Year of Scrappy Triangles

Liz brought this striking 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  They did it at a faster pace, approximately one per day as time allowed.

 The nature of these blocks allow for seemingly endless possibilities for unique layouts.  With the layout Liz selected, the black background to the paper pieced triangles became a prominent and interesting feature to the quilt.  Liz agreed with my suggestion of using a plum thread across the whole quilt.  I added flowing molar feathers to the black bands, lines in the pieced sections for contrast.

I always find it a little tricky to come up with a quilting plan that I like for the friendship star shape.  It took a bit of doodling, but I did get to a design that felt balanced and symmetrical.

I'm including lots of pictures so that you can appreciate all the different piecing in the triangles.

Liz had a multicolored batik backing that matched the richness of the quilt top very well.

Yoyoville

 

I recently had the pleasure of working on this beauty for Cathy.  All I can say is that this queen size quilt was a labour or love - many, many hand stitches went into the applique and yoyos.  The pattern is called Yoyoville by Bunny Hill Designs.   The original pattern is for a twin sized quilt, but Cathy enlarged it to a generous queen at 100" x 106".

Yoyos are used in the main body of the quilt as well as in the borders for the trees and flowers.  When looking for quilting design inspiration online  I did not find very many of these quilts that had reached the finish line.  I can imagine that they are sitting in many quiler's unfinished project piles.

Continuous curves were the choice for the body of the quilt. I love the diagonal line that was formed by quilting through the centre of the small square instead of around the edge.

 

The houses were stitched around the centre and through the roofline, as well as around the flower stems,  and the wavy line fill came as close to the yoyos as I could manage.

Cathy chose the molar feather design for the two white borders, and the colored borders were narrow enough to only require stitching in the ditch.

Cathy provided wool batting for this quilt, and it provided glorious loft.  Wool batting is more expensive, but there are times when it is worth the splurge and I think this was one of them.

Cathy found the perfect dusty purple backing for the quilt.

 

Simple Sampler

 

I recently had the pleasure of custom quilting Marlene's beautiful "Simpler Sampler" quilt.  This quilt is anything but simple, but it comes from Kim Diehl's book entitled "Simple Sampler."  Marlene did change up the border to make it her own, and I like the simplicity and how it frames the beautiful blocks. 

Marlene and I discussed a few of her quilting likes and dislikes but she said she prefers not to say too much and let her longarmer decide.  The hardest part for me was coming up with a plan for the pieced blocks.  I took my inspiration from the centre blocks and added diagonal lines in the background of 8 of the blocks, radiating out from the centre.  I like how the pattern gives your eye a place to rest.

The other four blocks were treated with a different motif that matched the molar feather quilting in the border.

The wool applique blocks didn't leave a lot of room for quilting, so pebbles seemed like the perfect choice to fill in all the small areas and make the applique pop.

Thank you for trusting me with your quilt Marlene, it really is a beauty.

  

Summer Lake Log Cabin

Lori brought me this Summer Lake Log Cabin quilt with a request for custom quilting.  The pictures of this quilt are a bit deceiving, as the contrast between the light and dark hand dyed fabrics are much more dramatic in the photos than they are in person.  Lori was hoping custom quilting would help to enhance the pattern.

I used a different quilting motif in each of the sections to help enhance them.  For the outer border I stitched in the ditch between the pieced piano keys.  The greek key element was subtle in the next border, so I  used a ribbon meander for the border and the middle of the centre star where those blocks reappeared.

Molar feathers were my suggestion for the light side on the log cabin blocks and Lori requested stitch in the ditch for the dark side.  The contrast between the quilting designs does help to bring out the pattern.

The quilting does show up clearing on the green backing.