Dr. Seuss!

This quilt was made by Cindy using the BQ pattern from Maple Island Quilts.  All of the fabrics are Dr. Seuss prints.  This quilt will be a Christmas gift for Cindy's son who although is an adult (and 6'3") is a kid at heart.

Cindy new she wanted custom quilting and when we talked about design ideas, she wanted the quilt to keep the "wacky" feel that you get when you read a Dr. Seuss book aloud.  We decided to use a different motif in each of the Dr. Seuss prints, and I used three motifs in the white areas to keep it fun and interesting.

Above I have simple wiggly lines in the print, and a square feather curl.  All of the black got a variation on my normal sashing curl.  

The design in the white above was introduced to me as "onions and garlic" and I thought it fit the wacky feel perfectly.  The print got ovals instead of the normal round loops.  Below are the other fills - "Jenny's spirals", circles and lines and flattened oval swirls.

And last but not least the double loops for the thin white areas.

I'm not sure it is easy to get a sense of the size of this quilt, but there will be no cold toes sticking out the bottom!  This is the longest quilt I have tackled so far at 130".  I am thankful that I am not the one who has to tackle all the binding, but I know you are up to the task Cindy! 

A little bit of everything

I think have finally recovered from a fun quilting retreat this past weekend.  Staying up until 3:00 a.m. chatting may not have been the smartest decision, but it sure was fun!  My dear friend Kathy and I hosted the retreat at Fabriculous.  Kathy has posted some great photos of the weekend on her blog here.  While we were there we had a friend of our take some photos of the two of us together.  Here is a sample.  Thanks Sandra!

Before leaving for the retreat I had the pleasure of quilting this eclectic mix of quilts for Sheri.  First is the kind of funky "Perfect Ten" quilt.  I used the Bora Bora pantograph, but it is a little tricky to see with all the bold prints and backing!

Next up is this really pretty runner made with embroidered pieces taken from antique table cloths that family members made and used.

Last but not least, is this quilt made for one of the groomsmen at Sheri's very recent wedding.

 When I saw the backing fabric, I inquired as to whether or not he hunted.  It turns out that he is the ultimate hunter so I took that into consideration when choosing the quilting designs.  Sheri always lets me choose, her only stipulation is no feathers, so stags and camo it was!

As always it is a pleasure to quilt for you Sheri!

Stack and Whack Stars

This very unique Stack n Whack Quilt belongs to Doreen.  It is a layout that I hadn't seen before but I believe it comes from the book Magic Stack n Whack Quilts by Bethany Reynolds.  All of the stars are made from 60 degree diamonds.  The outer border is also pieced with diamonds and triangles.

 I kept the quilting very simple in the floral print as it gets quite hidden.    The solid green inner border of diamonds showed off the simple motif nicely.

Doreen requested feathers in the pastel yellow background fabric, and I love the pretty finishing touch it gave the quilt.

 

Nine Patch Signature Quilt

This wonderful quilt belongs to Doreen.  Many of the large nine patch squares were made by her quilting friends as part of an exchange and have their signatures somewhere on the block.  Doreen put those squares together in this very pleasing layout.   

What a lot of little nine patch squares Doreen made! Because so many of the pieces in the quilt top were only one inch square we chose a fairly dense pantograph so that there would be squares that were entirely empty of quilting.  "Flying Paisley" was the pantograph that really seemed to do the job.  

Doreen provided a lofty polyester batting, and a solid backing  so the quilting stands out really well.

Flannel Baby Quarter Sections Quilt

Cheri is going to be a grandma for the first time and the baby's parents have decided they want to be surprised about the gender.  Cheri decided to make a gender neutral quilt before the baby arrived and chose this really sweet collection of flannels and our Highway 10 Designs pattern - Quarter Sections.  

The pattern only requires 5 fat quarters and a little bit of border fabric for the baby size, and it comes together really quickly.

Cheri provided a cuddle backing fabric and we decided on the Quilter's Dream Puff batting so that the quilt would be extra cuddly.  Free hand quilting was a lot of fun.

I sure this is just the first of many quilts in this lucky baby's future!

Eileen's Uneven Zigzag Quilt

I have to admit that when Eileen dropped this quilt top off, it had me stumped as to what kind of quilting it should have.  It has quite a modern feel, even though the fabrics pulled from her stash to make this one were tone on tones that were more "classic" than modern.  The HST are 9" in size so the scale was quite a bit larger than most of the chevron type quilts that are out there.

I auditioned several pantos, but nothing seemed quite right.

I threw my kind of out-there concept of just parallel lines out to Eileen, and apparently she had enough faith in me to give me the go ahead.  I am super happy with the end result!

During the quilting process all three members of my family stopped by to tell me how they thought I might have lost my mind, but once the decision was made it was quite relaxing!  Eileen did a great job piecing the top, so everything lined up nicely.  I used a ruler to stitch in the ditch between the rows and around the zig-zags, and my homemade channel lock clamps to do the rest of the lines.  They are spaced 1" apart.

 Eileen chose my navy Stonehenge wide backing and Quilter's Dream blend batting.  I used a murky green So Fine thread on the top that played nicely with all the different colors.

The pattern for this quilt comes from the Summer 2014 edition of Fons and Proter's Easy Quilts.

Bonnie's Wallhanging

This sharp wall hanging was made by Bonnie.  I had a lot of fun doing a little custom quilting on it and giving some "Nemishing" style feathers a try in the background spaces.

A mix of straight lines, crosshatching, cc's and loops filled the focal fabric pieces.   And a lovely Stonehenge backing that allows the quilting to show up really nicely on the back.