My Houston Auction Quilt

Once again this year I was asked to make a quilt for the small quilt auction in Houston for the International Quilt Festival.  I decided to make it match one of my quilts in the show, Dotville.

So this is Dotville Jr!

I had a blast playing with dot fabrics again.  Making mushrooms and trees.  My son was so inspired that he made one of his own.  But his is a mushroom house LOL.

Here's the back.  I love that you can see all the quilting.

Goal for the day.....get the binding on and sleeve attached.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

My IQA Mini Auction Quilt - Part 3

In my last post I talked about the quilting on this quilt.  Now...the binding!

If you look at the center of the back you can see the pebbles.  I added some veining quilting in the green leaves because I felt that they were puffing up to much and I wanted them flatter.  I like the effect.

I decided that this quilt needed a pop of piping in the binding.  It was the first time I'd sewn piping on my new machine.  Went back to the old one!  The new one kept gathering it which was quite frustrating as it had to be ungathered before I could sew it onto the quilt.  I asked the queen of piping, Susan Cleveland, what went wrong and she said to adjust my top tension.  I'll try that next time for sure.

And the finished quilt!  I titled it Hard and Soft in honor of the leather and silk applique.  I did use an orange batik for the piping.  I can't wait to see the quilt again in Houston!  A few short weeks.....yay!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

My IQA Mini Auction Quilt - Part 2

Quilting the quilt is one of my favorite part of quilting.  

The whole top quilted.  I divided up the whole quilt and then filled the areas.  I used a purple air erase pen to mark the sections and then quickly quilted the outlined areas so that I didn't have to worry about the marks disappearing.

The center of the leaves.

Here's the top from another angle.

A closeup look at the feathers.

A tight fill around the flowers.

Webster Clams fill in the triangle.

Swirls around the edge of the quilt that will be covered up by the binding.

I can't wait to see this quilt again in a few short weeks!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

My IQA Houston Auction Quilt - Part 1

I was absolutely thrilled to be asked to make a quilt for the International Quilt Association's Mini Quilt Auction in Houston again this year.  I decided I wanted to step outside the box and try something different.  I decided to use silk and leather together for my appliques.

I started with this orange silk that I bought last year in Houston and just love.  I realized after working with it that due to it's sheer nature I either had line all the pieces or have minimal overlap so shadowing didn't occur.  I opted for minimal overlap.  That's why the stems don't touch the leaves or the flowers.  The inner green silk is also very sheer.  The stems are dupioni silk which I didn't have this problem with as it's not as transparent.

I then decided to add some leather dots.  It was so nice to cut the dots out of leather and they held their shape really well.  I also added pink ovals at the top of the flowers so I didn't have to worry about shadowing there either.  I used my favorite fusible Steam-a-Seam 2 lite on the leather and it worked like a charm, HOWEVER, I did realize that you need to iron it from the back, not the front.  It takes a long time for the heat to make it through the leather on the front, but not the cotton on the back.

I tried to use Steam-a-Seam 2 lite on the silks as well, but it didn't want to stick.  The silks are saturated with Terial Magic to make them more like cardboard than silk.  It makes them much easier to work with.  I contacted the manufacturer to find out if you had to wash out Terial Magic or if you could leave it in permanently and they assured me that it could stay on the fabric as long as I would like.  With silk?  Forever works for me.

So how did I attach the silk pieces?  Elmer's School glue and a fine tip applicator for the bottle.  It sticks and then you iron it dry and it stays in place.

Then I had fun with my favorite double blanket stitch stitching around all the pieces including the leather dots with a leather needle.  It was so fun!

And here's the final block!  Come back next Wednesday to start talking quilting.

Less than a month until IQA Houston!  I can't wait!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy

Folk Art Quilted Traditions Blog Hop Wrap-Up

It's been an amazing journey this week seeing what all my lovely friends have made using my book, Folk Art Quilted Traditions.  I hope you've enjoyed seeing all their projects as much as I have.  It's been an absolute blast to see what they've done.   Most of my friends did the Jeweled table runner and they all turned about absolutely beautiful!

Monday, October 10

Suzy Webster - http://websterquilt.blogspot.com/

Connie Kresin Campbell - http://www.conniekresin.com/

Jennifer Eubank - https://jennifersewing.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, October 11

Bea Lee - http://www.beaquilter.com/

Sally Johnson - http://sallysquiltingcorner.blogspot.com/

Suzy Webster - http://websterquilt.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, October 12

Jessica Cadwell - http://www.desertbloomquilting.com/blog/

Anna Branch - http://arkangelcreations.blogspot.com/

Vicki in MN - http://knitbug2.blogspot.com/

Thursday, October 13

Pamela Boatright - http://pamelaquilts.blogspot.com/

Teri Lucas - http://generationqmagazine.com/

Maryellen McAuliffe - http://teachpany.blogspot.com/

Friday October 14

Adele Mogavero - http://adelemogavero.com/

Joan Kawano - http://moosestashquilting.blogspot.com/

Lara Buccella - http://www.buzzinbumble.com/

Saturday October 15 - Final Wrap-up

Suzy Webster - http://websterquilt.blogspot.com/

The Giveaway winner will be announced tomorrow!

