Guild Quilt Show

Yesterday was my quilt guild's show.  It was at the Hartsville Museum in SC and the quilts will hang all summer, so if you are close by, stop on in.  The theme this year was "A Little Color In My Life"

I entered my Lollipop Orchard quilt in the show.  I had also entered my floating pinwheels, but we had so many big quilts this year that the museum didn't have space for all the double entries so they asked us to only submit one, I picked my smaller one.

There were also a few quilts in the show that I quilted for my guild mates. 

 I quilted June's cat quilt last summer which she entered and won first place for applique. 

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I also quilted Tish's hand pieced Mississippi Wheel of Fortune II Quilt.

The back, which you can't see at the show was made from different shirts. I think that idea is fabulous.

 A close up of some of the blocks.

I actually quilted two of these for her.
One was done in December and the other in April.
Here are both of them on on my fence.

She gave the first one away already,


and after the show this one will be given away.

There were only two special ladies who got to hang two quilts in the show.
They have been long time guild members and definitely deserved it.  

Sara is one of those ladies and I had the privilege of quilting both her quilts.
She named this one "Check the Box"

The quilting shows up great on the back of the quilt

This one she named "Wear Purple"

I also quilted one of Joan's quilts. Unfortunately it didn't get in the show either due to the 1 quilt limit.
She chose to show her smaller one like I did, but I would like to show her large quilt here anyway.

It is a lovely blossoming 4 patch done in beautiful fabrics.

There were lots of wonderful quilts at the show.  I am honored to have been able to work on these.

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Gamecock Quilt

 If you live in South Carolina you are either a Clemson Tiger fan or a Carolina Gamecock fan.

I particularly don't see the point in rooting for a chicken when everyone knows that tigers eat chickens.

That being said, one of my guild mates wanted me to quilt her Gamecock quilt for her.  She is giving it to one of her relatives for Christmas.  I finished it a couple weeks ago and gave it to her at our December guild meeting.  She did a great job with the piecing.  She even fussy cut the row of Gamecock logos so there is a chicken... er I mean Gamecock centered in each square.  

I quilted some overall freehand footballs for her mixed with some double swirls.




She did request that I put one tiger paw in the quit for her. I was happy to oblige.
She obviously knows Tigers trump chickens.

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Bev's Burgundy Qult

I finished quilting Bev's quilt the other day and dropped it off yesterday.
For the quilting, she asked me to use an all over design with burgundy thread.
It turned out great!

I love how the burgundy thread pops out nicely on the white sashing.
Beverly said this quilt is for her.  I am glad of that, I know the feeling of giving away a lot of quilts and keeping very few for myself, so it is nice to create one to keep around once in a while.

I just happened to finished one for myself to keep last night.  It is the second finish from the list I made for the fourth quarter of the Finish Along for 2013.  Later on this afternoon I will try to wrangle up some quilt holders to go to the park and get some photos.  I think the park will be my new place to take quilt pictures.  I love having the water in the background with the quilts.

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Quilting for Beverly

I finished quilting two quilts for Beverly this past week.
She wanted an all over desgin on both of them.  

This is her "Love Quilt".  It is made with love for her husband.

She used up a lot of her scraps to put this one together.

I think it turned out wonderful. I love scrappy quilts!

This is the second one she asked me to quilt for her. 

I am loving the red centers surrounded by all the different shades of blue.
I makes me want to make a quilt like this.

I bet this design would look fabulous in Christmas colors as well.
It is a beautiful quilt.

Thanks for letting me work on your quilts Beverly, they are both spectacular!

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Busy Quilting - Tish's Pastel Quilt

Wow, based on my blog posts this summer it looks as if I haven't been at the machine.  That is quite the opposite though.  I have spent most of my time at the machine this summer quilting for others.  Unfortunately  I have to wait before I can show the quilts I have been working on since they are surprises.
I do have one that I can show now though.
  

This is a Quilt I partial pieced and quilted for Tish.  Since she was able to show it off at our guilds UFO Challenge meeting I can now show it off.  She had given me three large 12 inch pieced blocks (the two on the bottom, and the top left) and the large Dresden block in the center and asked me to do something with them. She gave me her pastel fabrics to work with.  After a couple different layout decisions I came up with this.  I had to make another large 12 inch block, the green and yellow Dutchman's puzzle, and then I made four smaller 8 inch pieced blocks to go in between the larger blocks. I surrounded everything thing with 2 inch alternating squares.  I really love how it turned out.  For the quilting, since Tish doesn't like a lot of heavy quilting, I did a loose meander for her.  It turned out lovely.

