Another t-shirt quilt for Christmas...

Here's a pic of another t-shirt quilt that I did for a customer.  It's actually for her daughter and made from her t-shirts she accumulated at college (Ouachita Baptist University, hence, the purple).  The customer that I did this for is actually someone I graduated high school with, so we go back a ways!  She really liked it when she picked it up, which always makes me happy.  :)

(click on the pic for a closer view) 

Currently on the longarm...

Here's a pic of my current project.  I've been working on it for a little over a year now, and am FINALLY to the quilting stage.  Right now I am doing the background quilting, which is a very close "leafy" type of quilting, so is taking a long time.  But it looks nice and feels really good to the touch, a lot of texture.  I'm calling this one "Blackbirds In My Winter Garden", since there are blackbirds in the border around the edge of the quilt.  This quilt has an "Olde World" feel to me, I really like the subject and colors of it.  I'm hoping to have it finished sometime next week and will post a final pic of it then.

(click on the pic for a closer view)

Red Door Christmas quilt

Our quilt guild ( http://www.arkansasquiltersguild.com/ ) has a fundraising auction at our December guild meeting each year, along with a potluck dinner, so it's always a lot of fun.  For this year's auction, I made the Red Door Christmas quilt shown below to donate to the cause. It was fun to make and is pretty "festive". 

T-shirt quilt, done!

Here's a pic of one of the t-shirt quilts that I've been working on for a customer.  I think it turned out really nice looking.  Should make a nice Christmas present of her college memories.  :)

T-shirts for Christmas...

It's been a while since I've posted to my blog, but I've been super busy lately doing...well, quilting.  The Christmas rush is on.  Below is a pic of a t-shirt quilt that I'm currently making for a customer that they're having me make as a Christmas gift for their daughter from her college t-shirts.  I've got the top put together and have it loaded on the longarm, ready to start quilting it.  I like t-shirt quilts, there's always a lot to look at on them, the eye keeps moving around the quilt looking at all the different blocks.  I have another t-shirt quilt to do for a different customer after this one (again, a Christmas gift), and then more quilts to get done by Christmas as well.  I'll be off work from my day job for 3 weeks after Dec 13, so am looking forward to the time off when I can hopefully get to work on some of my own projects.

The Comfort of Psalms

A co-worker (Debbie) has a daughter, Jessica, who has been having some major health issues with a congenital heart condition that has led to stage D heart failure, and now has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer as well.  Jessica is in her 20s and was married just a couple of years ago to Shawn, and they have a beautiful little daughter, Aidan, who was born quite premature at less than 2 lbs.  Jessica's story is a compelling one, she has endured so much through her young life, so I decided to make her a quilt that's just for her and will hopefully comfort her while she's going through all the tough times.  I made it with 3 stars in it, to represent Jessica, Shane, and Aidan, and placed a Psalms scripture verse inside each one of them, and then surrounded them with Psalms scripture verses as well.  I gave it to Debbie for Jessica last week at work and she cried, of course.  It truly was a labor of love to make, and is quite worth the effort.  I hope Jessica likes it as well, and draws strength and comfort from the scriptures on it.

Vendor Fair booth

Here's a pic of my booth for the Arkansas Man Quilter at the employee vendor fair today at work.  It went really well, gave out lots of my info handouts and business cards to very many interested people.  So a good time!

Employee Vendor Fair

We're having an employee vendor fair at work this week, so I created a slideshow to run in my booth and show examples of my work.  It's the first time I've done one of these, so hopefully it goes well! 

Birds of a feather...

....are starting to flock together.  Here's a pic of the borders that I've been working on for my "Winter Garden" quilt.  As you can see, I have all the pieces appliqued down, I just need to make lots and lots more berries to applique on those bottom two borders like I have on the top two borders.  But we're getting closer to having the borders done so I can get the whole top put together and start quilting it.  And since I've got the date as a design element of the quilt top, I've got just a few more months to get it finished!  I started this one in October 2011, so will probably be right at a year getting it finished.

*click on the pic to see a larger view*

 

Red & cream....

Here are some pics of a quilt that I recently finished quilting for a customer and friend in my quilt guild, Beverly.  I really like her fabrics in this, I've been collecting reds and creams for a quilt someday, so particularly enjoyed quilting this for her.  Her piecing was excellent, and the red and green chains across the quilt top make for nice visual interest.  Love this quilt!

(*click one of the pics to see a larger view of it.*)

My "Winter Garden" continues....

