MPQ 2025 Raffle Quilt

Earlier this spring I had the pleasure of quilting this jaw dropper!  This quilt is the 2025 Manitoba Prairie Quilter's Raffle Quilt.  The draw will take place at the Quilt Reflections Quilt Show in Winnipeg that is being held April 11-12. (I do have tickets to sell to anyone local.)

The fabric used in this quilt, including the back is from the Whale Song collection from Northcott fabrics.

The makers of the quilt left the quilting plan up to me, but they did say overall they preferred less dense quilting to very heavy quilting.  This quilt definitely required a plan before I loaded it up as it had so many uniquely shaped areas.

I had to dig deep into my bag of tricks for this one.  All of the quilting was hand guided with rulers and freehand designs like the curls and feathers on my Innova longarm.

I'm going to include a ton of photos as you can take in all the different areas of the quilt.  I tried to repeat as many motifs as I could to bring continuity to the quilt, but the list of what is included is quilt long! 

The outer border contains a widely spaced bead board design, followed by curls in the inner border,

I mixed straight line and curved lines, petals and curls, clamshells and some angled lines.

The larger plain areas got some curly feathers to add some nice movement around the centre block.

I will have to be sure to buy some tickets on this quilt, because it looks pretty great on my bead don't you think?

Ghost Party

Reneta made this Ghost Party quilt using the Sweet 'n Spookier collection from Art Gallery Fabrics.  The Ghost Party pattern is from Wooly Petals.

None of the pantographs that I initially suggested were feeling quite right for Reneta, so she asked if I could do some freehand quilting instead.  She suggested handwriting the word "Boo" and then the idea was born.

In the background squares I used a hot pink thread and added loops and wrote the word "boo" every so often.

For the ghosts, I stiched around the perimeter and the eyes and then filled in the rest with a simple stipple.

I love all the different expressions that these cute little ghosts have.  A really fun Halloween quilt!

Star Lake

Barb brought this Star Lake quilt for some quilting attention.  The pattern is from The Blanket Statement and this is the queen sized version.

Both Barb and I loved the Tickle pantograph which added some interest and movement to the large expanses of solid fabrics.  We used a medium green thread that didn't quite blend in to any of the fabrics.

The floral backing was a bit of surprise when I saw it in the bag, but it adds a different personality to the whole quilt.

 

West Hawk

Barb made her take on the West Hawk quilt from The Blanket Statement as a gift for a friend.

The range of Art Gallery Pure Sold fabrics that Barb selected is very pretty.  Barb chose the Windswept pantograph for a lovely finish.  Sometimes deciding on a thread color is the hardest decision.  We opted for a cream thread that matched the accent pieces in the pattern.

I do love the texture that the Windswept pattern adds to this quilt.

 

Cathy's Town Square

 Cathy made this sweet farm themed quilt for a good friend's first great granddaughter.  Cathy used the Fabric Cafe Town Square pattern but added some sashing between the blocks to change it up a bit.

Cathy selected the Bora Bora pantograph for a breezy finish to this quilt.  The pattern shows up beautifully on the brown Cuddletex backing fabric.

 

Val's Simply Dashing 2.0

This is Val's second unique interpretation of our Highway 10 Designs Simply Dashing pattern.  The pattern is written as a two fabric quilt that utilizes strip piecing for a fast and easy finish.

  Val made it her own by starting with some ombre fat quarters and doing a whole lot of organizing and planning along the way.  

I think the navy background really makes all of the other colors pop.  Val chose the Soho pantograph and a shiny blue thread.

Val chose her backing fabric from the small collection of Northcott wide backs that I have in stock.  This blue Stonehenge is a lovely option with lots of color variation.

 

All Boxed In

Darlene made this stunning quilt.  The pattern is called All Boxed In by Anything But Boring.  It features a beautiful collection of Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

The bold prints do a pretty good job of hiding the quilting but if you look closely you can see the Divine pantograph the Darlene chose.

Darlene added a beautiful multicolored  Northcott wide backing that complements the front really well.

Rose Anne's Scrappy Triangles

Rose Anne brought this lovely quilt in for some custom quilting.  A few members of my local quilt guild got inspired to do some paper piecing and followed The Year of Scrappy Triangles blog post by Leila Gardunia.  https://www.leilagardunia.com/blog/year-of-scrappy-triangles   I had seen some photos of this quilt as Rose Anne was working on it and had thought her chosen background was black, but it is actually a beautiful deep green!  It is a lovely compliment to all the batiks she found in her stash.

Initially I thought feathers would be the perfect suggestion for the green strips, but I just could not get them flowing nicely to the inner green border. Everything I tried looked really awkward at some point. When I suggested the echo curve design for the outer border and the center strips, Rose Anne loved the idea and the rest of the design fell into place quickly after that.

The gold border received large curls, the inner green border an oak leaf and curl, and the paper pieced triangles received some branching curls.  I always try to repeat motifs somewhere in the custom quilting so that the quilt feels cohesive at the end.

I used an olive green thread for everything but the oakleaf border.  There I switched to more of a rusty gold thread to make it stand out a little bit more and add a bit of interest.