with some REALLY bright/busy/colorful jellyroll strips so we had a meeting of the minds and her bed now has a new quilt.

The jelly roll is called Kaleidoscope from Free Spirit and I had a charm pack of plain white so I figured I'd combine the two and see what I could create.  This is one of the few times I've had a vision in my head but no actual pattern to follow.  I was winging it and making it up as I went.

I started by laying out the strips and just worked in order as they came off the roll.  I sliced the charm pack in half creating 2 1/2" rectangles.  Then I used angled piecing to create a triangle within each strip and mirrored it for the next strip.

I kept stitching strips and rectangles/triangles, placing the white diamond shapes freely across the surface.  I'd splice strips or leave full width as I went without a real plan.  Once I'd gone through the stack with one of each color, I asked Jess how she'd prefer it to continue and she opted to have me do the entire set in reverse/mirror to the end.  Still randomly inserting the triangles/diamonds.

Gypsy was testing the top for comfort

Once I had the strips done, I felt it was too narrow for a bed quilt.  Just about 43" wide.  I decided to order a yard of the white and add some borders as well as a side panel.  I used a few more of the charm squares and almost ever last scrap of the prints to create a free-form sort of extension down one side.

As a final finish I added a narrow white border around the entire thing.  Jess chose a cheery yellow mottled backing and a swirly quilting design.  I had just received some new fun variegated colors of King Tut quilting thread and we found a great match to use for the top and a So Fine! yellow that matched the backing to use in the bobbin.  I love Superior Threads!
So onto the frame it went and I think I managed a record of getting it loaded, quilted, and bound in just 3 days!

Fender testing during binding work

Silly!

 

Quilted by me on my Janome 1600P machine on a New Joy Gold frame.  All cotton fabrics, Warm & Natural batting, & Superior Threads.