Walk in the Woods - The End is in Sight!

Just a little more on either side and then the bottom needs to be 'adjusted'

The fence is coming in really handy. Won't be too practical in the winter though.

I decided the other day how to bridge this to the bottom. There are still a number of things and trees before I can get to the stitching. The angle is lousy but the tone is there.

Clearing my Worktable

All the entries for quilt shows are sent. And on time.
One required a letter of permission from the owners of the photographs but most were public domain.

Then I spent a week or so quilting a couple of works for friends. 'Canada's 150 Women' is comprised of 150 blocks with many small pieces. It requires a little more focus. It slows me down and I need more breaks but it was finished and delivered today.
The quilt maker added a border of red and wanted it filled with Maple Leaves. After cutting a stencil and working out the spacing I was all set. The panto I used  for the quilt was the popular Maple Syrup, from  Willow leaf Studio.

The second quilt was for a friend's grand daughter. She's been ill and lacked the energy to complete the quilt herself in time for her grand daughters birthday. So finishing it was my gift.

Radiant Splendor Star - Complete

I could hear the pain in my friend's comment when she thought I'd be spirited away by "otters".
No danger there.
I'm still working out a layout in my head.
It may not be ready for Christmas....

So here's the finished quilt. Once I got rolling, it went quickly......but isn't that always the way. ( It also helps when I get to work on a quilt that is beautifully assembled and perfectly square. )

😊

Radiant Splendor Star - Day 3

This will probably be the last I post about this quilt until it's complete.
All the decisions are made and the rest is just repetition of what I did today for 3 hrs.

Unless I get distracted by something else....( that never happens ) it should take, at the most ..5 more days.
(Getting old...I can only stand on my feet for so many hours.... Sigh)

Radiant Splendor Star - Day 2

Well there is nothing like just diving in. After all the hand stitching was done there was no value in hesitating as I lose focus and all those ideas buzzing in my head, if I walk away for a few days.

I had toyed with the idea of starting in the centre and working out, but to me that's just inviting pinches and wrinkles.
The sketch I made for the borders echoed the wheat theme. Ten of them fit nicely along the top edge.

After a simple arch in the black, I moved onto the first of the diamonds.

I didn't want the whole piece to be about wheat but a foliage/feather was the next choice.

Drawing designs and stitching them are two different things. White paper gives a very different impression than the same design on the fabric.

Drawing all these designs life size allows me to reference what I did before. There have been times when I've reached the far side and couldn't remember how I had finished a corner or how many repeats there were in a section.
Some people use photographs but my camera is not that versatile in giving me a clear idea of what went where. (Hubby says it's just me!)

The drawing for the large negative space just isn't right yet. Maybe stretched and a bit more grass like.
Tomorrow.

Working with Negative Space in a Quilt

A friend brought me quilt top the other day. The pattern is Radiant Splendor Star.
It's a variation of a single block enlarged to a quilt size. This results in there being a lot of open space.

Before deciding how to work this we had a discussion about who the quilt is going to (with the fabric choices in mind) and how she expected it to be used.

The only real pattern is in the main block and the outer border. It appears to be a grass/wheat sheaf.
That seemed like a natural motif to work with.

Today, after drafting the centre pattern with my ancient EQ6, (modelling Customer quilts seems to be about all I use it for anymore), I played around with some of the ideas we had discussed.

I chose the design/layout in the upper left.

Now that's a very large open space, well over the throat of my long arm. I can, but hesitate to markup a customer quilt, even with their permission, particularly now with the nightmare I had with my Collage background. I decided to sketch in the main ribs of the wheat and some cross hatch references using thread. Easily removed when no longer necessary. That's what I accomplished today.

 Quilting this will take some time.....

Snow Days - Picking a Quilt Motif

Having decided awhile ago that I was NOT going to do an all over pattern on this, I searched to see what others had done. Unfortunately the quality of the photos that end up on the Internet and Pinterest were not very useful.
I knew I wanted snowflakes. I decided there was no reason to join them in a continuous stream. That said, they could be any size.!  Snow flakes are really abundant in the CLOUD.