For the back Tish gave me a large pieced flower block.  I want to say this is a version of the Carolina Lily block, but I am not certain.  I added the yellow corners to it then added enough borders to make it match the front of the quilt.  It makes a nice double sided quilt.

Tish also had me quilt a small table runner for her, but can you believe I didn't get a photo of it!  It has been a long time since I have forgotten to take a picture of a project.  I sure don't want that to happen again!

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Family Tree Quilt Complete

The family Tree quilt is finished, has been picked up, and will soon be on its way to Canada

for a 60 year anniversary party.

The piano key border really helped bring all the leaves together.

I tried to quilt the main part of the trunk so it would have a little bit of texture.

I think it turned out pretty well.

I added names using the same bark fabric and green lettering.

This sure was a fun project to work on.

It was interesting to see all the family traits pass on from generation to generation.

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Bev's Scrappy Quilt

With Halloween costumes completed, I was able to get back to quilting and quilted up Bev's quilt.

She used all her scraps from leftover projects to make this beauty.  

To make the top she said she kept sewing one scrap piece to another and when they got big enough she trimmed them up into workable blocks.  

I think it turned out great!  

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Tish's Crane and Fish Quilt

I finished Tish's quilt the other day and gave it to her during our quilt guild meeting on Thursday. 

She loved it and I do too!!  She wanted this one custom quilted and asked for a few specifications.

She wanted gold thread.
She wanted a crane quilted at the top.
She wanted bubbles quilted at the bottom.

I took it outside to take photos of it like I normally do for my quilts, but I couldn't get the quilting to show up like I wanted.  This is a photo of the crane outside.

At first I was intimidated by Tish's request of a crane.
 She said if I couldn't do it don't worry about it.
 But she had given me a challenge and I wasn't about to give up on it. 

This is the inside photo. The blue fabric color is not  depicted right in this photo, but you can see more of the gold thread.

I'll admit I spent more time staring at this quilt than quilting it.  I was worried about not being able to draw with thread what I saw in my mind.  Finally with the deadline looming I quit worrying and just did it.  I started out with the anticipation of ripping lots of threads, but it turned out great the first time! Probably from all my practice on those small fabric postcards. I have made hundreds of tiny thread painted images, this time I just had to increased the size. So I suppose the old adage is true, "practice makes perfect" - well maybe not perfect, but pretty darn good.  :)

At the bottom I added a fish to go with the bubbles Tish wanted.  

It is hard to see the quilting here, I traced around all the images of the panel in gold thread.
When Tish said she wanted gold thread my first thought was,"Oy Vey!" 

I had worked with gold thread before and it wasn't pretty. I don't even want to repeat what was coming out of my mouth.  This time around though I decided to use a better quality (more expensive) thread hoping it would improve my results.  I bought a 1000 yard spool of Sulky gold metallic. It was priced at $16, but I had a 50% off coupon!  Yay! Love those JoAnns coupons.

I also opted for a Top Stitch needle instead of a metallic or regular 90/14. The better thread combined with the top stitch needle made quilting with gold metallic thread a breeze. I can't wait to have another project that needs gold thread.  It is so beautiful in this project.

Full view inside on the design board.

I never knew my design board could hold up a completed finished quilt all by itself!!
I love my board even more!!

I really love this fish!!

Close up of the tail.

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Busy Quilting

 I have been busy at the machine.  I quilted three of the four quilts I previously basted. This is the first one.  It was made by a guild mate of mine and she is going to donate it to one of our local charities. 

The pattern is a Disappearing Nine Patch.

I did an all over swirl for the quilting. 

And it is a two sided quilt!  This panel with wide borders is the perfect backing for this one.

The other two quilts I quilted are still waiting to be trimmed so I can attach the binding, but I got distracted with another project so they are patiently waiting.  I won all the blocks at my August Guild meeting and I was excited to start putting them together as a top.  I have to take one more good picture and I will show what I did with them tomorrow.  

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Vickie's Quilt

This week I finished up Vickie's Quilt.
I love her fabric choices for this quilt!  And her piecing is wonderful!
It was a fun top to quilt.

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I did some alternating freehand feathers in the big white triangles, a different feather variation in the green/blue triangles, and some curves and loops in the smaller white triangles to finish off the center of the quilt.

For the border I did more freehand feathers.

Thanks so much Vickie, it was fun to work on your quilt!

Now I am off to cut up and sew my fabric for my this months Another Year of Schnibbles.  I have less than a week to go for the parade, I better get busy at the machine!


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