On Tuesday, I shared with you that I was asked to make a miniature quilt for the annual International Quilt Festival silent auction.  I was thrilled.  Here's the block I made:

Now to show you the rest of the process and the quilting.  I had fun just playing with this little quilt.  I started by drafting a pattern for the quilting.

Next, I stitched in the ditch around the applique pieces and did my curved lines.  I decided to use two layers of batting for this quilt.  I usually only do this on small quilts because it makes them heavier and harder for me to drag around through my machine.  In this case I used the wonderful Hobbs Cotton/Wool batting for the base layer and Heirloom wool for the top layer.

Here's the back:

Some of these lines were stitched in LARGE basting stitches (center of piecture) compared to the rest of the stitching.  These lines were there as registration marks for how far I wanted my feathers to come out.  I didn't want to wash this quilt so I didn't want to use anything to mark on the fabric so this was how I worked around that problem.  After quilting my feathers I did go back and pull out all the basting stitches.

Feathers.  Oh, how I LOVE feathers.  So fun!

Here's a closeup.  You can see that I used regular feathers, hook feathers, and curl feathers in my stitching.  That dark outside blue line you see?  It's done with a Frixion pen.  I rarely use them, but since it's going to be covered by the binding I did this time.

Now I'm starting to add detail.  In the corners I added diagonal lines like picture corners in old fashioned photo albums.

Here's a close-up:

And the back so far:

Here's the quilt with it's final fills one.  I did pebbles between the feathers and crying clamshells in the middle.

A closeup of the Crying Clamshells.  I created this design for my Brick Wall Free Motion Quilt Along that I post about every Friday.

The back of the final quilt:

Adding the binding!  I love to use colorful bindings.

The final quilt!  I sent it off to IQA last month.  I can't wait to see it hanging in Houston!

I hope you get to quilt today!

Suzy

Folk Art Quilted Traditions Blog Hop - My Houston Auction Quilt!

Welcome to the Folk Art Quilted Traditions Blog Hop!  My fabulous friends and fellow bloggers are having a blast this week showing what they've created from my new book Folk Art Quilted Traditions.

Monday, October 10

Suzy Webster - http://websterquilt.blogspot.com/

Connie Kresin Campbell - http://www.conniekresin.com/

Jennifer Eubank - https://jennifersewing.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, October 11

Bea Lee - http://www.beaquilter.com/

Sally Johnson - http://sallysquiltingcorner.blogspot.com/

Suzy Webster - http://websterquilt.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, October 12

Jessica Cadwell - http://www.desertbloomquilting.com/blog/

Anna Branch - http://arkangelcreations.blogspot.com/

Vicki in MN - http://knitbug2.blogspot.com/

Thursday, October 13

Pamela Boatright - http://pamelaquilts.blogspot.com/

Teri Lucas - http://generationqmagazine.com/

Maryellen McAuliffe - http://teachpany.blogspot.com/

Friday October 14

Adele Mogavero - http://adelemogavero.com/

Joan Kawano - http://moosestashquilting.blogspot.com/

Lara Buccella - http://www.buzzinbumble.com/

Saturday October 15 - Final Wrap-up

Suzy Webster - http://websterquilt.blogspot.com/

Giveaway!  You'll get a free autographed copy of my book and four gorgeous fat quarters of Island Batik fabric!  You can see the items below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was astounded in August when I was contacted by the International Quilting Association asking me to make a quilt for their small quilt auction.  It will go up for bids at International Quilt Festival in Houston Nov. 3-6, 2016.  It's an honor to be asked to make a small quilt for this auction and I was thrilled to be asked.

I knew I wanted to make something using my new book, but I must admit that I was a little overwhelmed by all the possibilities.  I started playing around and just couldn't figure out quite what I wanted to do.  Then the wonderful people at Island Batik offered to send me some fabric to make the quilt using their newest lines.  I gladly accepted and planned a color scheme around a print I picked out for the center of my block.  You can see this fabric underneath all the other luscious Island Batiks below.

Next I started designing using my pattern and mirrors.  You can see the progression I wen tthrough in the pictures below.  Center and flowers first.

Adding Leaves.

More leaf choices.

Adding a cushion in the center.

The final details.

Here is the first layer all fused down ready to go.

Here you can see that I'm in the process of blanket stitching.  When I know that the end of the pieces are going to be covered up by other pieces I will often simply stitch them all and then go back and cut threads later.

Layer Two.

As a part of layer three I had two leaves that butted right up to each other to blanket stitch.  In the middle of stitching the, I pivot my needle and switch to the second petal to stitch so that I don't have to start and stop as many times.  When I've gone all the way around the second petal I then switch back to finish the first petal.

Layer three.

Layer four.

Block's all done!

I know you want to know how it all turned out, and I do want to show you, but this post is long enough all ready!  Be sure to come back on Saturday to see how I quilted this gorgeous little block for the International Quilt Festival Mini Quilt Auction with my lovely Island Batiks!  I'll be in Houston to watch the bidding. I can hardly wait!

You can also keep updated and share what you're doing on my Machine Applique Adventures Facebook group!

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy