Custom Quilt

I finished this quilt yesterday. The client wanted traditional feathered wreaths, so that's what I did for her.

I'm not sure you can see it, but it's there! The next picture shows the border treatments. 

This one shows the whole front of the quilt:

And last, but not least, is the back. If you look closely, you can see all the stitch in the ditch work:

I've been working a lot, but I forget to take pictures. I'll try to do better.

Pics of Two Gardens

I took this pic yesterday from my studio window. DH Mike was weeding his "salad" garden. Won't be long now until we have some really good eats.

This is a Four Patch Posy quilt; it's sort of a garden, isn't it? It was the first time she'd used a longarmer. Talk about performance anxiety! I think I did it justice, don't you?

Here's a closeup of the block motif and sashings. I reversed the direction of the feathers in each one.

And this is the back. I did the whole quilt in dyed natural thread, except for the inner cable border, which I did in a Victorian pink.

That's it until next time. Now that the heat has broken, I'm hoping to be a little more productive. Stay cool, wherever you happen to be.

A bit of inspiration

The following is done with permission from Mark Lipinski:

May 31st

I can't believe May is almost over. It's been busy; my guild had its show, and I place 3rd in the machine applique category. No pics, sorry. I was too busy working at the show and shopping to take a pic of my own quilt!

Tyler has been growing and becoming such a big boy! We watch him 2 days each week and one of them he spends with his Pop-Pop. They love each other so much and get along really well.

Here they're practicing the alphabet on his little tablet computer. 

I've been plugging along on client quilts. Here are a couple of the latest ones; both pantos.

She wanted feathers, so I did big swooping feathers. She loved it!

This is a baby quilt being given to a couple who don't know the sex of the baby. They want to be surprised. So the quilt is Winnie the Pooh with a generic spiral. I love how this looks on any quilt.

On a sadder note, 46 years ago today my Dad passed away. Funny, I still miss him so much. He was born in Ireland before they won their independence. Came here and never went back, even though he had family there. Met my Mom when he was in a TB hospital; she was a nurse there. They had less than 20 years together.
I like to think he would have loved Mike and the kids; he would have adored Tyler!

That's all for today. I have a huge custom quilt on the machine that I'm procrastinating about. Have to get to work.



testing

I just read on Karen's blog, http://sewmanyways.blogspot.com/ how to add a signature to my blog posts. Here goes:

Pretty cool, huh?

A little inspiration

I love texture, don't you? This is a dock near where I'm staying. Water fascinates me; I could sit all day just watching it flow in and out.

 This is the coolest sculture I've seen in a long time. It's called "The Wave". I think that says it all. People were lining up to have their pictures taken in front of it.

I was walking along one of the wharves that Newport has developed into shopping areas and there was this anchor. What's really great is the "flooring" around it is cork, so if a child climbs and falls, they'll land on a soft surface.


I'm grateful for how our timeshare works with points; I wouldn't have been able to come to Newport otherwise. It really is an old colonial town; some of the streets are so narrow, only the residents are allowed to drive on them. Going home tomorrow; back to reality.

Monday, Monday

So...what do you think? Not bad, huh? Well, this is the view from my window this week. See, we have this timeshare thing that uses points instead of weeks so we have to use or lose.

Long story short, I'm in Newport RI. DH Mike's studying and I'm doing handwork. We're not painting the town red or any other color, but we're here.

I'm going to MQX next Thursday. It's a tradition-I have to go or my year feels empty. Normally, I go for the whole week; this year it's for one day. I'm going with a guild friend and I'm looking forward to a pleasant ride and a great day. Anyone else going?

What I've been up to

I've finally started prepping  the rest of my first block for the Roseville Album quilt.

The fruit bowl looks like it's made from different fabrics, but it's not. I got this fabric in a fat quarter bundle I bought from http://www.equilter.com/ a few years ago and I just like it. I do my hand applique the Piece O'Cake way, so those white shapes are my templates.

This is my pile of fabric that I've pulled for this block. Most of it is Kaffe Fassett, but I'm using others as well. I'm going to go with whatever works.

In other news, it's very quiet here on the home front. I'm upstairs in the studio, DH Mike is in NYC with the Scouts, marching in the Greek American parade, and Keri's at work. I love when the house is like this; all I hear is the sound of my thoughts. Today, they're very good-it's Sunday and Father Ben served Mass this morning. He's from Nigeria and is studying at Seton Hall University for his doctorate. He makes us think; he is so enthusiastic about God, it's great.

It's been a tough winter here. Sometimes I feel like I'm holding on by a thread. Today it's a thick piece of rope. I'm very grateful. Enjoy the rest of your day and many Blessings!!

It's done!

Here's the completed Lone Star quilt. As you can see, the 46 blocks from family member fit around the border with a little help from some spacers in the colors from the star.

I freehanded continuous curves in the center star to give it some movement; I used Ocean Mist thread from Signature throughout the entire quilt. Figured it was appropriate.

Below is the motif I quilted in the corner blocks. The client didn't want a lot of quilting and she didn't want anything to compete with the center star and the border blocks.



I have to say I really enjoyed making this quilt. I normally love applique more than piecing but, for some reason, I felt good about this quilt.

Happy 80th birthday, Jimbo. I hope you enjoy owning this quilt as much as I enjoyed making it.

AQS Lancaster show

Here are quilts from my two favorite applique artists. Their work is over and above perfect to me. You can click on the pics to make them larger, if you wish.

First is "Tea with Miss D" by Sandra Leichner; http://www.sandraleichner.com/index.html She is my hero when it comes to applique. I'm definitely a groupie.

Second is "Euphoria" by Deborah Kemball, http://deborahkemball.posterous.com/ . She's a British applique artist living in Santiago, Chile. Her quilts are so unique-plus she hand quilted this one! Notice the blue ribbon for Best Hand Workmanship.

I didn't take many photos, the floor was crowded and I just wanted to stand and stare. However, here are a few more quilts from the show.

This is "The Return of the Grackle" by Diane Rusin Doran of Glenelg, MD. I loved the way she did the wings on this bird. So iridescent!



This one is "Monstera" by Betty Busby of Albuquerque, NM. The quilting is fantastic on this quilt!

These next two are from the Spirit of the West exhibit. The first is "Red Rock Canyon" and the second is "Olympic Sunset". All the artists in this exhibit belong to the Association of Pacific West Quilters. Aren't the colors spectacular?

Thanks for visiting. Maybe we'll run into each other at a show soon. My next one is MQX East in Providence, RI.

Almost done!!

Here are a few shots of the signature blocks on all 4 sides of the quilt. I used spacer strips to bring the borders up to the right size. Each block is from a family member with something relevant to the recipient's life. 

Looks like he may be a martini man. :)

On the left is the coat of arms to one of the schools he attended; on the right is a picnic on the beach.

If you look closely at the sails, they're 1932 and 2012.

Of course, he's a Yankee fan!

Each and every block was a labor of love for this family. I'm so grateful that I got to make this quilt. It's now ready to go on the longarm tomorrow. I have to make the label and apply it before I load it. That way, it can't be pulled off.

Waxing philosophical?

No pictures tonight; maybe tomorrow. I just wanted to talk about life right now. My mother recently had a health scare; come to find out her cholesterol is over 300, she has a Vitamin D deficiency, and she's pre-diabetic! Holy cow! How does this happen to an almost 93 year old? Everything can be fixed-she'll be taking Lipitor and Oscal with D. I'm glad she's going to be around longer.

A friend's father was taken off his breathing tube the other day. He surprised everyone by breathing on his own! Imagine that. For her sake, I'm glad he'll be around longer.

Another friend's mother is in the hospital with congestive heart failure. She's not doing so well, but we're praying for her.

What's going on? Is it the time of year? Why does God decide that two people's work here may not be done yet, but another may be almost ready to go home to Him? It's puzzling to me, I guess. I don't try to understand His reasons, I just wish my friends didn't have to have the pain of loss.

I'm exhausted; I think I'll go to bed now.

Sleep well, everyone. Say a little prayer for your loved ones.

Progress

Here's the center of the quilt I've been working on. It's a commission for an 80th birthday gift. The recipient lives on Hilton Head Island so I made the star in the colors of the water-from shallow to deep, back to shallow. It will be surrounded by signature blocks created by his children and grandchildren.  I feel pretty good about this so far, but I don't want to jinx myself. :-o. Right now, I'm sorting the siggie blocks to see what's going to go where. Wish me luck!

Hope your weekend was as good as mine-went to the first St. Paddy's day parade of the year, and then to an Irish pub for dinner and a concert by a local Irish style band called Shilelagh Law. It was quite loud, and I did feel a bit like a chaperone, but they were very good.

That's it for now, but I wanted to share my progress with you.

A couple of quilts plus

This is a quilt I just made for a friend's new granddaughter. Her nursery colors are pink and brown, and her Dad, (a big, strong cop) wanted butterflies for his new little girl. So, the design I quilted is a very stylized butterfly from One Song Needlearts. Isn't it gorgeous? I used a King Tut variegated pink thread called Red Sea. I hope they wrap their princess in this for a long time.

This is one of the diamonds of a Lone Star quilt I've been commissioned to do. The recipient lives near the ocean, so his family wanted the quilt to reflect the colors of the sea. How'd I do? I'll post more photos as I progress.

I chose Achieve as my word for 2012. I haven't given up on that, but I'm percolating several ideas. I'll keep you updated.

This is a new pic of our grandson, Tyler. He's got a cookie in each hand, each with a bite taken out of it. He was at a birthday party and was eating his way through it. He'll be 3 in April, can you believe it? I can't-it seems like yesterday I held him for the first time. Of course, it still feels like yesterday when I held his Dad, our son David, for the first time. It all goes by so fast.

Well, that's it for today. I'm going to do some hand stitching while I sit and watch NCIS. So long for now.

My word for 2012: Achieve

There are so many things I want to talk about, but I don't have pictures to go with it. Everybody knows you have to have pics or people won't bother with your blog. Should I go with gratuitous photos, just to make you stick around? Not today, anyway.

My word for this year is ACHIEVE. It encapsulates everything I want to do in 2012. Time will tell, won't it? One thing I want to achieve is to keep this blog going. Wish me luck.

More soon.