Well, it's been way too dang hot outside to be doing anything in the out of doors, so I've been doing a lot of quilting lately.  Some for others, some for myself.  And been on vacation to the beach, too.  But here's some pics of my "Winter Garden" epic quilt that I've been working on since October of last year.  Right now, I'm working on the borders, which will be branches with some blackbirds sitting on them.  I'm really liking the look of this and had some fun with the placement of the birds.  Some are just sitting on the branch, others are in flight and about to land, others are craning their necks around to see what's going on behind them.  I still have some berries to make and hand-stitch down on the borders, but after that I'll be ready to put the borders on the top and get it on the longarm and start quilting it.  More to come, soon!

(click on each pic to see a larger view of it.)

And speaking of color....

Here's a quilt with lots of it.  It's one that I just finished quilting for a friend in the guild that I'm in.  Lots of bright colors, and I used lime green thread to quilt it with.  I really like how this one turned out.  

Now that's some color...

I'm currently quilting a quilt for a friend, Judy, in the quilt guild that I'm in.  One of the things I like about Judy's quilting style is that she loves color and isn't afraid to use it.  This quilt is a wonderful example of that.  My color schemes tend to be much more muted colors, but I think Judy is about to make a convert out of me.  This quilt has beautiful magenta pinks and lime greens in it and I'm quilting it with a lime green thread as well.  Lots of pop!  The colors reminded me of a mimosa tree and I just happened to have a quilt pattern called "Mimosa" so that's what I decided to use on it.  I think it's turning out really nice, it's becoming one of my favorites.

Paper pieced pin cushion

Here's a pin cushion that I've been working on for several months (yes, months - I'm slow). The top is English paper pieced hexes, made from French General "Rouenneries" fabrics, with focus fabric from Andover. This was the first thing I've ever tried to paper piece, but I wanted to try it to have something to work on by hand when away from the studio. I think I like it, I need to find another hand project now. Even if it takes months, haha.

 

Currently on the longarm...

Here's a pic of what I'm working on at the moment.  I'm quilting a quilt for a friend in my quilt guild.  It has a lot of different things in the top, sort of like a sampler, so it's a lot of fun to quilt.  Many different types of blocks and piecing, some applique, etc.  So it's fun to decide what to do where and try out some new things on it.

Who says ironing pads have to be ugly?

I have quite a few ironing pads, in different sizes - 2' x 4' is the biggest, and then there's 2' x 2', 1' x 1', 12" x 18", 13" x 13", and 18" x 18".  I just like having a lot of different size ironing pads for whatever I'm working on.  When I originally made them, I used a bland, solid beige duckcloth on them.  That was before I realized that duckcloth comes in a LOT of great looking patterns.  So I decided to recover them and jazz them up some.  Melissa picked out the green and I picked out the blue.  I really like how they turned out.  No more boring ironing pads!

Remembering Ted Wade

A couple of months ago, a fellow history and genealogy friend, Deb Wade, asked me if I could make her a memory quilt from her husband's shirts.  Her husband, Ted Wade, had recently passed away on March 10, 2012.  I was honored to be asked to do something like this that was so deeply personal for her.  She brought me a large box of Ted's shirts which were mostly western style with the shell button snaps.  She also brought me a vest and tie that Ted liked to wear when they went out somewhere special together.  She asked if I could applique that into the center of the quilt, since it was such a signature memory about Ted.  I thought it was a great idea. 

So below is a picture of the finished quilt.  It's king sized, measuring 102" x 102" and features fabrics from every single shirt she brought me.  I used the shell button snap strips from the fronts of the shirts to outline the border areas as well.  After I was finished quilting it, I appliqued the vest, white shirt, and the black tie to the top of the quilt center. 

Thank you, Deb, for letting me have a special role in creating this wonderful memory of Ted for you.

(click on picture for a larger view)

 

Ted Wade

William Morris pillow

I was in the mood to make something "William Morris'y" so I pulled out one of my Michele Hill books on "William Morris in Applique" and found a block pattern to do a pillow with.  This was my first attempt at doing piping on the edging, and I like how it turned out.

Wall hanging, done!

I finished quilting the wall hanging that I was working on from the Mickey Depre workshop that we (Arkansas Quilters Guild) had back in February.  I changed up the flower heads from the ones she had, added borders, etc.  The main fabric line in this is called "Luna Notte" by 3 Sisters.  The blacks were ones that I pulled from my collection to supplement the line.  Quilted on my Gammill longarm.

Currently on the longarm....

