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.

2 Quilts Done

If the quilting took an hour, the paper removal took two. But it is a cheap and dirty way of exactly replicating a pattern without drawing or marking the quilt.
As this was a pale grey background I didn't want to mar it. I spent an additional hour after the quilt came off the frame with a pair of tweezers, getting the last little bits of paper. Normally they wouldn't show and with use and washing they disintegrate, but as this was a pale quilt and I used brown newsprint, the tiniest fibres showed.

This may or may not find it's way into our up coming quilt show. Then it will be re purposed as a wedding gift. 😄

The owner of this quilt also happens to be the chairwoman of our guild Outreach program, so I can pass off to her, this evening, a quilt intended for the hospital program. Mustn't waste a full bobbin!

Custom Quilting - Border Triangles

Here are the last two patterns for this quilt.

See you when it's finished.

Custom quilting

We have a quilt show in September and I"m getting a bit nervous. I fear people are going to present me with quilts to finish with a really tight deadline. It's not so bad if they want something simple or an overall design. It's the truly custom work that takes planning time.
I spent over an hour last night with a friend whose quilt is actually a wedding gift, but may make it into the show first.
Like a lot of people, she knew what she didn't want. That's a start.

It is a lovely quilt, with a lot of negative space.

After playing around with a few designs we settled on a four armed organic shape for the 16 inch blocks. The borders will be variation on that theme.

 

This is derived from a leafed feather pattern.

Sized to fit one quarter of the block.

I wanted to start with a perfect circle so the best fitting template was........... the cookie box.

Then the shape was massaged with french curves.

The final 'quarter' was replicated buy running four pattern blanks through my sewing machine.

Then they were placed and taped into position and the joining centre was finalized.
.

The finished pattern was transferred to clear plastic so my friend could visualize how the stitching would be in position on the block.

So now I wait until she gives me the final approval.

Second Quilt for my Friend

This one was more twin in size.
The 'panels' had a oriental feel (materials) so I adapted a feather /leaf pattern to have a Ginkgo feel. The fill between the panels and the border is freehand bars.
The backside shows the stitching better. The two parallel lines down the length of the the fill area are marks from the basting I applied. Its been removed to leave only the bars. The marks/creases will disappear with use and/or a wash.

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.....

Finished Quilt - Flowers and Tendrils

It was raining all day, so it was a good day to work on my customer's Quilt,

The majority of the slow work with the custom flowers was completed last week so this was a straight forward job. I did have to redo a small section when the backing didn't lie as flat as I wished, but that's corrected to my satisfaction.

It's a bright quilt. The pattern hides a lot of the work but it shows very well in the darker borders. The pattern in that brown batik was the "go to" for the flower motif in the border and the fill in body of the quilt.

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.