When it came to the large border, (I had added almost 8 inches), I decided to treat it differently, partially to maintain the border identity but also to ensure an good solid quilted edge.

I found this continuous  pattern on line and figured I could adapt it. After playing with the size and the placement of "diamonds" / "stars", I'm now ready to begin quilting this fellow.

First Prize Surprise

I received a call last night from a member of our Quilt guild. We had collaborated on a piece. This was over a year ago, so I was surprised when she told me she'd entered it in a local fair.. and WON. This was the Tandem class, HER quilt and my quilting and leaf embellishment.

The photo is not the best, but I remember it was a lot of fun.

Snow Days Quilt - Starting the Blocks

The embroidery is almost complete so I started on the blocks yesterday. Unlike most quilt patterns this one is composed of many different blocks in 3 different sizes. You really can't assembly line either the cutting or sewing.
The choice of fabrics was also left open, fat quarters and some yardage in lights, mediums and darks.
I had my choices made, but hubby nixed the blue I had included with the browns and other neutrals. So this is turning out to be a rather subtle quilt.

That's attractive too!

So here's what I have finished as of today.

Baby Quilt - Fishes

A nice young lady called and asked me to help her out of a predicament.
She had started to hand quilt a small piece for her sister's baby. She quickly got bogged down.
The Poly batting was part of her problem. It is difficult to hand quilt and machine quilt, for that matter because it is fluid and often has imperfections and lumps. It quickly collapses as well with washings.

After a consultation I promised her the quilt mid June.
Whew! Did It.

Here's the finished project.

I had to pick out her hand quilting and then sew leaders onto the backing in order to mount it on the LA. The whole piece had pins and pins and pins to keep the whole thing stable.
(I will have a friendly conversation with her about future quilts and recommend a few things and materials.)

The Big fish all have different scale patterns and big eyes and the background is filled with a school.......and one crab!

I used a modified Poseidon's wave in the border.

Back into Harness

Two days of just hanging around, putting things away and packaging others for shipment, napping a few times and tending to my garden....... It's time to get back to work.

I had two quilts to finish. One is a re quilting on a baby quilt that was started by a young lady a few months ago. That's for tomorrow.
Today I stitched a donation quilt for our guild. This is the last of these I will do 'til our guild reconvenes next fall.
Simple squares with a delightful STAR in the centre.
Simple quilting was all this needed.

Designing a Custom Pattern

I received a quilting order from a guild member early this week. After we chatted about its purpose and colour the owner left me with the operative words: Flowers and Tendrils.
It's a busy design made from 4 units of six, 1inch strips, tumbled into a 12 inch block.
A small overall design would disappear. But the back is quite neutral so any design will be bolder there.

Today I finally had things clear in my mind. I started with a map. This was simple so I didn't need to mock it up with EQ. Graph paper worked fine.
I have a set of circle templates I use to decide and arrange size and positions for the featured flowers. A tally and a map helps me keep my position once the quilt is on the frame.

I like to do the features first, rather than having to stop in the middle of the "fill" to place a design. In order to keep the integrity of the quilt I pin all the way along in the the un-quilted areas. This keeps everything in position for when the sandwich is re-rolled on the frame back to the beginning.

After drawing 6 different flower designs in sizes ranging  from 12 inches to 5 inches. They are pinned into position on the quilt and stitched through the paper.

When they were all stitched into position (15) I removed the paper and restitched a tight echo around each one.

Back to the beginning. This is ready to finish with smaller flowers, leaves and tendrils.

Flying Geese Quilt - Day 2

I decided yesterday I wanted something luscious for the bellies of the geese, something touchable. I found a lovely white velour at our local shop and went to work

As this applique is being finished off the quilt I spent some time quilting the velour onto batting and a light backing. Why all that? The dark colours of the quilt showed through. The addition of a small piece of old sheeting was the trick to make it opaque.

Adding the geese was a little more tricky. Stitching a piece of thin bias cut turned edge material over a quilted and plush background was slow work.

Even though I pinned I had to constantly adjust. So the geese are little fatter. haha!