It's been a while since I've posted at my blog, so I thought I would show what I currently have on the longarm.  It's a wall hanging that I made back in February at a workshop sponsored by the Arkansas Quilters Guild.  The guild brought in nationally known quilter and teacher Mickey Depre who gave a workshop on making the wall hanging.  It was a lot of fun.  I changed my flower heads up from the ones in her pattern, though, hers were more "whimsical" and I'm not really into whimsy.  These flower heads are based on ones that I saw in a book by Blackbird Designs.  The fabrics are from the "Luna Notte" line (except for the blacks) by 3 Sisters.  I decided to use blacks in the flower stems, petals, and borders since it's such a  dramatic color when used in a quilt work.  Hopefully I'll get this finished in the next day or so and will post a pic of it hanging on the wall!

Judy's round robin quilt

A good friend, Judy, from a quilt guild that I'm in asked if I could quilt a quilt top that she had made a while back.  It's a "round robin" quilt, meaning that she and others in her small quilting group each contributed blocks to the making of the top.  And the blocks are all spectacularly beautiful.  The center stars were pieced by Sarah Ziegenbien, a fellow guild member and quilter extraordinaire, who passed away back in 2010.  Although we discussed some possibilities for quilting it, Judy basically gave me carte blanche with the quilt, telling me to quilt it however I wanted.  So here I had before me a blank canvas of sorts, and I was ready to have some fun with the needle on it.  Below are pics of the end result (click on one for a closer view). This was a pleasure to quilt given the piecing perfection by those who made the blocks.

Blooming Nine Patch

I finished quilting my blooming nine patch quilt and got the binding on it (click on pic for larger view).  I just did a meandering quilting across the top, I didn't want the quilting to detract from the top.  I've been waiting the last few days for he rain to stop so I could get it outside to take some pictures.  I'm not really happy with how the camera perceives the colors, they look a little off, especially in the center and the final border. 

Currently on the longarm....

Here's a pic of a quilt that I'm currently quilting on the longarm (click on pic for larger view).  It's one that I started in June 2011 but shelved it after a while, but I recently decided to get it finished.  The pattern is called a "blooming nine patch" because of the way the fabrics are arranged to appear that one color is "blooming" into an adjacent fabric.  I saw someone at a quilt retreat a couple of years ago making this pattern, so have wanted to try it ever since then (thanks, Lynn!).  The top and backing are made with all batik fabric, so it has a lot of rich color and vibrancy to it.  I'm glad to be in the home stretch with this one now.  :)

Flea market finds from the day...

We went to Hot Springs today and stopped through the Rural Dale flea market to see what we could find that would interest us.  I found a couple more of some old wood handled pastry dough blenders to add to my collection.  Try to imagine all the pie crusts that were made from those.  :)   And I also found an old wood handled tater masher.  I like finding old kitchen utensils like these, we're starting to get quite a collection of them now.

The second pic shows some old silver spoons which have a beautiful patina on them.  Sometimes you just kind of wish that all this stuff could talk so you could hear the stories of who owned them. 

The "Trash Quilt" is done.

Here's a photo of the quilt that I finished quilting the other day for my mother-in-law.  This is the one that she found the quilt top in the trash at a school that she worked out a few years ago and fished it out and saved it.  She showed the quilt top to me a couple of years ago and I told her I'd quilt it for her.  So, I finally did.  As they say "One man's trash is another man's treasure."  I think it's beautiful.  :)

Currently on the longarm....

A while back (ok, it was a LONG while back), my mother-in-law showed me a quilt top that she had found since she knew of my love of quilting.  I offered to take it and quilt it for her, so she happily agreed.  Well, I forgot about it and this evening my wife told me that her mother had asked about it.  Panic!  So I searched around the quilt studio and found the top (thank goodness) and started quilting it this evening.  The fabrics in it are classic 1930s, so this top is about 70-80 years old.  I'm just doing a meandering quilting on it with white thread and white backing.  Need to get it done soon so that I remain her favorite son-in-law (well, ok, I'm her only son-in-law).  :)

The Devil's Claw is done!

Here's a quilt that I finished today that had been languishing in my unfinished pile for quite some time.  I started it last summer and shelved it after having all of 1 block done.  :(  So, I pulled it back out over the Christmas/New Years holiday break and finished it up today, New Years Day.  A good way to start the new year!  It's big, measures 100" x 100", so will fit on our king size bed.  The block pattern name is called "Devil's Claw".  I used reds in the sashings between the blocks and one of the borders, and blacks in the cornerstones and border areas.  I really like using blacks in a quilt, it's a dramatic color that gives quilts a nice kick.  I did a scalloped border on it as well, it's a nice difference from doing a straight edge.