Happy Birthday Friend!

I am always inspired by my friend Frances Moore. I flat-out copied her idea and made my friend some fall mug rugs for her birthday. Thank you Frances for your wonderful ideas, teaching and inspiration.

Happy Fall everyone!

Have a great day.

One LOOOOONG Feather

I did it.

 The center quilting on this beautiful quilt is one long feather, a la Sally Terry. It was a very interesting process that I really enjoyed. The tricky part, for me, was drawing that center spine over the entire top. Some spaces were wide open, needing very large feathers to fill the space. Other spaces needed teeny weeny feathers because I drew the wavy spine too close to itself.

Since I normally just "follow my nose" when I feather quilt, this was a change up for me. The thing I liked best was knowing where I was going from start to finish. Up one side of the spine, stop. Then up the other side of the spine. There were none of those "no way out" kind of meander bloopers.

On the other hand, I often like to throw in some "break out" feathers as I wander. 

That wasn't easy for me to do. Instead, I did go back and add some feathers to what was already quilted. I think, with practice, I could figure that out. Another issue for me was that the feathers are very uniform. Sometimes I like to fool with the shapes a bit. More practice may help that as well. I'll definitely try this technique again.

I did some different quilting for the sashing and border.

The pattern I used is Square Dance from the Livin' Large book by Anka's Treasures. I don't often make quilts with very large pieces in the blocks. But I do love this quilt, and the others in the book as well.

Only 94 days till Christmas!

Have a great day.

Under The Needle

My quilt guild's annual retreat is always a wonderful time full of laughing, chatting and a little bit of sewing. This year I worked mainly on Christmas (my theme of the year). I finished one top and got a good start on a second.

Number one is under the needle.

A couple months ago a quilting friend, Pat Adair, recommended Sally Terry's technique from her book Hooked On Feathers. So I'm giving it a try. It's a little different take on creating the feathered look by using "hook" shapes. 

Sally also suggests feathering over the entire quilt top by first drawing one meandering spine across the entire top, coming back and making the spine a "ribbon", then stitching feathers all the way along one side, then all the way along the other side...over the entire quilt top. A little scary.

The trickiest part for me was drawing that spine...whew! I'm used to just "following my inner voice" along the quilt top. It takes some thinking and planning to draw a spine and not box myself into a corner or make a space too large to fill. 

But, so far...ok :-)

Have a great day!

For a Friend

A long-time friend found me on Facebook recently. She asked if I ever created any of my work to sell. Nope, I don't. But, I told her, I do make gifts for friends. So she requested a table runner.

This is what I came up with for Barbara.

I tried a sort of feathery/popcorny kind of overall quilting pattern. Hard to see in the photo but it's pretty cute in person.

Barbara was widowed about 15 years ago and recently remarried. One of the things she says she loves about Bill is that he makes breakfast for her every morning. So this label is just perfect for them.

Now...what to do with those extra blocks???

Well, I could use a new runner too :-)

Have a great day!

Christmas Redwork

Moving along with Christmas, this is a first try for me. Redwork. And I really like it. Going to be doing more embroidered quilting for sure. 

Embroidery is a slow process for me but relaxing and enjoyable. It was scary at first to quilt over it but, once I tried it, I loved it!

I do not know how these corner blocks got so wonky but...that happens to me sometimes...oh well :-)

And a label for the season.

Have a great day!