Monday, April 30, 2018

Napkin Inspiration

Yes, besides taking pictures of carpet, I also take pictures of napkins.  They tend to have such great geometric designs.  One of our amazing Educational Assistants brought these for a treat day last week.  They are fantastic!  Can't you see the applique?  And the thin border....a great quilting design!




And this sticker on a card from friends.  Isn't the turtle cute?


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Saturday, April 28, 2018

Island Batik Ambassador's Looking Back, Vintage Challenge Complete!





For the month of April the Island Batik Ambassador's were challenged to create something new from a vintage quilt or quilt pattern.  I googled "Kansas City Star Patterns" as I knew the Kansas City Star Newspaper used to run quilting patterns in their paper.  I found a clipping that is in a Michigan Museum called The Circular Saw, which you can see below.  Here's what I adapted from the pattern using Island Batik's Plum Delicious line.



Here is the original Circular Saw Pattern from the Kansas City Star newspaper I believe in the 1920's or 1930's.

The Quilt Index

After piecing the top I layered it with my favorite Hobbs Batting.  This time I chose their Heirloom 80/20 Cotton/Poly Blend because I wanted my quilt to be relatively flat like many antique quilts are.  I then went digging through my Aurifil collection and found the perfect shades for quilting!


I decided that the quilting on this quilt would be all random flowers that came to me from the top of my head as I was sewing.  This was a blast and a challenge to create 16 unique flowers for this quilt!  I love to look over it and see all the different flowers.  It's fun for the eye to look at.



I really like the echoes on this one.


The curls in the petals of this flower are such fun.


This flower is made of all curls and the leaves coming off of it are some of my favorites.


A look at the work in progress.  You can see I quilted the outer flowers before the inner flowers.



I like how this flower spins.


This flower reminds me of a chrysanthemum. 


This daisy has some curly pistil's coming off of it!


Almost a compass rose kind of flower.


The final quilt!




This is the 6th post in a series on this quilt.  Check out the other posts below.

Part 1 - Making a drunkard's path block with applique
Part 2 - Making a curvy center with applique
Part 3 - Putting the New York Beauty pieces together
Part 4 - The top completed
Part 5 - The beginning of the quilting

Thank you to Island Batik, Hobbs Batting, and Aurifil Threads for providing material, batting, and thread for this project!  It was such fun and makes me want to dig back into more old Kansas City Star patterns and play.  


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Friday, April 27, 2018

Free Motion Friday - Quilting Leather with Cathy Wiggins

Cathy Wiggins is an amazing quilter who has started a quilting on leather movement.  I signed up for one of her online classes on her website.  It was for a project called Emily.  She's a dragon!  My nine year old son loves dragons.  And he loves orange.  He was so excited I was making a quilt for him.  Emily is about 18 inches wide and a foot high.  Cathy's class was fantastic and her kit was fabulous.  She also had really great customer service.

First I quilted her in a dark orange thread.



Then I painted her in a lighter orange paint!  Such fun.  He's super excited to get it hanging on his wall.


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Island Batik Ambassador's Looking Back, Vintage Challenge - The Quilting Part 1

The top is done!  So now for the quilting!  This Island Batik Ambassador Challenge has been so much fun.



I pulled out my favorite Aurifil threads of course!  I have so many it's usually easy to find a match, but burgundy can sometimes be a challenge.  I managed to find just the right color happily!  I layered it with a piece of my favorite Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly batting.


I did some ripples in the orange here.  It's kind of hard to see.  I wanted to do something simple to let the fabric pop.


However, in the white (it actually has fun gray dots on it) I wanted to do something that would be fun.  I decided upon a flower sampler.  Each area has a large flower, most have leaves too.  All of them are different!  Here are the flowers I have already quilted.

This first one looks like a dogwood bloom and I love the crazy leaves around it.



This almost looks like a blooming rose.  I really like it.


To go with the theme I had to do rosebuds.  I used to draw them like this when I was a kid.  It was fun to quilt it and I must admit I'm a bit surprised that I'd never though of it before.


This one is totally out there....but sort of fun.  Not my favorite, but I am NOT ripping it out!


I like that this flower has a triangle in the center.  And the bubbly leaves were fun too.


Come back Saturday for the full reveal!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Monday, April 23, 2018

Random Inspiration

 I can see some inspiration here!  I love the possibilities for free motion quilting in this wallpaper.


I can see this plate as a modern quilt in a heartbeat!


And he insisted I show you his new ceiling decor.  


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Helen Godden's Zebra Finches

I am having such fun with Helen Godden's Feathered Friends Block of the Month.  Here's April's block - Zebra Finches.  


The first day of painting.  Then I got too tired to finish.


All done with the painting.  It's Lumiere metallic acrylic paint.















Time to have a blast quilting.


Done!  So much fun.  I can't wait for May's block. 


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Friday, April 20, 2018

Free Motion Friday - Test Block Part 2 (Modern Filler)

When I started on this week's filler for my test block I wasn't really quite sure what was going to happen.  It ended up to be a modern filler that I am absolutely in love with.  I started with a circle and then stitched a line down the center.  I kept all the lines parallel to each other to help create movement.


Yes, still parallel.  I used a large variety of sizes to create interest.



Oh how I love the negative space of this design.


I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy 

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Island Batik Ambassadors Looking Back, Vintage Challenge - Part 4 - Completed Top

When I started trying to decide what to make for the Island Batik Ambassador's Looking Back, Vintage Quilts Inspiring New Creations challenge I wasn't quite sure where to begin.  I have an amazing quilt of my great grandmother's that I plan to show you soon that I thought about replicating, but when I pulled it out, while I adore it, I wasn't inspired by it.  

So what to do?  Duh....go searching on Pinterest.

But what to search?  I tried "Vintage Quilts" and got a big hodge podge of things that Pinterest always gives you.  Then I tried something else.  I know that Kansas City Star Newspaper has been publishing quilt patterns for a long time.  So I did a search of Kansas City Star patterns...here's what I found.  I LOVED it!  This piece of history is in a museum in Michigan.  

Now, you know me if you read my blog on a regular basis....I have trouble following patterns.  Not because I can't, but because I like to make them my own.  So I started playing around in Electric Quilt 7 to see what I could come up with.

Kansas City Star, The Circular Saw. A Pattern Using Both Large and Small Pieces, January 13, 1932

The Quilt Index

Here's my final top.  I added an extra little curve to the New York Beauty type block and I added and extra block in the corners.  I absolutely love how this came out!  I can't wait to get started quilting it.



Here are the parts from my first three posts in this series:  The inner curve


The center square


The New York Beauty pieces


Here's I've finished the first New York Beauty piece and set it with extra fabric.  You can see I had to add some extra pieces due to a sizing error on my part.  Oops.  It worked out okay though.


Here's I've pinned the second New York Beauty block in place.


All done stitching....now it needs to be squared up.


And the top is complete!  I love the way this orange and plum from the Island Batik Plum Delicious Line play together with one of their neutral backgrounds.  It's such fun and I can't wait to get started on quilting it!


I must admit that I'm especially proud of how the center square came out.  It's aligned just right and was worth the extra time I spent making sure that happened.


Come back next time to see the quilting process!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy