Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2012

Happy Friday!
 I am new to this blogging world and am so happy to be participating in Amy's
Bloggers Quilt Festival 2012!

 

My submission is this Spiderweb quilt, it has been with me to three retreats spanning the last two years, has used up a massive amount of scraps, has become a fabric diary/keepsake and is probably my favorite quilt to date.

photo courtesy of Sue Tamcsin

The pattern is a modified version of Sarah Fielke's Maple Leaf Rag from her beautiful book,
Material Obsession two. The added border with the webs spilling out was an idea born from the want to quilt more webs into that space to add interest and a bit of asymmetry.

photo courtesy of Sue Tamcsin

I used some of my all time favorite fabrics but REALLY, I love this quilt because it has fabrics shared with me from some of the wonderful friends I have met along the way...you know who you are...wink.

Photo Courtesy of Sue Tamcsin

I quilted it with many many spider webs. I have heard that women used to quilt a web into their quilts for good luck and long life....at this rate I may live forever!
.

All quilting was done freehand and with rulers, Einstein got a much needed snooze.
This quilt will always be one of my favorites. It truly represents who I am now as a quilter as well as where I am going. With a very strong foundation in traditional quilt making, spilling out into the more modern and contemporary themes and styles.

Thank you so much for stopping by and please check out all of the other amazing quilts featured in the festival, I am in awe of the talent in this community!!

Quilting Vintage Snowball Quilt

How I love feedsack.
When I first started longarm quilting I went a little nuts and bought a bunch of quilts off Ebay to "practice" on.... Of course some of the ones I got were way to precious to just "practice" on so they got hoarded away in my studio for years. Recently I have started quilting one of the most beloved of these:
 The snowball quilt, all hand pieced with Vintage fabrics and Feedsack. sigh.

I started by figuring out my design using dry erase markers on a sheet of plexiglass:
If you try this PLEASE mask the edges of your plexiglass. ask how I know?

I don't transfer this design onto the quilt top. It is just a tool I use to work through ideas, figure out scale density and design.

Then to the quilting!
 I used my IQ for the circle quilting, the rest is done freehand. I decided to quilt non stitch regulated for a more organic stitch quality. Of course no one is going to think it is hand quilted but I prefer the look to the uniformity of stitch regulation for this one.

Batting is Dream Orient, bamboo/silk blend ...another sigh.
Thread Superior So Fine

It isn't done yet, but hopefully I can make some progress this weekend!

I may be getting a wee bit ahead of myself but I received these gorgeous feedsack scraps from Marilyn, the lovely spidedcoffee on Flickr!

It would likely be a tedious task piecing these together for the binding, with the longest scrap being about 7 inches....would it be worth it?

Happy Mothers Day, enjoy a beautiful weekend!

Quilting Modern Fans

Happy Monday!
I have had the pleasure of quilting fans on quite a few quilts lately and I must say I am falling in love with them. Modern fans, Baptist fans...they both add movement and texture to the quilt but stay soft and don't distract from the piecing!
These quilts were quilted using my IQ, with Laura's fan pattern, offset 50%.
This first one is a picnic quilt that Krista sent me to practice on. Fans can be tricky to stack or nest properly so I really appreciated her letting me use a couple of her quilts for trial and error.

When I finished I hung it up outside, it will truly be a wonderful picnic quilt!
If you look close you might see a white butterfly that flew by as I snapped the pic!

Feeling pretty confident that I had a good grasp on lining up the pattern properly I started to work on Angela's  cracker scrap quilt. A quilt that would have really shown if I messed up!
Again, thanks to my friend who I don't know what I'd do without!
Now to Angela's gorgeous quilt:

And Voila!!

And just because she couldn't resist she made the back almost as lovely as the front!

 I used Hobbs Poly-down batting and Superior's So Fine and Bottom Line threads.