I have two done.  Tomorrow should see the three on the quilt.

Flying Geese Quilt

Back in Dec. /16 I assembled a quick and easy FG Quilt. And then it sat on my design wall for all this time. It was really inexpensive and it's only 50x70, but I wanted to give it an interesting and unique finish because I liked it. The balance and harmony of the pattern and kit materials were really nice.

But it hung on the wall for 4 months mocking me as I rejected idea after idea. I finally put all the pieces together last night (about 2:00 AM in my night wanderings).
I went back to one of my earlier ideas and finally worked out the "how".

This is a photo of a piece I created in 2011, a copy of the iconic work of Benjamin Chee Chee, one of Canada's unique indigenous artists. Like a lot of marginalized peoples in North America, he died too soon.
I wanted to feature these geese on the quilt. BIG GEESE!
Today I quilted the top. Then I turned to the geese.

Using a projector I enlarged them to 40 in in height.
I'll probably spend a few days finishing these for applique onto the quilt.

New Work - Summer

Time to stop messing around.
I didn't realize how tired I had been until I tried to start creating again. It certainly can't be forced and it's something I have to enjoy while I'm working.

Starting is always the hardest part. Today was the day.
SO here it is another gem from the Internet.

Even before I finished the two yellow Autumn Birch pieces in November, I had this one posted as my screen saver. I've since cropped it a bit to rid it of the heavy, solid edges.

This makes it a lighter version. Only about half those trees are going to make it into the final.

I spent a long while thinking about the dark centre. It's contains some small evergreens. It is very important to maintain the depth in this scene. Did I want to retain them? How was I going to do them? Though I'm not completely sure, I committed to the dark region in my background base.

This is always an opportunity to move some of those slow moving fabrics from your stash. Colour is the only consideration. This is starting out as a metre square. That may change.
After tidying up all those bits an pieces from the past couple of weeks, getting the baby quilt ready for the mail and actually laying this out, I spent another hour cutting confetti. This will use a lot.

These are my initial fabrics choices. All are either batik or my hand dyed yardage. Colours are solid but for the large batik and all are the same front and back. I don't have to pay too much attention on how they're placed.

A small section of each was cut at a time. I have to make sure that I have enough of the colours I've chosen so I don't run out before I finish this.

So I have a nice progression of colours here. The mixed batik will serve as a "front line "transition from the background fabric.
And believe it or not.......getting this far has taken me most of the day.

I need to think some more about the evergreens. Tomorrow is soon enough to start laying colour.
( Actually I have to shovel snow.  Think Spring ......only 10 weeks! )

Quilt for Cohen - Finished

I finished this using my domestic rather than the LA. I thought the ruler work in the triangles would be more accurate. The rest was quilted with a double stitched loose meander, just enough to hold it but stay supple for a baby quilt.

Quilt For Cohen - Flimsy

This went together quickly. It needs a little squaring (beyond what I did in Photoshop)
The block colours pick up the background and though initially dull? still retain enough whimsy for a child.
I suppose I could have changed the order to place the brighter ones in the centre, but I'm happy with this, and I really don't think my Great nephew will notice!
32x48 inches

Quilt for Cohen

I had another Grand-nephew born shortly before the holiday. It's time I sent them a gift as I did for Cohen's older brother and sister.
(By the time my own grandchildren come along I should be an expert at this!)

I found this deceptively simple quilt on Pinterest and this morning I drafted it in my EQ6. I decided on 16 inch blocks. There was no other info.

The rainbow layout is a given but I'm undecided on the background. It would necessitate my GOING SHOPPING. I do have a lot of white but how impracticable is that? I do have a lot of black but while it would be stunning, I'm not really sure about it's reception. It's a LOT of black.

It didn't take me too long. And I think these fabrics will do nicely. Certainly not Rainbow and not traditional but then it is coming from Great Aunt Mary! That should say it all!

The afternoon was spent cutting. I caught myself in time to reverse three of the blocks, just a matter of flipping the pattern. I put one block together, and it went smoothly, ( you just never know with home made patterns ). The remaining, I'll finish tomorrow.